Aakif Ahmad in Scarsdale On October 17

Aakif K. Ahmad will speak on "Solving Gridlock: How to Turn Conflict into Cooperation and Find Breakthrough Solutions to America's Most Urgent Challenges" at the Scarsdale League of Women Voters Food for Thought Luncheon at Scarsdale Golf Club, 1 Club Way, Hartsdale, NY on Friday, October 17, 2014. Members of the community are invited to attend.

The luncheon will begin at 11:45 am. Tickets are $40 ($45 after October 13) and is payable in advance or at the door. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the League's website at www.lwvs.org and clicking on "Event Tickets" or writing a check made out to LWVS and mailing it to Anne Lyons, 82 Greenacres Avenue, Scarsdale, NY. Questions: please contact Anne Lyons, aulyons@gmail.com.

Aakif K. Ahmad is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, a national non-profit organization that facilitates consensus-based solutions on urgent and intractable issues confronting the United States. Mr. Aakif Ahmad will talk about why the Convergence approach works and what we can learn from it.

Mr. Ahmad is responsible for organizational and project strategy, finance and fund development, human resources, operations and external communications. He also leads the U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum, a multi-year project of Convergence, and its partner organizations, to promote improved U.S.-Pakistan relations by facilitating new leadership networks and incubating new partnerships between the two societies. Mr. Ahmad has spoken in many venues in the U.S. and overseas, and delivered a TEDx Talk on the principles of Convergence: 

Convergence was founded in 2009 to offer an alternative approach to addressing urgent social and policy issues that were bogged down in disagreement and discord. Since its founding in 2009 Convergence has undertaken multi-year programs to identify solutions in the following four areas: K-12 education; Nutrition and wellness; Financing long-term supports and services for elderly and disabled; and US-Pakistan relations.

Mr. Ahmad earned a B.A. from Yale University in Ethics, Politics and Economics, and M.B.A from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

The Scarsdale League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization committed to promoting the informed and active participation of citizens in government. League members come together to study problems and advocate solutions, educating residents about issues that impact the community on the local, state and national levels, and evaluating responses by government on those issues. The League provides community members the opportunity to work collectively to effect positive change in the schools and village, to hear from civic and political leaders about pressing local, state and national concerns, and to meet and interact with a cross-generational group of interested, civic-minded individuals.