Learning’s:

• Respect Humanity.
• Be Adaptive (Change according to situation).

What Next?

I have decided I will do my best to help the transgender community as part of Mission Humanity Project.

I shall continue in my next post about the next day’s experience. I request everyone to just behave like a human next time you meet a transgender community.

Jai Hind!!

]]> http://arvindchordia.com/?feed=rss2&p=82 http://arvindchordia.com/?p=73 http://arvindchordia.com/?p=73#comments Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:03:34 +0000 admin http://arvindchordia.com/?p=73 Hi All! I am Bak home from my dream journey. I reached Chennai on Jan 13^th and since then I wanted to blog about my come back and experiences. Last few days have been very tough for me to get over the yatra life. I have been cherishing all the lovely moments I spent at the yatra networking with ppl around, analyzing ppl and their thoughts, long debates on politics, spirituality and many more. Every nite, I dream about yatra, my group mates and the train. Yes, it was my dream journey where I explored many hidden secrets about me and got opportunity to explore India. I am back with tons of learning’s to become better person in life. Not sure, how far I will do justice to the spirit of yatra via my writings, but I will give an honest attempt to share all the best experiences of my yatra. I regret for being unable to update my blog during yatra but nevertheless, I am back to share with you about my fun filled intellectual journey of my life. Keep an eye on my blog. Will be updating soon.

Yaaron Chalo … Missing TJY

• Meet every participant of the yatra and get to know them.
• Share about my social activities with fellow yatris.
• Understand the problems of rural india.
• Get bunch of good ideas and one solid idea to kick start my company.
• Explore India to the core
• Test myself if i can be without family for a long period(20 days).

Alrite. I m done with the list for now for i have to leave and do the final preparations for the yatra. I am leaving today to mumbai at 11 PM. I will be sharing my experiences at yatra via blog. So , keep checking my blog and share your comments.Here is the widget to keep you updated about yatra.

I sign off wishing you all  advance happy and prosperous new year

Jai Hind.

Hey all, Good Morning. Hope , all of you are set to join the revolution. Let me share my practical plans that can be executed as part of this movement to face different elements of the challenge.

Terrorism: Every time I watch television after terror attacks in India, stories of brave armed officers who gave their life for our nation is highlighted. Media channels cover their death ceremonies and broadcast live shows in the praise of their bravery. But, what happens next? The brave officer had many responsibilities to perform as a son, brother, father, husband and a friend but all the dreams of their families were shattered. Param Vir Chakra medal given to the family will not replace the big loss they faced. Hence, I plan to help those army families of our nation who have lost their family member. I plan to raise donations and help them to live a good life by providing the basic requirements like shelter, food etc. I would start an education camp where I shall impart knowledge to them and help their kids to get a good job and shape their future better. I would create an environment where they can socialize with many people and try to come over the trauma of losing their loved ones. How will all this impact the challenge “war against humanity”? Answer is next time, when any officer dies, he will be rest assured that there is a community to look after his family and loved ones to shape their future. This will infuse patriotism within every Indian and urge them to choose army as a profession and prepare us to build every Indian as a brave army officer who can face the terrorists. So, when we have 1 billion army officers in future compared to few thousands today will definitely end the terrorism from our nation.

Natural Calamities /Poverty: India faces many natural calamities like floods; earthquakes etc and the majority of the citizens who are affected by all these incidents are poor people. Recently, due to Chennai floods, my area was flooded and all the nearby slum areas were completely under waters. Their homes were destroyed by the flooded waters and hence, they had no shelter, food, clothes and safe drinking water. I could see thousands of people standing on flooded roads expressing their helplessness. I took an initiative to distribute food packets to them and a group of us went and helped them by giving food and safe water to drink. I also helped many people in evacuating from their flooded homes. These are small help that we could do for these poor people. We cannot prevent natural calamity to happen but we can definitely take precautions and help the affected people. As part of Mission Humanity, I plan to form a group of people who can contribute by donations during these situations and help the poor people to overcome the situation. I believe knowledge is the key factor which can change anything we want and hence, I will impart little knowledge I have to the poor kids and help them have a good future with a high salary jobs. I am sure that this will reduce the poverty level to some extent and help us win the challenge “war against humanity”.

