To India and again

Twice in four months! Yes..its my final year.. Yes..I have to do the final business plan.. Yes..I have to look for jobs... and even then....I have spent almost a month in India this year in two different trips! The first trip It wasn't a trip...it was a Journey! Tata Jagriti Yatra is an ambitious train journey of discovery and transformation that takes hundreds of highly motivated youngsters on an 18 day train national odyssey. The aim is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship. 400 hand-picked individuals travelled to 12 destinations covering over 9000 kilometres. At every destination we either got acquainted with a highly accomplished individual or an extremely innovative organisation. The journey was focused on social entrepreneurship and we met individuals like R. Elango, who moved from his village to a city, earned a degree in Chemical Engineering and was a scientist at the Central Electro Chemical Research Institute. In 1994, inspired by Gandhi's writings, he left his job, returned to his village and was elected the Village Government (Panchayat) President and has since worked to transform the village. We got acquainted with organisations such as the Aravind Eye care, the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. Taking its compassionate services to the doorstep of rural India, Aravind's stunningly effective strategies vaulted barriers of distance, poverty and ignorance to create a self-sustaining system. From April 2009 to March 2010, Aravind treated 29% (387,523) for free!!! While on the train we had formal debates, presentations, workshops and  informal chatting sessions. Our wagons became our home and I seriously missed them after the end of the journey. The awesome job done by the motivated catering staff of around 70 was commendable. We had food served wherever we went...special requests were taken into account...even if it meant making cake for someone's birthday at midnight! Tata Jagriti Yatra is open for anyone who is older than 20 years....i highly recommend it to those who have an interest in entrepreneurship...also its the cheapest way to travel in India for 18 days :) The second trip One of the many activities during Tata Jagriti Yatra was ‘Biz Gyan Tree’ (Biz = Business, Gyan = Knowledge), an enterprise plan development contest in which special interest groups developed innovative, feasible and inclusive solutions for the village of Deoria. These groups were classified on the basis of certain broad interest and important developmental areas such as education, health, energy, tourism and manufacturing. From setting up biogas plants, training women in maternal healthcare to mobile education, plenty of new innovative ideas flowed in through this group exercise. There were 20 teams of around 20 members from diverse educational backgrounds such as medicine, finance, management and human resources to optimize their input in the development plan. Our team developed an enterprise plan in the tourism sector to improve the standard of living of villagers through rural tourism. We spent two days on a moving train developing the plan after which we were taken to the village and given 4 hours to do more research. The outcome was a 5 minute presentation to 3 panellists, who were very impressed by our idea and efforts and elected us as the winners :) Subsequently, we were invited back to the village for a period of 10 days to transform our raw idea into a proper business plan and thats why I went back to India and stayed in the village. 16 out of 400 youngsters were there, we interacted with the locals regarding our business ideas, visited local government offices to get research data and travelled to nearby places to explore our options. We were able to do a lot of work and submit our business plans in 10 days. Although it was primarily a training exercise, options are being taken into consideration regarding actual implementation of the idea! When I was not working on the plan....I was either playing cricket with the local children or out cycling in the village :) We were once invited as chief guests to village school were children shared their aspirations with us....it was fabulous to see how such small minds have amazing big ideas! Talking to them was re-assuring for me...knowing that the future is in great hands! Both the experiences were wonderful and have left a huge impact on my personality! A lot of learning and unlearning has happened! I do want to thank La Salle for supporting me...the professors were flexible enough and I could accommodate my project hand-ins and presentations on suitable days! Administration was kind to sponsor my travel for the second trip and trusted me with the outcome! You can watch a condensed documentary from Tata Jagriti Yatra 2008 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZI0rc004JU Hope this information is helpful for you and you can always contact me if you wanna know more !! Cheers, Lav