Day 6: Project Ringtones - Mobile Phone Applications for Workers in China

After being given an introduction to Project Ringtones through the amazing Ted Talk on Sixth Sense which can be found here and an introduction to Mobile Phone Applications and how combination of tools on mobile phones can help build a powerful application, we were put into break-out groups:

1. TB Subgroup - Katrin Stoy from FSU and Constanza Alonqueo from UFRO

2. Mobile phones in China - Andre Reichel and Steffen Bethmann from FSU

3. Empowering Consumers through Mobile phones - Falk von Moellendorff from FSU and Jiayuan Meng from ZU

This article will talk about Mobile Phones in China and how applications on mobile phones can help the low income group workers in China to counter problems faced in the transport system especially in booking tickets for their journeys.

We discussed the target group who require the application, the tools which will be required - the positives and the negatives of the same. We discussed the requirements of such an application viz. easy user-interface, fast learning curve, trustworthy and the application should run on all mobile platforms especially on the ones which are low cost.

We identified that the target group would be young people moving to urban china mainly as workers and they would be needing to travel back home atleast once a year during the Chinese New Year and for such people, the ideal application should provide an easy access and interface to buying tickets on their mobile phone. The challenges which will be faced in such an application would be suspicion on the part of the users since it would be mainly SMS based, mode of payment, authentication and such others.

The group came up with a proposal to develop such an voice/SMS based application whose main purpose is to fight black markets who sell tickets at a high price since the ticket booking system in China isn't very customer friendly.

Day 3: Session on Innovation by Carla and Pia

Innovation in Professional Areas

This was the theme of the session conducted for Senior Fellows by Carla Concha and Pia Gonzalez, SFs from UFRO.

The session which was very educative to the audience was divided into two distinct halves comprising of Case Studies:

1. Bacterial Properties of Copper: This case was presented to us by Carla Concha which gave us an insight into how Copper makes up a large percentage of the exports of Chile and how in the recent years this has been on the reduce. The reason being that there wasn't a significant change in the reasons for use. And because of this recently, an innovation has been brought out in this industry. It being certain properties of Copper making it bacteria resistant.



This is being used to fight Nosocomial Infections in patients in the hospitals. Patients being in hospitals for a longer period are at a higher risk of infection and the nature of this infection is quite dangerous. Therefore, it has been discovered that growth rate of these germs/bacterial is lesser on surfaces coated with copper. This has been an important innovation in the copper industry in Chile.

2. Mobile Dental Clinics: This case was presented to us by Pia Gonzalez who works in a Mobile dental clinic herself. She presented to us the innovative concept of Mobile Dental Clinics which have been provided by the government to serve people in lower income rural areas. Pia explained to us how it was a frustration of denying the poor one of the main drivers of this innovation.

She explained to us the process and the way in which these clinics work in providing to the poor quality dental care. Though small in size, these clinics have been quite effective in treating dental problems in the lower income groups.

The case studies were followed up by division of groups into two which then discussed innovation in their lives, about whether or not we are innovating at our workplaces, whether we are interested in innovating and if we are encouraged by superiors to innovate.

Day 2: Workshops on Innovations

"Nothing is impossible though all may not be possible"

The above quote from Mr. Vijay Ladha's session on Product Innovation was one of the take-aways from the numerous ones which we got on 4th Aug '09. Mr. Vijay Ladha who by education is a Chartered Accountant but forayed into entrepreneurship by choice. He walked us through his interesting journey of innovation.

Mr. Ladha started his innovation - Gas Candles out of a necessity for the middle class average Indian. And that was to help him/her during the times of power shortage. His motives were simple, to provide a simple, economic, hassle-free, mess-free alternative solution of wax candles in turn to the chronic problem of power shortage faced in almost all parts of India.



Mr. Ladha began to manufacture a the product roughly 25 years ago. The product has undergone a sea of change though retaining its original goal. Mr. Ladha explained to us how customer feedback was of utmost importance as that was the main source of innovation of the product. He went on to explain to us the changes that were made to the product which were mainly based on the customer feedback.

The product was originally used as a replacement for wax-candles but soon, the word caught up and people were curious to know about the product. The same product then became a gift, corporates wanted to gift their employees these candles as souvenirs, while some others wanted it for religious purposes.