Corruption: This is one of the key elements of “war against humanity”. I feel that every corrupted politician is as dangerous as a terrorist for India. Today, India has the best talents in all the fields one could imagine but still we are developing country. When asked about what is the reason behind, everyone will say “corrupt politicians and inefficient government”. We, as a citizen should understand that politicians are none other than one among the community and we selected them. I cannot change the politicians or the government but I can definitely enlighten a group of people who can help us reduce corruption within the nation. As part of the Mission Humanity, I plan to start a movement against corruption appealing every Indian to stop giving bribe to anyone and help us stop corruption at the ground level. As it is rightly quoted “Drop by Drop makes an ocean”, some ground level changes will help us achieve our goal and win the challenge.

Energy Shortage: India is a developing country and major factor for its growth lies in the energy resources of the country. Today, in many locations, there is electricity shortage which has disturbed our day to day activities and petrol hike which has increased inflation rate. Again, we cannot blame government. We, as an individual should understand the worth of resources we use and take necessary measures to save energy, water etc. So, in order to counter this problem, I am working with a group of entrepreneurs and community oriented people in starting an event named “elements5” to spread awareness about clean technology and environment friendly products. The motto is “Energy Everywhere” and the goal is to make India Energy Independent & Clean. We will invite best startups / growth stage companies in the clean  tech space. Broadly we will have the following umbrella divisions within the event - > Energy creation / conservation opportunities - Solar / Wind / Others ,Green Architecture - Building energy efficient homes, Waste-driven energy - Bringing energy from natural / domestic &  aggregated waste  , Bio energy - Bio fuel, Bio mass and others . We hope to create ground level impact with this event and help the individuals to less their expenses and help in conservation of energy.

I have shared my thoughts on what can be done to face four most important elements of our challenge -> Terrorism, Natural Calamities/Poverty , Corruption and Energy Shortage. I request you to share your valuable comments and suggestions on how we can kick start this movement and bring the change we want to see in the world.

Jai Hind !!

In my opinion, biggest challenge that India faces is “War against Humanity”. India is known for its glorious freedom movement, varied culture, languages and many more but in the present scenario, it is more popular for being the easiest target for terror attacks, increase in number of incidents against humanity like natural calamity etc and inefficient government rule. “War against Humanity” has already started in our nation and is clearly visible from recent incidents like 90 blasts in last 6 months which killed around 4500 Indians, Bihar floods, increasing pollution rate, shortage of energy resources, corruption and many more. Each of these scenarios stated above directly impacts the existence of human beings living in this nation. Every time a terror attack strikes India, politicians make promises to provide more security to us but they fail every time. Inefficient usage of our energy resources has resulted in electricity shortage, water shortage, fuel hike which substantially increases our inflation rate and disturbs all the elements of our life. No prior preparatory measures taken to face any natural calamity like floods or earthquakes had resulted in maximum casualties and heavy losses in terms of resources. Increased pollution rate has lead to Global warming which will change the proportions of the environment and lead to destruction of the human community. A popular phrase used by many television channels during recent terror attacks was “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH“.Yes, wake up my fellow Indians. It’s not the time to sleep or watch the live shows of terror attacks . This is a perfect time for another revolution which should destroy all the evil elements of our community.Time for action has arrived.

I appeal to all the INDIANS to become responsible and fight back against all the evil elements of the humanity like terrorists, inefficient politicians etc and win this biggest challenge of India “War against Humanity” to lead a successful and peaceful life.One man army cannot change the world but a group of us can definitely make an impact. In my future posts, i shall discuss my plans to win this challenge till then i hope you will wake up and join me in the revolution.

Jai Hind !! Vande Mataram!!

]]> http://arvindchordia.com/?feed=rss2&p=40 http://arvindchordia.com/?p=30 http://arvindchordia.com/?p=30#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:35:15 +0000 admin http://arvindchordia.com/?p=30 Guess i m loving wat i m doing .. Thinking whats tat ?  Its the joy in penning down what my mind says.. in short Blogging. In this post , I am gonna share a good news and give interesting information regarding the same. Gud news is : I M SELECTED FOR TATA JAGRITI YATRA . Yoyo!! the moment i think of Jagriti Yatra it excites me to the core. It will excite every indian and an entrepreneur . Here is the brief information of my Dream Journey:

What  Organizers feel about Jagriti Yatra ?(Source: Jagriti Yatra Website)

