Ishan Kabir Sharma

Chapter President 2019-2020

Hi my name is Ishan and I was the KAPi president 2020-21, the May/June (?lmk who knows) of which I graduated from the ILR school with minors in Law & Society, Public Policy, and CPEJ. My senior year, I was also involved as a John Lewis Fellow, where I organized a multi-group, civil society & advocacy summit raising awareness over Ithaca as a major hub of child sex trafficking. Through my years at Cornell, I had grown frustrated with the deepening complacency – the farcical attempts at promoting justice within our community – all for others to ask "what is it you even really do?" Many both inside KAPi and out helped as we leveraged the odd, but lively professional fraternity council network with community-based contacts of SASSY, the Public Service Center, the Advocacy Center, and the Youth Services Department. Just under two weeks before the event, we had a record number of registrations. Then of course, COVID-19 struck, and along it went the event. I share this anecdote because perhaps one of the most central lessons I learned throughout my time at Cornell, and especially in KAPi is that, often, the unexpected happens. As President, for some reason, you pour your heart into making the organization a better place; but, no matter the plans you hopefully envision, mistakes are always made. I've learned it's just part of life – and the importance of prioritizing yourself, that which is within your control, and those you love through the challenges. I hope in your time at Cornell, you persistently seek out those challenges, creatively pushing the boundaries of what is possible in your endeavor to make your impression on Ithaca a good one. And, when the unexpected makes you miss your mark, you don't take yourself or what you do too seriously. Wishing you all the best. Goodluck.

Ishan is spending his gap year before law school as a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in D.C., where he is researching issues related to emerging technologies and geopolitics. While at Cornell, he was published on the topic of China's strategic export of AI surveillance and was asked to speak on a variant of this research at Cornell TEDx. He has also completed an honors thesis empirically analyzing the influence of racial biases on perceptions of social conflict. He has studied Law and International Human Rights at the University of Oxford, and also served as a POST leader and a Students for Students mentor.