Bidjan Nashat Profile picture
Talent is everywhere - opportunity can be too | CEO @atlascorps | Formerly at @Save_Children @worldbank @TeachFirstDE | From Berlin 💪🏽
Mar 18, 2023 15 tweets 9 min read
A personal #thread on the #IraqWar and how it changed my career path:

It was 10:16 pm on March 19, 2003, I threw a bag of chips at the television in disbelief: Watching from my student apartment in New Haven, the invasion had just been announced on television. /1 My 🇳🇴 and 🇭🇷 room mates were looking at me a bit bewildered. Yet for months, a friend of mine @YaleLawSch with extensive experience in the Middle East kept telling me that the 🇺🇸 government would invade. I did not believe her. She had been right. /2
Dec 18, 2022 12 tweets 7 min read
“Were these monuments built for Germans to collectively remember what had been done, or a performance of contrition for the rest of the world?”

Fascinating @TheAtlantic essay by @ClintSmithIII on 🇩🇪 remembrance and lessons for the 🇺🇸 #slavery #Reparations
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… I grew up around many of these monuments in Berlin and followed the debates since I was a child. And I believe that #Stolpersteine are among the most effective ways to remember, because they are immediate, personal, and created and maintained by civic action.
Dec 13, 2022 8 tweets 9 min read
A #thread on #RetrogradeFilm, the @natgeodocs #Oscar2023 contender documentary by @MattHeineman, produced by my friend @baktashahadi and available on @DisneyPlus and @hulu /1 It's been called "a triumph of access & unbelievable bravery" (@TheWrap), yet it is about much more than the 🇺🇸 withdrawal from 🇦🇫 through the eyes of an Afghan general, @SayedSamiSadat.

It's a story about #leadership, #strategy, #friendship, #war, & our need for #support. /2
Oct 23, 2022 13 tweets 12 min read
Which movie🎥or📺show made you:

1⃣ Learn more about an important historic event?
2⃣ Reminded you of the topic’s relevance for today?

A #Thread on #Argentina1985” & an inspiring @hiltonfound & @devex workshop in LA with #Hollywood studio execs & humanitarian CEOs #HiltonPrize. Yesterday, I watched #Argentina1985, a gripping movie🎥 about the most ambitious trial against a fascist coup & human rights violations in Latin American history, produced & directed by @SantiagoMitre and written by Mitre and Mariano Llinás. It stars Ricardo Darín, Peter Lanzani. Image
Sep 24, 2022 11 tweets 9 min read
How can organizations learn from mistakes and develop a learning culture?

A few observations based on my experience over the last 15 years at @WorldBank and other large organizations and some inspiration from @AmyCEdmondson’s research at @HarvardHBS. /1 More than a decade ago, I worked at the @WorldBank on using independent #evaluation results to inform future #strategy and #management decisions.

A big part of my job was to rethink & redesign the way staff & managers interact and respond to receiving evaluation results. /2
Jun 5, 2022 11 tweets 10 min read
"The 🇯🇴 soldiers welcomed us at the border to sent us toward the camps. I told him 'wait a minute, I want to have a last look at Syria.'"
Listening to @lysedoucet & @LoraElwen report on the 10th anniversary of @ZaatariCamp and it brought back memories bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3… /1 Memories of spending close to a decade working with @SavetheChildren for children and families affected by conflict in #Syria, #Iraq, #Somalia, #Myanmar, #Palestine, and many other places. And losing #cynicism, finding #purpose, and changing my perspective on conflict and war. /2
Aug 16, 2020 14 tweets 8 min read
A #THREAD on #refugee and #migrant #fiction, #storytelling and reality: I finished reading #AmericanDirt by @jeaninecummins and it touched me. And I read some of the criticism and can empathise with the fact that voices from Latino writers struggle to be heard. /1 Image But it strikes me as a typical "AND" rather than a "BUT" argument. In my work with @save_children I've met and listened to the stories of so many refugees and their children in the last ten years in many different countries. /2