Soon, some other people wanted to use the gas flame for other purposes and thus, innovation made the product multi-purpose in nature.

The audience then went on to ask Mr. Ladha questions about his innovation, about what drives him to continue the same business and keep innovating even 25 years down the line and his answer was:

"Believe until you have a reason to disbelieve. Continue innovating for as long as you can!"

You can find more information about gas candles at: http://www.fourell.in/

Day 3: Session on Microfinance

On Wednesday, 5th August '09 we had a session on Microfinance by Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan, Chairman and Founder of Janaagraha and Janalakshmi. Mr. Ramanathan walked us through the various technicalities, challenges and the business process of Microfinance.

He gave us an insight into the history of Microfinance whose pioneer was Md. Yunus who is aptly called as the "Father of Microfinance".

Mr. Ramanathan first spoke about the aims and goals of Financial Inclusion which are:

1. Access to credit

2. Saving and contingency

3. Wealth Creation

And this led to telling us about how Microfinance institutions fall into the Non-Profit Financial Institutions (NBFI) whose main goal is to give the lower income group Access to Credit. He gave us the basic information about the processes involved in the working of NBFIs including the setting up of technology base to administer the same. He told us about the challenges faced in the procurement of cutting edge technologies for core banking solutions for the basic operation of these institutions.

Mr. Ramanathan then went on to explain to us the novel method of Biometric solutions used by his organization Janalakshmi to track customers for credit purposes. He explained to us the use of smart cards to compete with the challenges faced by the institution with respect to maintaining proof of identity.

We were also briefed about the challenges faced by the institutions in the following areas:

1. Institutional Design

2. Cost of Creation

3. Scale

4. Risks

The audience then had a very interesting discussion with him and brought out different perspectives to the same. The discussions were about modes of operation of the microfinance institutions, challenges faced, microfinance and main stream banking regulatory problems and ethical issues while handling these institutions and finally Mr. Ramanathan told us his story of how Janaagraha and Janalakshmi was born!

Day 4 : Breather between two heavy duty events:)

The Panel discussion was followed by a surprise none of the visting fellows were ready for!
Yes, a lunch on a banana/plantain leaf and having to taste and feast the spread of traditional Indian dishes(yes, Holige, Jilebi, Poori, Pulao, Rasam, Buttermilk, Pickles) with one's fingers. They sure were pleasantly surprised and by the end of the lunch, were the most satisfied bunch of foks one could catch sight of.
Following the lunch was the field visits to three places of interest to the fellows which centered around the theme of Innovation. One of the trips was gonna be to the micro-finance institution Janalakshmi, while the the other was a trip to one of India's premier B-Schools - the Indian Institute of Managment in Bangalore. The visit there would involve meeting enterprenuers at the NS Raghavan Center for Enterepreneurial Learning. The last was to see the massive scale and success gained by the famous mid-day meal scheme of ISKCON - the Akshaya Patra programme which enables the not-so-privileged students from economically backward areas attend school by enticing them for a mid-day meal (Yes, receiving a nutritous meal is a privilege for many children across India's vast lower strata of society).
Just to give you the sheer numbers- the program serves as an enabler to education by providing food at no cost( costs are made up by donors and trustees) to over 1 million children in India across seven states!

Day 4: Panel discussion

The fourth day’s events started off in right earnest with business sessions of JFs, SFs and the TTs.
However the highlight of the day was definitely gonna be the Panel Discussion on the Symp Theme. Consisting of eminent personalities – Prof-Ganesh Prabhu (Faculty at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore), Prof Christopher Bull (Faculty at Brown University) and Professor Gabriel Harp (Faculty at the Shristi School of Art and Design) – each being a subject matter expert in their fields spoke of Process Innovation, Social Innovation and Innovation in Education respectively.
Moderated by Vijai Kumar (SF-BMS Class of 2000), the panellists began by giving a short little presentation on the innovations which have been witnessed in their fields, examples of the same, the key drivers which propelled the innovation and the new path the innovations have created, existence/creation of such markets, downsides if any and many other aspects of them.

