The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

Pranjal Jain, founder of Global Girlhood, discusses the organization’s goals to ensure every woman is portrayed in the most authentic ways possible and to encourage a new vision of what global citizenship is

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Olivia, Riya, and Sara speak with Radhika Kalani and Pranjal Jain, Founders of Global Girlhood, a UN-affiliated organization that is revolutionizing the way women interact with each other across the globe. Too often, we tend to judge women’s empowerment based on our own cultural, social, and geographical biases, and too often, social media contributes to enforcin...

Mayor Spicer talks about the racism and sexism she experiences —and how she transcends it.

Mayor Spicer discusses how her experiences have shaped her, the benefits of overcoming challenges, and the limitations of labels.

Mayor Yvonne Spicer describes the problem solving approach she brings to civic issues as a result of her training as a scientist, and the ways she draws upon diversity and divergent thinking on her team to come up with the best solutions.

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Jade Tyra, Julianna Davis, Olivia Becker, Riya Mehta, and Sara Chough speak with Mayor Yvonne Spicer, Mayor of Framingham, Massachusetts, AKA the People’s Mayor. This conversation happened in collaboration with Rep19 , a community for elected women, candidates, public servants and activists who want to govern better.  We loved learning about authe...

Chrystina Russell of SNHU’s GEM talks about metrics and how she knows partner organizations are doing right by their learners”

Christina Russell, Exec Director of the Global Education Movement, shares the context of refugee education and why providing a scalable high quality option is so important

At this week's Round Table, Inica, Julianna, and Olivia discuss global refugee education with Chrystina Russell, Executive Director of the visionary Global Education Movement (GEM) at Southern New Hampshire University. Even BEFORE the COVID-19 pandemic, over 70 million people were displaced worldwide, with over 25 million people living as refugees.  Currently, just 3% of refugees are in highe...

Legislative director Elizabeth Adams talks about the vital importance of protecting and maximizing the vote in upcoming elections—safely and civically.

Legislative director Elizabeth Adams talks about the creativity City Council needs to demonstrate in responding to this pandemic and how they are responding to housing challenges.

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Julianna Davis, Olivia Becker, Riya Mehta, and Sara Chough converse with Elizabeth Adams , Legislative Director for City Council District 33 in Brooklyn. We had a wide-ranging, really interesting conversation about what led Adams into government service, what NYC's City Council actually does and how it allocates the city’s $93 BILLION budget (larger th...

Julianna and Riya reflect on the equality vs equity and how this is playing out in the pandemic, the valuable work being done by folks on the front lines, and the carelessness and exploitation by some big companies on the most vulnerable.

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Julianna Davis, and Riya Mehta discuss—surprise!—COVID19. But it’s a more expansive conversation than many are, discussing the impact it’s having on young people and exploring the far-ranging civic implications of this pandemic. We'd love to hear how YOU are holding up and making sense of this moment and your thoughts about what lies ahead.  Thank...

Janna Adelstein of the Brennan Center for Justice underscores how crucial the decisions made by courts are to every aspect of society and our lives, and notes that despite the attention given to the Supreme Court and federal courts, state courts make 95% of decisions in the U.S.

At this week's Round Table, Sara Chough, Julianna Davis, Inica Kotasthane, and Riya Mehta speak with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Alicia Bannon , Managing Director for the Democracy Program and leader of the Fair Courts team, and Janna Adelstein , Research and Program Associate with the Fair Courts team, exploring what’s most important for young people to understand about the courts today. Jud...

Amrutha explains the vulnerabilities of the India health care system, which is far less robust than China’s, and how much trouble the country will be in if covid-19 spreads in India as it has elsewhere

India journalist Amrutha Pagad provides context about how the pandemic is playing out in India

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Riya Mehta, and Sara Chough spoke with Amrutha Pagad -- journalist, blogger, and podcaster from Bengaluru, India who hosts the podcast " India Off the Record: A Reporter’s Diary ," covering REAL life in India.  Amrutha gave us great perspective on how Covid-19 is playing out in India--a country with one of the lowest reported rates of the virus ye...

Lisa Solomon discusses the importance of unpacking the job to be done in order for prospective voters to weigh things like personality vs policies, and the characteristics and experiences that matter most to us as individuals

At this week's Round Table, Sara Chough, Inica Kotasthane, and Riya Mehta spoke with Lisa Kay Solomon -- educator, best-selling author, Designer in Residence at Stanford University’s Institute for Design, and creator of Vote by Design , an innovative curriculum and set of workshops to help teens reflect on the personal qualities and political values that are most important to US when it comes to e...

Inica shares concerns about how divided the party is—candidates AND voters—and the degree to which this evokes 2016, and shared concerns about the Bernie (or Biden) or Bust mindset

Inica debunks the idea that voters vote based on ideology and references the dynamism of our times, compounded by social media, and how it makes it hard to know what’s true and what’s propaganda.

At this week's Round Table, Inica Kotasthane, Sara Chough, and Jade Tyra discuss the aftermath of Super Tuesday and a week in which five presidential contenders dropped out, leaving two (white, male, over 75 year old) frontrunners on the ballot. We talk  about why we think things played out as they did, our feelings about where things stand, implications for the youth vote (which was lower on...

Professor Fritz Umbach discusses the differences between racism and racial disparities