by diana | Jan 28, 2012 | Blog, Field Notes, Jan '12 India Trip
Prashanth had contacted one of the local university’s placement offices to secure four Master’s students for our surveying. We met them at 9 am, after Prashanth and I finished off our south Indian breakfasts. In Tamil, Prashanth explained Essmart and the purpose of...
by diana | Jan 28, 2012 | Blog, Field Notes, Jan '12 India Trip
My train arrived around 7:30 am. Prashanth picked me up around 8:30 am, and we headed straight from the train station to Pollachi. The total trip took about 13 hours. Ridiculous, I know, but we stopped for food along the way and got some printing done. Prashanth did...
by diana | Jan 26, 2012 | Blog, Field Notes, Jan '12 India Trip, Thoughts and Ideas
I hopped in my cab at 8:30 am and headed toward meetings at Envirofit, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, CogKnit, and Koshy’s. But unfortunately (or fortunately, as things tend to always work out), my cab driver and I miscommunicated, and he aimed toward a...
by diana | Jan 25, 2012 | Blog, Field Notes, Jan '12 India Trip, Thoughts and Ideas
Development Dialogue Day 3 kicked off with a special speech by Harish Hande, founder of SELCO. SELCO is well known among India’s social sector, and I use SELCO as a true example of creating partnerships across sectors to build ecosystems that enable all of these other...
by diana | Jan 25, 2012 | Blog, Jan '12 India Trip, Thoughts and Ideas
Day 2 of Development Dialogue included a nifty keynote speech from Desh and a very forward breakout session discussion from Neelam Chhiber, co-founder of Industree and its related retail outlet, Mother Earth. What stood out in Desh’s keynote, which ran extra long...
by diana | Jan 24, 2012 | Blog, Jan '12 India Trip, Thoughts and Ideas
The Deshpande Foundation was hosting its annual Hubli-based Development Dialogue, a conference that brings together social entrepreneurs from all over India (although mostly in the south). This year’s theme was “Thriving in Ecosystem.” Hubli is the location of the...