Prof Prabhu, whose expertise in the area of process innovations, led the audience through the kinds of process innovations that India has been witness to (especially with a major portion of India’s economy being a services–driven one) first spoke of how reconfiguring an existing product/service has been one of the process innovations with the Jaipur Foot being a star example of how collaboration with ISRO(Indian Space Research Organization) to produce lighter weighing artificial limbs (prosthesis) as well as the model of providing two kinds of service – one which is providing the limb free of cost to the not-so-privileged while another being a choice for the privileged buyer of the Jaipur Foot to pay any amount he/she wishes to pay (many a times, the amount paid is three times the cost of the prosthesis).
Moving on to how reconfiguring two products into one led to the success of the travel portal, Makemytrip.com , Prof.Prabhu spoke of how flexibility in choosing different airlines provided the user a customised travel schedule which was one of the reasons for its success.
Maruthi Automobiles’ offer (TruValue Cars) of re-purchasing second-hand cars from its users and rebranding/refurbishing the same into quality used-cars was another successful innovation of creating a new way of selling existing products.
The case of DimDim creating a platform for priests to deliver sermons or for teachers to provide classes to students through the free web conference services DimDim offers was a case of creating a new product/service of higher value.
Shimano’s was another classic example of innovation in business processes in the bicycle industry with gear-set kits which could be fit on most bicycles making Shimano garner a market share between 86-98% in the early 90s.
Delving on cases where innovations in business through people created products/services, Prof Prabhu shared the immense success of networking portal PaGalGuy.com which offers focussed services to MBA/Business School aspirants, premium services which are generally charged elsewhere are offered at no cost by a team of MBA grads who felt the need for the such a service.

Next up was Prof Chris Bull, who spoke of Social Innovations, of enterprises created which in turn created meaningful jobs, increased agricultural productions and stimulated economic development (Kickstart, Grameen Bank). Prof Bull shared with the eager audience of the various characteristics of an innovator in the social domain.
A big heart, passion, persistence and the hard wait through the initial stages of any innovation are a few of the things called upon, but again the success rate for innovations is relatively small. Urging the audience that for one to be an innovator, one needs to get onto the field, get one’s hands dirty, understand the market dynamics hands-on and act, Prof Bull shared his insights about social innovation.

Next up was Prof Gabriel Harp whose deck on Innovation in Education had the fellows take notice wondering if the maze and arrays of dots were abstract art or something to interpret. Elucidating further, Prof Hart informed the keen audience of the demographics and the economy which make up a nation’s dots and the squares and of intertwining any two industries sometimes can bring aobut something as radical and abstract as a pair of gold screw earrings(a hybrid of the gold and the iron&steel industries!)
Connecting the dots/nodes, making new hybrids, bridging different industries, creating knowledge sources and locations across various aspects of the spatial dimensions are the challenges one faces in the field of education. Providing us an example of how the noble teaching profession and its teachers can be viewed with different perspectives as a network entrepreneur, trickster, jesters, jokers or brokers, Prof Hart surely had everyone thinking.
Providing examples of innovations (in the education sector have furthered the cause of holistic learning) like Playpower which are exploring ways to make laptops(simlar to gaming consoles available in China or India) for as little as $10 to the interaction of students and new media, to students creating knowledge through cell-phones (learning on the field by taking pics of plants through cell-phones) to farms on tripod like stands/supports as well as harvesting square cocoons.
Dwelling on the responses to innovation (adaptability, coordination, knowledge sharing) as well as the challenges to be faced in the form of questions like sustainability, their challenges for a service based economies, and the robustness one may lose or gain, of cognitive biases and epistemological foundations that might hinder or help the innovation, not to forget the ways in which infrastructure and design inertia enforce themselves upon the innovation, Prof Harp signed off his presentation with a flourish.

Next up, was a round of discussions amongst the panellists, moderated ably by Vijai who not only ensured the audience’s voice was heard as well as developed the topic .

Not only did interesting questions emerge but it was quite a sight to see not all the panellists quite agree on a few aspects of innovation.

Just a sampling of the question posed to the panellists by the audience:

>Is there any such thing like a mid-life crises for Products and would innovations need to be made continually? A case in point can be Apple which was only revived after Steve Jobs came back to chart Apple back into the company we know it is today.

