Formation The concept of a youth leadership center was originally developed at
Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in January 2008. The proposal for a month-long leadership program, Building Bridges Through Leadership Training (BBLT), was jointly developed by Ejaj Ahmad, then a graduate student at Harvard University, and Shammi S. Quddus, then an undergraduate student at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The proposal was one of a hundred college projects awarded a grant by Projects for Peace in 2008. Ahmad and Quddus ran the pilot phase of BBLT in Chittagong in the summer of 2008, with technical and financial support from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Public Service Center. Building on the success and lessons learned from the pilot, the BBLT program was encapsulated within the framework of a
non-profit organization, the Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC). In early 2009, BYLC was registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms in Bangladesh as a non-partisan social venture. The signature program of BYLC, BBLT, expanded into a four-month program for BBLT 4 in July 2010. The first month consists of intensive classroom training in leadership skills after school. In the next three months, students work in teams to implement their leadership training by designing and conducting community projects in local slums. == Activities ==