Siwan’s Sharad Vivek Sagar to get UK’s young leader award

PATNA: Bihar’s Sharad Vivek Sagar is among the eight Indians to have been shortlisted for the Queen’s Young Leader award-2018 of the UK.
Established in honour of Queen Elizabeth II of England, the award celebrates exceptional people aged 18-29 years from the 52 Commonwealth countries, who are using their skills to transform people’s lives.
Of the eight Indians, three have made to the list of winners and five, including Sagar, to the list of runners-up.Sagar is the first and last Bihari to get the coveted recognition as the award is being given for the last time.
According to the award’s official website, the winners will receive a unique package of training, mentoring and networking, including a one-week residential programme in the UK during which they will collect their award from the Queen.
Sharad calls self a social entrepreneur who works in the field of education and public service. This is not the first international recognition coming his way.
The 26-year-old Boring Road-Patna resident was the only Indian invited by the then US President Barack Obama to a gathering of world’s young leaders at the White House on October 3, 2015.
Sagar was also the first Bihari to be listed in the Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ list along with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai in 2016.
Sagar proudly says he was born at the same Ziradei in Siwan where our first President Rajendra Prasad was born. Since his father Bimal Kant Prasad was working with a public sector bank, the family kept shifting to small towns. It was at the age of 12 that Sagar got admission to a school — St Dominic Savio’s High School-Patna.
“We need to develop infrastructure in rural and interior areas,” he told TOI on Thursday and pointed out that his two siblings also initially studied at home because there were no good schools at the places where his father was posted.
“But even small-town people can do big things if they have the will,” said Sagar who graduated in International Relations from Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts on full scholarship of Rs 4 crore. He currently helms Dexterity Global which runs schools and colleges.