> Are innovations carried or brought about for the sake of innovations? Sometimes at the expense of robustness?

> Facebook is still more popular than PaGalGuy.com? Any reasons though FB doesnt have a focussed/targeted audience unlike PG which targets only MBA aspirants and still genrates revenue through Ads?

It was not just another panel discussion, Vijai was able to draw enough comparisons to the Melton Foundation and the need to innovate given the current scenario. Also of how the Foundation always had brilliant ideas, entreprenuers who marketed/braodcast the idea, but unfortunately didnt have executors and thus losing fantastic ideas.

Day 4 - Field based visit to one of three sites : Janalakshmi

"Our social conscience starts and ends with our customer being the not fully serviced or the poor as many may call them, everything else about us is like a bank - pioneering, innovative, deploying traditional market principles, etc."- Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan

After a delicious lunch served at BMSIT on a banana leaf people left to the different theme based trips based on their choices. For most this was a continuation of the talk delivered by Ramesh Ramanathan, the founder of ‘Janalakshmi’ or 'People’s wealth' which is a microfinance institution. We were first welcomed by the Area head who briefed us on what Janalakshmi is all about. He said the micro financing works by first approaching potential customers who are typically from economically weaker sections. There are groups of about 15 formed with each person being a guarantor for the other, i.e. if a particular month’s installment is not paid by any person then the others pitch in for that person and later can collect it back as the members of the groups usually consist of people who know each other personally and live within 200 meters of each other.
We later interacted with 6 clients. A large percentage of the clients are women and the people we were about to interact with were a part of one of the many 15 member women groups.
They patiently answered all the questions without once indicating any kind of discomfort but extreme confidence. The first question asked as what they needed the money borrowed for to which we got various replies which included enlarging their small businesses (which may be petty shops or small saree shops) , personal loans taken to improve standard of living, for the children’s education,etc.

Below are some of the other questions asked and the responses we got.

“How did you know of Janalaksmi?”
…We were approached by the members of the organization and were glad to here of the schemes as previously we had to pay exorbitant rates of interests and banks would not provide us with loans to run our small businesses.

“How do you feel as working women and do you take help or include other members in your family to handle the finances.”
…We feel independent and some of us are the primary bread winners of the family. We independently handle the finances and do not include other members of the family in the decision making.

“What dreams do you have for you children?”
…We have not studied much due to financial reasons. At young ages we were married of to the person our parent’s chose for us. Now we want to ensure our children are educated and can go on to becoming successful in their lives and will not have to face the struggles we have.

“Do you feel you would have been better of not working and having a lot more free time?”
…We enjoy work as it gives us our independence and identity. We rather be working than not!

By the end of the interaction everyone was filled with admiration for the courage the women possessed. We were also amazed by the organization itself which is progressing in leaps and bounds towards its vision of seeking to move beyond the narrow definition of micro credit to broad-based microfinance encompassing a range of financial services including savings, insurance, and pension to be offered to individuals and group.
The entire interaction was certainly one filled with open communication and mutual respect. After having thanked them for their time and effort we returned to the hotel. With the rest of the day off many were looking forward to go shopping in “Namma Bengaluru”.

Day 4 - SF Session

The buses left the hotel by 7:30 am to BMSIT – the new campus, as most of the day’s events were to be held there.
The first of the sessions in the beautiful campus was the JF/SF/TT Sessions. The SF session began with introductions from the different Regional Coordinators on the happenings of their respective regions. Here are some of the updates in the order they were shared:

South America Region – RC: Andrea Ocares
*About 44 SF’s present in the Region.
*JF- SF breakfast held in January which enabled bonding and information sharing.
*Melton Share held with Sidharth, an Indian SF living in Chile on his experiences in Chile as an Indian, etc. This was very well received by the fellows.
*Another meeting was held in June with JF’s and about 6 SF’s.
*SF’s around Temuco are planning a Monthly Meeting which will enable them to keep in touch and work together on a regular basis.

