I’m excited to say that I’ve finally arrived in India! Diana will be arriving in about a week, and the rest of the team are not far behind. Most of the team will be here through the end of August. Diana will be staying, joining Selvan and Prashanth to run the India operations.
Thus far, I’ve mostly been getting over jet lag from the long flight, and getting acquainted with Bangalore. It’s a sprawling city, and there’s a lot going on. Today I met up with a friend from my Masters program who’s working at the Microsoft Research Center, where he’s studying how programs like EdX could be applicable and/or effective in India. Tomorrow I have a meeting with a potential supplier and a partner, both of whom are based in Bangalore.
Saturday I’ll be heading to Chennai to meet up with Essmart teammates Prashanth and Selvan. Selvan and I will then be traveling down to Pollachi to start getting our operations set up. We have a long to do list for when we arrive in Pollachi, and I’m eager to get started.
No pictures yet, but I will hopefully get some up soon. We will also try hard to blog regularly about our progress, lessons learned, and just overall experience in getting Essmart up and running. We have our work cut out for us, but we’re feeling ready and excited.