About Us at the Ivy Caspian Center
The Ivy Caspian Center is an independent nonprofit research think tank and educational opportunity vehicle designed to enable students from the top universities in the United States to pursue engagements in countries surrounding the Caspian Sea (including: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Armenia, Georgia, and Mongolia). The Caspian region, at the nexus of East and West, is increasingly becoming a critical area of global interest and business, with an emphasis on geopolitical rivalry, economic development, and more.
Established in 2025, the Ivy Caspian Center is specifically geared towards facilitating the connections necessary to allow for students to have real world and practical learning experiences so that the next generation of international and American leaders have first-hand experience interacting with the region. We aim to be the primary platform for high level university engagement in the Caspian region, in line with the mission of the Caspian Policy Center located in DC, Furthermore the Center is not limited to working with only students from the region, but instead encourages all students interested to learn more and engage, whether that be for culture, tourism, politics, business, or more.
Über Ivy Caspian Center
Our Mission
How It Works
How It Works
The Ivy Caspian Center is an organization dedicated to facilitating opportunities for engagement and learning in and with the countries surrounding the Caspian Sea ( Türkiye, the Caucuses, and Central Asia + Mongolia).
Our mission is to enable the next generation of international and American leaders to graduate having direct experience, contacts/ties, and business/political knowledge of the region.
How It Works
How It Works
How It Works
The Ivy Caspian Center works with students from the Ivy League Universities and a few other select schools (MIT, Stanford, Georgetown, and George Washington) to connect students to opportunities for engagement and internships that are tied to our mission (both abroad and in the US). We also facilitate contact building, project work, and speaking/event opportunities for our board members and guests at our partner universities.
Get Involved
How It Works
Get Involved
Engaging with the Ivy Caspian Center can take many different forms, as we partner both with related institutions and individuals. However, the easiest way to be involved is to register so that you receive our updates, and we encourage you to be involve in your campus programming. Our mission is to serve as an aggregator and connector, facilitating more opportunities for you to take advantage of both within your university environment and in the region.
Frequently Asked Questions
Unfortunately, the Ivy Caspian Center is not a job vehicle, but a vehicle to connect interested students to the region and to facilitate opportunities for them to engage. We are primarily focused on arranging internships, pursuing research projects, and arranging speaker opportunities to allow current students to build the knowledge base and requisite skills necessary to graduate and pursue professional activities in the region.
No! While we may switch to a membership model in the future, the Ivy Caspian Center is a nonprofit social impact initiative. Our aim is to build the next generation of leaders knowledgeable and killed enough to see the Caspian Sea region as a land of opportunity.
No, the Ivy Caspian Center has many connections to individual governments in the region, through ambassadors, ministers, and more, but the activities of the Center are directed by Ivy League alumni and current students who were disappointed by the lack of accessible programming and networking as it related to the Caspian region. They are not paid for their work at the Ivy Caspian Center by any government and do not receive directives from these governments. Any government-related project is designed as a partnership between the Ivy Caspian Center and that respective program, and the Center accepts no liability for students who pursue any particular engagement or opportunity.
While we hope to write grants in the future, at the moment the Ivy Caspian Center focuses on creating and facilitating opportunities, and leaves students to their own funding devices. Many of the students we have worked with have prior experience securing grants or scholarships through their universities or by private means, and we encourage those interested to contact their offices of international education to see what may be available.