Europe Region – RC: Matthias Reichardt
*JF-SF meet in November which enabled the Senior Fellows to meet up with the newer ones.
*SF meet in June with the focus being on the preparation of the Symposium with JF’s attending for a day.
*Training of International Trainers- Young Sieter (3 SF’s and 2 JF’s) with partner organizations.
Asia West – RC: Navneeth Kumar
*The activities revolved around Symposium preparation
*About 28 SF’s present in the region.
*Separate SF oriented session included in the annual Director’s Visit to BMS.
*SF meets planned on September, December which due to being vacation times will enable more *SF’s to participate in them.
*Professional workshops will be planned as suggested by a number of SF’s.

North America – RC : Carrie Radloff.
As Carrey could not be present at the Symposium Tanja briefed us on some of the updates from the region:
*The 3 former regions unified into 1 as it makes strategic sense.
*Plans for a local gathering in process.
*Highest Number of SF’s (about 110!) reside in the region.


Some of the other important issues the SF’s felt strongly about and discussed were:
*The EIG Grant and the possibilities for including more active SF’s
*Separate SF oriented sessions during the Symposium which could focus on important issues like professional development, interest based discussion, etc.
*The effects the regional separation of SF's had.
* Travelling SF's who live temporarily in differrent regions.
*Integrating new SF’s by providing them an opportunity to interact with the entire SF community.
*Partnerships with external organizations.
*Locating SF’s based on profession which interestingly enough has been planned for the portal expansion.
*The need for a common Goal to work towards to.
*Internal Fund raising before external fund raising which will make us aware on how strongly we feel about the cause and the need to contribute as one of the important questions when dealing with external fund raising would be on what the existing members are doing to contribute.

Day 3 - Science of Mudras by Sri K Rangaraja Iyengar

There has been a sudden increase in the popularity of Yoga all over the world. A number of fellows were looking forward to attending this session on “Mudras” – which is an important component of Yoga.
The charismatic speaker who has practiced Yoga for over 50 years is well versed in the BKS Iyengar’s yoga system and has been teaching yoga to people of all age groups. He is involved with a number of social service organizations .
He started of by giving a short introduction on the history of Yoga- discovered by Pathanjalar about 3,500 years ago. He taught us that Yoga is a holistic science from India which enhances the state of mind, body and the consciousness of a person on physical, psychological and philosophical levels. He further went on to explain that , according to this, the activities of the body are governed by forces of five basic elements – Fire, Air, Ether(space) , Earth and water. The energies of these elements are composed in various parts of our body and rather strongly on our fingers. The science of recharging these energies and bringing equilibrium by various formations of our fingers is known as “Mudra Vignaana”.
He mentioned that this practice is widely used across all religions and rituals.
He went went on to shows us some Mudras to combat conditions such as stress, fatigue , head ache, controlling blood pressure,etc. After the session many fellows went up to him to ask him mudras for various other conditions and he patiently answered and demonstrated how it’s done. Overall it was an interesting and informative session.

Day 2: Workshops on Innovations

Vaibhav's workshop. Particpants use bamboo as a base material for concepts and prototypes...

Day 2: Workshops on Innovations

Following the inaugural were the workshops by two eminent personalities, known for their innovative solutions in the field of household appliances(gas/butane candles) and housing respectively.

Vaibhav began his session with a different sort of ice-breaker asking participants to speak of their one single dream which they are passionate about and would go any distance to realise it.

With everybody having shared their dream, the participants were then categoried into four broad groups - ones whose dreams were aligned to education, those whose dreams aligned to sustainability, ones who were passionate about leveraging technology to achiveing their dreams and those who want to be free and independent without a care:)

Having given each of the groups a free hand in doing anything they wanted to present, (a prototype of their dream) either as a model or a paper, Vaibhav set everyone's creative juices flowing...
The images can do more justice than words, but being there and experiencing it would have been even better.

Capping off with each group's presentation Vaibhav alos spoke of how his entreprenuerial venture into cost-effective and eco housing has come a long way since its early days.
More info about the same can be found at www.wondergrass.in and http://wondergrass.blogspot.com

Day 2: The Symp officially kicks off..

Day 2: The Symp officially kicks off..

Day 2 of the Symposium was gonna be a BIG day and so it was. Packed with loads of events/sessions and cultural treats, it sure had the Metlon fellows pleasantly tired- the sweet kind of tiredness- especially with the tight timelines.

