A young girl would often look out to the far horizon beneath the vast expanse of Georgia’s Kakheti sky, where the rolling Caucasus Mountains cradle an 8,000-year-old wine-making tradition. To Nino Nadirashvili, now a recent graduate of Duke Kunshan University, the horizon is a boundary to be crossed rather than a distant line to be admired.
Nadirashvili started her journey in China in 2020 at Duke Kunshan University, a Sino-American joint venture university known for its innovative and global approach. She was inspired by Saint Augustine’s theory that the unexplored world is an unread book.
“I yearned to be part of a community still defining itself, one where the fusion of global perspectives would challenge and enrich my own,” Nadirashvili said.
She was certain that Duke Kunshan would provide her with this kind of community, giving her exposure to China, East Asia, and the United States—each a fresh color on her ever-expanding canvas. Her interest in development discourse was strong, particularly about emerging economies and the Global South.
“China holds a unique position within this paradigm, an emerging superpower aligned with the Global South,” she said.
“I aim to gain deeper insight into development models since I want to learn how smaller countries might maintain agency over their growth narratives.”
This lens helped her turn a lunchtime idea into the South-North Scholars, the first youth-led sustainable development knowledge network.
She is co-director of the network, which has been mentioned in the United Nations Human Development Report and currently connects thousands of young leaders worldwide to discuss development paradigms.
Along with co-founding South-North Scholars, she collaborated with the UN Human Development Report Office (HDRO) to create the popular case competition “Solving for Humanity.” She was also the chief editor of Nexus, the peer-reviewed journal on the Global South published by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.
Given her geopolitical interests, she decided to study Political Economy at Duke Kunshan. Her work at Duke Kunshan includes understanding the experiences of Jewish refugees during World War II in Shanghai, taking a historiography course taught through art and media, and studying the fusion of science fiction with Asian spiritual traditions.
But her time at Duke Kunshan was shaped by more than just her studies.
“My friends were my mirrors and windows,” she reflected. “Through them, I saw aspects of my evolving self and vistas into cultures and ideologies unlike my own.”
As she assumed roles ranging from Peer Mentor to Peer Tutor, organizing events and leading learning groups, her approach resonated with one underlying philosophy: transportation beyond boundaries enables growth.
Her story at Duke Kunshan is full of warm anecdotes, including a surprise party her friends planned for her for months. They had also prepared a video for her, where they got people to record short messages.
“At the end of the day,” she says, “people showing up for you is what really matters.”
After graduating from Duke Kunshan, Nadirashvili received offers from Cambridge University, Columbia University, and China’s Peking University, where she ultimately chose to study as a Yenching Scholar. She is the first-ever Georgian scholar from Yenching Academy, which grants a small number of scholarships to students each year from all over the world.
Her advice for those who follow in her footsteps is: “Embrace each encounter with an open heart and an open mind; let the unique facets of your journey inform your worldview, and let the tale of your personal quest resonate with unfettered truth across your undertakings.”
