Arif recently completed the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University, where he explored new approaches to civic engagement, received funding for a sustainability initiative, and won a ‘maker’ competition at MIT. Prior to that, he coordinated partnerships for the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit. He has managed millions of dollars of humanitarian aid, built temporary settlements, and implemented relief projects that supported hundreds of thousands of people affected by natural disasters and conflicts in Kenya, Syria, Indonesia, Somalia, Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Lebanon, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. In the US, he managed initiatives to improve disaster resilience, promote urban bicycling, increase urban green space, and build social capital. He has planned and designed hundreds of miles of bikeways. He founded Depave, a non-profit that works with communities to transform parking lots into gardens. He also spearheaded the development of the first food garden on international territory, at the UN Headquarters in New York.