Call to Action: A Sikh’s Graduation Speech to Unite the World

Angad Singh Padda recently graduated Summa Cum Laude (Highest Honors) from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. He is a National Jack Kent Cooke Scholar, and the recipient of the Poets & Quants Best and Brightest Business Undergraduate Award.

In his speech – which he gave extemporaneously – Padda implores his fellow graduates to take their passion and fix six of the world’s biggest problems. To give them ideas for where to start, Padda said:  “Whenever there’s a kid in Oakland who can’t afford school, that’s a problem,” he said. “Whenever climate change wipes out a species, that’s a problem. Whenever a Muslim woman gets bullied because of her hijab, or a Jewish man because of his yarmulke, or a Sikh man because of his turban, that is a problem.”

What is the ultimate goal? “Our dream is to create a world where we are all one…to create a world where there is no I, there is no me – there is only Us, there is only We. That is who we are.”