Ryan Alam Wins Morgan Stanley Competition
Ryan Alam at his graduation in May with a Masters Degree in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles, flanked by his dad Sohail “Sam” Alam and mom Polly Alam.
By Jawahar Malhotra
HOUSTON: As a teenager he was always tinkering around with cameras and at one time considered going to college for to learn about making movies. Fast forward and Ryan Alam used his zeal for tinkering instead to get a Masters Degree in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles, graduating just last month in May.
But while still in college, he participated with two other team mates – Suzie Amoes and Megan Strawther – in a worldwide competition sponsored by the investment firm Morgan Stanley. The completion was to devise a scheme to benefit a society or a country with sustainable results. After a stiff round of eliminations, Alam’s team, Terra Limpa, won First Place for its smallholder agriculture project.
The Challenge, presented by a three year-old partnership between Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, invited proposals from graduate students to address critical social and environmental challenges.
This was a worldwide competition and 341 students made up 104 teams from 64 colleges in 21 countries. Alam’s team developed a proposal to eradicate four decades of land mines from Angola, and establish an agricultural industry for the country. Angola currently imports 80% of its food supply, even though it has some of the richest soil on the planet.
During the first round of judging, Team Terra Limpa was selected to be among the top ten finalists. The ten teams were flown to Hong Kong on Friday, April 15 to present to a board of judges from the World Bank, Morgan Stanley, The Rockefeller Foundation, T. Rowe Price, Blackrock, and other prestigious investment firms. As the winning team, Alam, Amoes and Strawther will now present to the Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California for funding consideration and possible implementation of their plan.
In addition to winning this worldwide competition, Ryan Alam has recently been accepted to Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government for his second Master’s in Public Administration. He is the son of Sohail “Sam” Alam, a long-time resident of Houston from Pakistan and medical planner, and his wife Polly Alam, who is the a Vice President and branch manager of Amegy Bank in Bellaire.