Hello Fellow Rodinhooders,
To start off, I would like to give a very short introduction on my background. I am Prashant currently the city lead for Start-up Saturday Bangalore, an aspiring entrepreneur working on my own start up (Adding new dimension to digital marketing, launching soon) and also working as a consultant for an Analytics Start-up in Bangalore.
I did the same as I was looking to garner support from the Indian start-up eco-system to help me go on for the conference, I am about to detail. All I got and had sought on Facebook was Alok’s email ID. My first mail to him asked for support, and I was very sure that it was rubbish to think that I am even getting a reply. Two hours later, this is what my email said “Sure, we would love you to go along as a Rodinhooder. Welcome to the community”
.Treading on the path of entrepreneurship there are times when you need your faith to be reposed on goodwill, and this mail just made my belief stronger that there is no dearth of “Genuine good people here”!.:)
Very frankly and honestly I was not an active rodinhooder due to my other involvements, but which aspiring entrepreneur does not follow Alok in India? Same was the case with me!
Have known therodinhoods and the amazing community it has built to serve the Indian Start-up eco-system for quite some time. And, as Asha says, now it’s time for me to give back to this awesome community as well. So here I am embarking on my first journey in the hope that it would bring in some value to the community! 🙂
On why I am writing this, well it would be fitting to also detail you a little on “The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations”. HPAIR is Harvard University’s biggest conference organised every year at Harvard University and Asia pacific region. It has been running since 1991, HPAIR has continuously bought leaders and top students to engage in dialogues regarding the most pressing issues facing Asia.
500 students from across the world are selected as delegates representing different panels (Finance, Energy and Environment, Security and Diplomacy, Media, International Development and Global Health, Entrepreneurship and Business Leadership). The theme for HPAIR 2013 is “Extending Horizons: – Charting Asia’s Flourishing Future” and I have been selected as one of the delegates in the “Entrepreneurship” panel. HPAIR 2013 is taking place from August 22- 26 in Dubai.
Ok, so by now it must have gotten boring and you must be thinking that I am here to boast about it. Sorry, I am not writing this to bore you, but this is my humble attempt to add value therodinhoods community. By bringing back some learnings to share with everyone. (And also by making some noise about therodinhoods amongst many interesting people!)
I hope to meet as many people as possible (entrepreneurs, business leaders, political leaders, journalists and others) at the conference. Some of the notable speakers at the conference in the past include
Frank Jurgen Richter(Director, World Economic Forum)
Kim Dae Jung(Former President of the Republic of Korea)
Ban Ki Moon(Secretary General,United Nations) among others
Some of the plenaries coming along this time are
Stephen Sites(Vice President, Goldman Sachs)
Kelly Watkins(Global Ambassador: The International alliance for women),Mitra Lohrasbpour(Business Development, Dropbox)
Brett Van Zuiden(CEO, INK),
Ahmed shibab-eldin(Co-Founder, HuffPost Live)
Omar AlShehabi(Director, Gulf centre for policy studies) and lots and lots of other very well-known entrepreneurs and dignitaries. Please visit the official link here for the complete list.
I would be more than happy to pose questions on behalf of rodinhooders – so would like to invite all of you to put forth questions you are interested in asking any of the speakers or delegates from different countries. I will also try to interview some sought-after people. I will be posting a daily diary of the activities in Dubai here on trhs, to update everyone on the conference. And share the answers to your questions as well.
PS: – I along with other delegates are making a presentation/demo about the Indian start-up eco-system and how it is shaping up for future leaders and entrepreneurs. I look forward to have suggestions from you on how we can make it short, crisp, meaningful and informative so that delegates from other countries get a first-hand view of our strongly growing community!.:)
Looking forward for your opinions/views/suggestions/ideas.
Email: – Prashant.Sharma@headstart.in
Facebook: – www.facebook.com/jps.prashant