Yusuf Dahl

Keynote by Speaker Yusuf Dahl

Affordable Housing – Activating opportunity in blighted communities

• How can we leverage the economic concepts of incentives, information asymmetry, and low opportunity costs to activate opportunity in blighted communities? In this talk, Yusuf Dahl shares his journey from prison to Princeton and his unique insights on urban blight having caused it as a drug dealer, fought it as an affordable housing developer, and researched it as a scholar.
• Activating opportunity in blighted communities – Learn how to maximize the competitive advantages of your community for collective impact.

Keynote by Speaker Yusuf Dahl

Social Entrepreneurship

• An entrepreneur who has been on both sides of the struggle to strengthen Milwaukee’s most vulnerable neighborhoods, Yusuf Dahl has a unique perspective on urban blight. As a teenager, he operated a network of drug houses before being sentenced to prison for 10 ½ years. During the depths of the financial crisis he became an unlikely real estate investor in response to the onslaught of foreclosures in his neighborhood, eventually growing to a portfolio of over 200 affordable housing units and serving as a trade association president.
• Learn how social entrepreneurship and student demand for impact is reshaping higher education

Keynote by Speaker Yusuf Dahl

Redemption through education

• At 18 years old Yusuf was sentenced to Prison for 10 1/2 years for the distribution of drugs. Determined to become more than a statistic Yusuf taught himself computer repair and programming while incarcerated, learning enough to earn several Microsoft certifications upon his release. He would go on to earn a degree from Princeton University, a fellowships from Google and Tata Consultancy Services where he worked in Kolkata India. Yusuf currently serves as the director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Lafayette where he has taught both entrepreneurship and public policy courses.
• Talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not – Yusuf shares his unique perspective on how to harness the human potential trapped in our communities to drive growth and opportunity.