24th December 2008 - 11th January 2009 Tata Jagriti Yatra ‘08 is an annual train journey that will take 350 of India’s highly motivated youth (with some participation of international students) between the ages of 18-25 on a eighteen day national odyssey, introducing them to unsung heroes of India. The aim is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship - both social and economic - within India’s youth by exposing them to individuals and institutions that are developing unique solutions to India’s challenges. Through this national event we will inspire them to lead and develop institutions nationally and within their communities. Tata Jagriti Yatra ‘08 aims to showcase inspiring success stories by taking young Indians to meet these “real heroes”. These role models, located around the country particularly in rural and semi-urban India will demonstrate how social and economic enterprise has succeeded.

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

What i feel about Yatra ?( Source: My Heart)

To me , it is a dream journey which i wish to be part of to explore my magnificent country(INDIA). Entrepreneurship is my religion and this is my Teerth Yatra. It is a platform to meet like minded people who have the fire within them to become entrepreneurs, serve the community and be part of revolution in making India the next super power. Yatra is an exploration of oneself understanding his passion, beliefs , re- defining the way he thinks, awaken the spirit of team work, entrepreneurship and leadership. Yatra is a journey to understand my positives and areas of improvements( Not negative points) and find out my path to reach my goal. I m going to  jagriti yatra to become a better personality and shape all the dimensions of my life.  In marketing words, it is a one stop shop to understand the purpose of your life. You might be thinking i m using tooooo biig words to explain about yatra but to be frank , i really dont have words to explain about this yatra and impact it is going to make in the lives of the people who are going to be part of this journey. We , yatries are dreaming day in and day out about the yatra and the time we are going to spend with each other. Proof of that is the vibrance and the number of threads i read every hour from google groups of TJY. I dont miss out reading any of the threads and replies(Even i m shocked abt it).You can see posts talking about Better Toilet facilities in India, terror attacks in India, business entrepreneurship , birthday wishes, inspiring quotes, community work and many more. In all these posts , what i see in common among all yatris is the team spirit, diversity of india, community oriented thinking and entrepreneurial fire.  I thank Gitanjali, for responding to all the silly doubts and important discussions we have on the groups. I have been to many international conferences and organized big corporates events , but i should admit that you cannot find a team like jagriti yatra :for their approach  to touchbase with yatris ,professionalism , discipline and for thinking of such a great idea (jagriti yatra).Hats off to the organizers !!! I also want to admit to everyone that i feel being part of jagriti yatra is one of the finest achievements i have made in my life. I can write another ten pages talking about wat i feel about yatra but since i want to share my exp about TJY MEET in chennai , i sign off leaving you all to think about INDIA , entrepreneurship , community service and all in one package - > Jagriti Yatra.

The Knowledge Foundation,  A NGO started by group of passionate entrepreneurs and community oriented people , has been successful in organizing around 19 events in last few years in India. To name a few of the events like Proto , Wikicamp , Blogcamp , Failcamp , Barcamp, Mobile Monday and list goes on and on. I am one of the passionate member of this group and i have been associated with them for last two years in organizing proto, wikicamp , barcamp etc.

Syed, one of the founding member of TKF , invited me to be part of the meet with Jimmy Wales. The Meeting was scheduled on December 12th,2008 at The Park.Agenda was “coffee with jimmy” to discuss the synergies between wikimedia foundation and TKF. So, i started exploring more about wikimedia foundation and their recent initiatives to spread awareness on wikipedia. I was astonished to read the page of jimmy wales on wikipedia. It reflected the power of Wikipedia. First few paragraphs about his personal life talks about his relationships and only then can you read about his achievements. By this time , i was completely interested in exploring more about wikimedia and read the annual reports of the foundation. I jotted down the goals of their initiative to raise $6 million funding for successful operation of wikipedia. With little knowledge of marketing i gained from my venture, i listed down few strategies which can be implemented to spread awareness on wikipedia and raise the funds. I was all set for the meeting.