The day began with the inaugural function which started off in right earnest with Ms.Tanja Schulze, the Program Director, providing the welcome address and briefing everyone at the function about Innovation – the theme of Symp09, the kind of work Junior Fellows have put in over the past months and looking forward to sharing all the knowledge in this cultural milieu of knowledge experts providing key note sessions, Junior Fellows presenting their findings and insights gathered in their workgroups about various case studies.

The onus was then on the chief guest for the function, Ms.Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who shared with the fellows a few enriching thought bytes which left many appreciating as well as pondering the reach/gamut of innovation and its impact on society and man.
Beginning with the types of innovation (one kind that brings about a paradigm shift in the way we do things, to the kind where innovation is brought about by building upon known knowledge as well as the innovations which create knowledge capital), Ms.Shaw spoke of how innovation in today’s world transcends all boundaries as well as how evolution of man has been an innovation too that has occurred across centuries. What was an innovation yesterday is only gonna give way to something more innovative in the coming days, she said which had everyone thinking of the innovations that we and our parents have been witness to, over the past few decades.

Giving us more insights about the biotechnology industry, Ms. Shaw described how any innovation entails risk and uncertainty, about how India is a place where failure is affordable and how Indian firms are well placed to leverage this and bring cost-affordable drugs to the developing world as well as bridge the divide between expensive drugs and affordable drugs to the masses.
Needless to say, she also spoke of how we can’t do any of these alone and we no longer are a vertical tiered structure but are networks of knowledge capital across various geographies.
Innovations which entail shrinking our carbon footprint, achieving favorable climates, innovations in the agricultural sector and more such areas are one which requires us to work together and the Melton Fellows are perfectly placed in this wonderful Foundation to leverage this to their advantage in their professional lives.
With this Ms. Shaw signed off wishing the Fellows the very best and hoping to see innovative products and solutions emerging at the end of the Symp.

Ms.Ragini Narayan and Prof.G.N.Shekar shared their thoughts on the symposium and wished the Fellows a very productive symposium.

Mr.Winthrop Carty, the Executive Director, then addressed the gathering. Thanking Ms.Shaw for her thought-provoking words, Mr.Carty goaded the fellows to reflect on the just concluded talk. He also mentioned of how the fellows and everyone are missing the ZU contingent hoping they would be here very soon. Hoping to be innovative and different, Mr.Carthy signed off saying he wouldn’t give a long sermon and hoped the gist had been captured by the audience.

Finally Jaikar Mohan, the tireless Symp Coordinator who was compeering throughout the proceedings, concluded the event and invited the fellows to participate in the two sessions (conducted in parallel) by Mr. Vijay Ladha and Mr. Vaibhav Kaley, both pioneers in their fields and known for their innovative solutions in the field of household appliances(gas/butane candles) and housing respectively.

Glimpses of the CulPrez that just went by, but still fresh in our minds...

ZU

Glimpses of the CulPrez that just went by, but still fresh in our minds...

DU

Glimpses of the CulPrez that just went by, but still fresh in our minds...

FSU

Glimpses of the CulPrez that just went by, but still fresh in our minds...

UFRO

Day 1... The action continues with the Cul Prez

Cultural Presentations - Innovations brought to the fore
As the tradition continues this year too we saw some wonderful performances from the Fellows as part of the Cultural Presentation. Each campus presented a different facet of their culture thus educating the audience of something else they didnt know about that country :-)

UFRO - They depicted the Mapuche's view of Columbus discovering America and they showcased this brilliantly through a very innovative and unique style involving a play of light and shadow coupled with some great music. They showcased as part of theirpresentation, the conflict between the Mapuche and Spanish and consequentially the motivationfor the Mapuches' fight against the Spanish which lasted for over 300 years.

FSU - The FSU campus depicted through their presentation the re-unification of FDR and GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany. They showed in a humorous way though, the effects of the re-unification and finally how the "Wall" finally breaks in the minds of the people through a love story between a boy from the West and a girl from the East.

DU - DU Campus too kept up with the theme of Innovation and showcased the innovative methods of campaigning used during the historical election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. They showed the various tools used during the campaign and the role social networking sites like Facebook and My Space played during the same.

