South Africa: Cape Town

South Africa GIE: Learning to Lead Differently to Make a Difference

How do you work well with people whose lives, experiences, and perspectives are very different from your own?

In an interconnected world, being able to work across differences shapes what you can achieve. Cape Town gives you the chance to learn this by doing it.

Cape Town is one of the world’s most beautiful and culturally diverse cities, but also a place of striking contrasts. During the GIE, you will experience the city and surrounding region from very different viewpoints, meet South Africans from different walks of life, and see how history, culture and context shape the way people live, work and do business.

At the heart of the program is a real-world entrepreneurship challenge. You will team up with students from TSIBA, a purpose-driven business school in Cape Town, and work directly with a local social entrepreneur. Together, you will spend time in the community where the business operates, get to know the entrepreneur, and understand a challenge they are actually facing.

You will work with your TSIBA teammates to develop a response that makes sense for the entrepreneur and their context. Through client interviews, community engagement, and collaborative workshops, you will test your assumptions and ideas, learn from feedback, and refine your proposed solution before presenting it to the entrepreneur and community partners.

Along the way, you will experience what collaborative leadership looks like when you bring together different perspectives, experiences, and approaches to solve problems. This provides a lived experience of Ubuntu, the African philosophy that emphasizes our shared humanity and the power of working together.

The GIE will also take you away from Cape Town and into the South African wilderness. Leaving your phone and the usual distractions of everyday life behind, you will spend time with your peers in a very different environment, with space to connect and reflect on what you have seen, heard and experienced.

You will return home having done more than visit another country. You will have worked closely with South African peers and entrepreneurs, navigated differences you could not resolve simply by relying on what you already knew, and learned more about how you listen, collaborate and contribute when you are outside the familiar.

This GIE is for you if you want to build genuine relationships with South African and US peers, work on a challenge that matters to a real entrepreneur, experience parts of Cape Town most visitors never encounter, spend time off-grid in the South African wilderness, and learn what it takes to work well and make a difference.

Program objectives include:

• Enhancing your leadership perspective and skills through multi-cultural, collaborative learning with South African peers
• Building your ability to ‘think global, and act local’, by working with social entrepreneurs on creative, real- world business solutions
• Learning and practicing human-centered innovation to tackle complex challenges
• Exploring your own leadership style and developing ways to lead that match your values and goals for the future
• Using the experience to reflect on your strengths and shape your next steps in career planning.

> Jump to program details

Are you genuinely curious? Willing to step out of your comfort zone to develop “future-fit” leadership skills that positively impact the world? If so, then this GIE to Cape Town, South Africa, is for you.

The program is led by Lecturer Dave Bond, Executive Leadership Coach, Change Consultant, and International Facilitator, in collaboration with on-the-ground provider Dr. Marjolijn Dijksterhuis of Comersion and a team of South African faculty at TSIBA.

Meet with an Advisor

UBP students can schedule a meeting with the UBP Global Team to learn more about this and other Global Immersion Electives by clicking on the “Schedule Appointment” link below.

Schedule Appointment