I reached The Park at 8:45 AM. First thing striked me was effects of mumbai terror attacks. A security guard checked me and asked for identity proof. I was happy that atleast now the people are concerned about the security of citizens. So,  i entered the The Park and met my friends of TKF -> Sukumar(Old man of our army) , Narain(Entrepreneur) and Varun(Mobile Guru). We had a chit chat about the recent market trends and exchanging updates about each other. In some time,  rest of the team joined us for the meet. Meeting started with a quick intro about TKF and its  successful events. Sue ,Executive Director(Wikimedia Foundation) briefed us about the initiative undertaken by them to spread awareness on wikipedia. Some of the key points were local wikipedia chapters in different countries , fund raising activities etc. She was very interested to know about spreading awareness on using vernacular languages in wikipedia. Wikipedia has many articles in indian languages like hindi, tamil , kannada etc but articles written in these languages are very few compared to english. It is required for us to contribute to wikipedia in terms of writing articles in our known languages and sharing knowledge.

Now started the most interesting part of the meeting ->”Rapid fire round of questions from Sue to TKF Team”. She was all prepared with a list of questions to ask us. Some of the interesting areas discussed was starting a local chapter in india , local student club in colleges, corporate fund raiser events etc. TKF Team shared their willingness to help wikipedia by conducting a corporate fund raiser and starting a local chapter. The meet was over by 10:15 since Jimmy had to address a press conference at 11 AM and rest of us had to get back to our work. You must be thinking wat i did in this meeting ? I was quite listening to Kiruba , Syed , Sue , Jimmy and others.  I had loads to share but i  preferred to listen before i share my thoughts.

With this blog , I am sharing my thoughts on what can be done for wikipedia.

• Local Chapter in India
• Wikimania Event
• Collaboration with Intellectual Groups in India like TKF
• Data Mining of Wikipedia User Community and extract details about Most active Users , locality etc and provide them more support to spread wikipedia.
• Data Mining of Corporates , socialites information who frequently donate for social cause. Spread information about wikipedia within such community.
• Local events , Corporate fund raiser , road shows.
• Scheme or Program to identify “Leading Wikipedians” and recognize them and provide credibility for their work. This will help to improve the volunteer base.
• Partnerships with open source companies , clubs etc to spread awareness.
• A service to develop Custom Knowledge Management System from wikipedia and deploy for a company /organization and in return get some donations for the foundation.
• Collaboration with specific groups , foundation to increase wikipedia articles. For eg : Collaborating with National Forest Department to increase the articles base in wikispecies.
• Use the power of social networking and web 2.0 services. For Eg : When i did a search for communities related to wikipedia in orkut and facebook , i was shocked to find just two active communities with 25k users. By starting communities for wikipedia cause and increasing the user base in such communities will help us to spread awareness on wikimedia and its activities.
• Developing mobile games or online games and using this as a  channel for spreading awareness.
• Developing social networking applications to raise funds for wikipedia.
• Identify  Vernacular Language enthusiast and support them to contribute to wikipedia.

I am done with the list for time being :).  I m not sure how many of these suggestions have  already been implemented. I wrote Wat i felt can be taken.I want to share few learning’s from this experience of mine.

Key Learnings:

• Be down to earth even when you reach the peak in your career growth. Best example  i can think of is Mr.Jimmy Wales.
• Be community enthusiast - > contribute to wikipedia in your own way.
• Always Listen before you speak.

I am sharing few photos we took during the meet and i sign off for now.

Meet with you soon with my next post.

Mission Humanity is a movement i wish to start within the community to wake up the sleeping human within every individual. Recent problems faced by our country like terror attacks in mumbai  and heavy rains in chennai has disturbed my mental peace to the core. When all the news channels were broadcasting live shows on operations of armed forces ,  terrorists attacks, Death ceromony of our brave officers , it clearly highlighted that it is high time we,as a individual understand our responsibilities to the community, society and our country. Though we cannot get into army and fight back with terrorists , we can definitely change the environment around us for the better. If you had noticed the header of my blog which states a famous and forgetten quote of our father of nation “ Be the change you want to see in the world” , its time we start doing things than blaming our irresponsible politicians to do it. I felt ashamed when Kerala CM commented on the Major’s family and hurt their emotions.  I can go on with a long list of examples that projects the negatives of our country which is of no use. I salute all the brave officers and innocent people who were victims of the terror attacks on humanity and i promise to my soul that i will bring the change i want to see in this community.

I will share my plans regarding the Mission Humanity in my future posts !!

Come , Join me in this movement and let us bring the change we want together !!

Jai Hind !!