ZU - Despite not having a full contingent, the Chinese fellows pulled off a fantastic show of a popular dance form. Not only did they perform but they also ensured the audience learnt the dance and grooved to the beats of the song. Not only was it fun to see most folks who claimed to have two left feet having a pair dancing feet, it also was a show which got all campuses syncing together to the beats of the music.

Snippets of Day 1 events

Q & A with the Board of Directors of the Melton Foundation

After a sumptous Indian lunch on Day1, most of the Fellows were keen on a siesta:) However the Symp organizers had other plans foreveryone.
The Q&A with the BOD was right after lunch and it was indeed an eye-opener (sleep-buster too:)) for the Symp participants.
To begin with David Lyons, the current chairperson of the BOD, summarised the highlights of the deliberations and plans that emerged from the BOD meetings over the past couple of days.
The most important aspect to have emerged from the meetings has beenthe formation of a Strategic Planning Committee which will be lookingat many aspects regarding the MF- the foremost among them being arejig of the vision of the MF and its guiding principle to not onlymake it relevant to both the SFs and JFs but also to the outsideworld.Focus areas have been drawn up and will be finalised shortly.
This Strategic Plan has been arrived at by the BOD with checkpoints/milestones and evaluations in place(both of the Plan and implementation of short and long term objectives). This assessment as well as benchmarking will be available in Oct 2009 once a milestone has been arrived at.
Among other issues discussed was the expansion and growth of the MF (growing SF community, but the same quantum of resources), possibilityof a new university (still in the freeze considering the current global economic state), alternative/creative ways to raise funds both from within and outside the Foundation.
With it began the Q&A with the fellows which primarily centered around the outcome of the BOD meetings as well as concerns, ideas and which fellows had- both from the Junior and senior Fellow Network.
Various ideas/suggestions were bounced around between the BOD and the fellows-
- the possibilty of cost cutting (providing netbooks instead of laptops to new JFs as well an appreciation of current policies which allow NewJunior Fellows to upgrade existing systems or utilize the funds forbetter purposes aligned to the MF) Netbooks cost less than a laptop.
- The usefulness/meeting of expectations of the Regional Coordinatorswhose role/purpose has not been an overwhelming sucess but with expectations which have been partially met. The BOD also clarified the rationale behind creation of the RC profileback in 2006, its accountabilty and Regional SF Events which havetaken place since then- moving slowly but steadily away from only social gatherings, towards part social and part professional,involving external facilitators, conducting sessions which are moremeaningful and relevant to SFs.
Clarification received that the new Strategic Plan will utilize the strengths and opportuntiies provided by the Fellows Network.
-The most-talked about issue over the past few months of this year and the last Fund-raising, the pitfalls, the creation of an MF Brand(rather than trying to fit the MF into a brand), the target to achieve $USD 30,000 through fundraising within the MF, the potential toharness SF talent for the same, fundraising being a tricky yet many atime a satisfying effort if one hasnt't backed out in the process(not giving up is a key as well).Thus the process of building the MF brand before we venture into theoutside world seeking funds and sponsorships.
-Concerns raised by JFs whether the Foundation would lose its intercultural aspect in the event of building the MF brand, the trade-offs that might happen - all of which were allayed by the BOD who specified the MF's USP would not be taken away.
-Concerns raised by SFs as well about the phase during which an SF feels disillusioned/disenchanted with the MF, as well a change inperpective once a life-changing event(wedding , family, etc) occurs orthe gradual change in perception of the MF (for the better) as oneadds more numbers to one's years.
-Strong and fervent requirement for a collectivevoice/wisdom/direction from the SF network. Yes, the BOD have SFs butneeds an external representation too.
The session was rounded up with a note of thanks as well asappreciation for the efforts of the BOD members despite their busy schedules and commitments.

Disclaimer: The above has been a gist of the proceedings of the BOD Q&A and each of the points mentioned must not be considered in isolation but with the relevant context. Any additions/deletions/updates missed wil be corrected shortly. All proceedings have been captured to reflect the actual events to the maximum extent possible. Any discrepancy noted is regretted.

Namaste!

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The one-stop shop for the latest Symp09 updates, blogged by Symp09 participants, exclusively for Melton Fellows across the seven seas...