From speed dating to listening to thought provoking talks by professor Tarun Khanna of the Harvard Business School, over 800 members of the Network of Indian Professionals recently spent three days in Boston.
The 2008 Conference theme, 'Explore, Dream, Discover,' was aimed at inspiring and encouraging professionals to think and act beyond their perceived boundaries, conference leaders said. The conference sought to highlight the greater issues within the Indian Diaspora and in India, including the plight of malnourished children and the efforts of Akshay Patra to feed and empower them by ensuring that they stay in the schools.
The participants also heard a raft of entrepreneurs including Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande who in recent years has passionately committed himself to social entrepreneurship even while continuing to start new businesses year after year.
They marveled at 29-year-old Abhi Shah who spurned the traditional Harvard MBA route to Wall Street and runs a legal outsourcing company that he founded two years ago and which today has over 300 attorneys, legal aids and other workers in America and India.
And they admired Vikram Akula, who despite the opposition of traditional moneylenders and political forces, apart from Naxalites, runs across India a for-profit micro-financing organisation that makes out small loans of about $100 to thousands of women each month.
"The conference showcased diversity and many firsts unrivaled among South Asian organisations throughout North America," said Tushneem Dharmagadda, the co-chair of the 17th Annual NetIP Conference "It raised awareness about several causes in the community through a range of topics and speakers," he said.
One of the highlights of the conference was the Born Into Brothel Kids with Cameras exhibition that raised over $1,000 in just two hours to help the street kids in Kolkata. "Apart from knowing about the conditions of children in the red light districts in India, supporting these children financially showed how serious the organisation is about helping them," Dharmagadda said. "Another volunteering event for Hope Foundation had over 100 conference attendees assembling toiletry kits for a local homeless shelter."
All keynote speakers stressed on the importance of giving back. Professor Khanna, the author of the acclaimed book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How India and China Are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours, applauded the Indian-American community for investing in India and starting or supporting many NGOs. But he said the Indian community lags behind the Chinese American community in connecting to the country of their origin. Chinese Americans are not as affluent as Indian Americans, he said, but they are investing more in the country of their origin than Indian Americans are doing in India, he said.
He said, 'China has embraced its Diaspora, and India has shunned it. While the numbers should always be taken with a grain of salt, it is said that about 50-plus million Chinese and 20-plus million Indians live outside their home countries. India's tendency to shun its Diaspora must rank as among the most disastrous decisions made by a nation in modern times: disastrous in the sense that a successful group of people is willing to give time, money, energy, and good will to their country of origin and is being pushed away. Fortunately, this situation has been changing in India in the last 4 to 5 years.'
Deshpande, the founder and CEO of Sycamore Networks, Inc. a leader in intelligent optical networking, noting at the NetIP conference there was a speed dating session, stressed the importance in business of being surrounded by good people and having the support of a good spouse. He also mentioned that his wife Jaishree's sister is married to N R Narayana Murthy of Infosys. (And that led a young man to ask Deshpande if Jaishree Deshpande has a younger sister. 'I think one can clone one,' Deshpande said with a wide grin).
Offering a raft of life lessons to a rapt audience, he said being focused and enjoying what one does are the two key factors leading to success.
The conference was perhaps the first mainstream meeting ever to bring awareness about the GLBT community. Sarav Chithambaram, CEO, Mediafactory LLC, and the first gay to announce his participation at a mainstream Indian conference said, it. "This is one more step towards achieving equality for the GLBT community and one more step closer to integrate the straight and GLBT South Asian communities."
The breadth of the NetIP conference becomes even more evident at the number of sessions ranging from a discussion about Indian-American lawyers as prosecutors and public defenders to weighing in the increasing presence of Indian Americans in the mainstream entertainment industry.
"Our professionals are multitasking," says Dharmagadda. "They are aware of the fact that they cannot put all their eggs in one basket. Our members also know that they can be successful entrepreneurs and make time for social causes and that is why they heard from the representatives of a number of organisations, including CRY!"