I had the opportunity to visit ISB (Indian School of Business) in Gachibowli, Hyderabad last night. I was representing SankalpTaru Foundation as a past winner of the iDiya social enterprise challenge and participated in the bootcamp. After working on a presentation for days and many revisions from Apurva I finally had a decent presentation. If you know me you know I dislike all forms of public speaking. I was in Toastmasters while at Thunderbird to get over this but since it's been two years since Toastmaster's I was nervous. I got to ISB very early just in case of traffic. Had a nice walk from the main junction to the school which left me sweaty so arriving early enabled me to cool down. After talking to security and confirming that yes I was supposed to be there and confirming I am a madam and not a sir, I stepped foot on the prestigious campus. I was directed to the main building where a security guard showed me to the venue. I walked in during a dance groups practice.

Sidenote: I had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised.

The venue kicked off with a large student audience and wonderful hosts. Three students sang a prayer during the lighting of the lamp by the guests of honor. The first speaker is a professor so as expected it was not a short speech but it was an engaging one about his cousin who identified a need and fulfilled that need in his city creating a profitable business. The second speaker has a diverse history from experience in the police force to being a politician. He spoke about a time when he was fought for his life with a mafia guy after getting information on the guy's location and how he learned the importance of listening. Two of the officers tried to tell him a strategy that would most likely avoid conflict but as the man in charge he just wanted people to follow his orders. He also talked about failure, that do not fail to often otherwise the opportunities will stop happening and how he lost in the most recent election.

Then I spoke on SankalpTaru speeding through my presentation and at the end realized I skipped a slide. I'm not used to using a clicker so kept turning back to the slides and tried using my phone to guide myself but the screen size was insufficient. Whenever I looked up I was blinded by the camera lights. O and I was introduced as Mr. which sad to say I've gotten used to. I guess jewellery is important especially when dressed in gender neutral attire of slacks and a polo and not being very curvy or well endowed.The next speaker was from Sudiksha Knowledge network also a previous winner and turned out to have had an IDEX fellow last year. After the speakers the students performed. It reminded me of Thunderbird and for a moment I missed t-bird and the college bubble. There were awesome dance performances and skits. One skit was on domestic violence. There was a skit in which I assume to be in Hindi about the difficulties of social enterprises applying for loans from banks.

Afterwards there was tea and snack with student performers. I missed the performance because I was asked to make a short video on how iDiya helped SankalpTaru. I had to call Apurva since I just joined a month ago and did not participate in the bootcamp. My video was very short but I hope Apurva will be happy with it. I hung out with the students for a while afterwards which was nice and a few more said I did a good job on the presentation which was a relief. Rajesh who was my point of contact was kind to give me a ride on his 2 wheeler (one of my goals for India accomplished) to the main junction where I caught the bus. I stopped by a shop to buy airtime and continued walking to Aparna until I flagged down an auto. It was the only one that stopped and I paid INR 10 more than usual but I really didn't want to walk. The walk between bus stops mad me nervous because the lights of vehicles blinded me and I have terrible vision at night. After getting back I called S to confirm tomorrow's plans what was supposed to be a quick chat turned into a 4 hour long convo with the line keep getting disconnected. So today I am hosting the cooking club potluck after Zumba while waiting for the geyser.