The opening of the second Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad last year marked the first step in establishing a network of schools with an exceptional purpose: an integrated, interconnected network of high-quality residential schools forming a global learning community across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. These will be places where students of merit from all backgrounds, regardless of their family's ability to pay, work and live together enjoying a rigorous academic and leadership experience. To realise this unique vision necessitates a new approach to pedagogy, education, and learning, bringing challenges but also a whole new world of opportunity.

The Aga Khan Academy Curricular Strands are a unique feature of the Aga Khan Academies programme aimed at developing skills and knowledge needed by leaders of the future. The strands were initially developed at the Academy in Mombasa and are now being adapted and localised for the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad.

Naini Singh is in the unique position of having been a teacher at both of the current Aga Khan Academies: the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa and the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad. Her journey has given her a rare insight into the Academies experience.