Namaste everyone, hope all is well. Greetings from the FEC office here from Kalpana and myself.
While she is running around taking photos in Delhi slums and schmoozing high-powered government officials and motivated NGOs – excuse me, CSOs - about the housing project, I have been pounding away on a presentation and am getting ready to head to Bangalore and Hyderabad next week to meet the Ashoka Fellow to talk about her microinsurance business.
The first heavy rainfall set in today since my stay, and I remembered to bring the flip flops just in case. Roop, I hope you are getting a nice tan down in Madurai, Kalpana says it’s “beautiful.” Too bad you’re not here with us, we’re planning on starting a badminton club (together with Aditi) and visit some local Fellows.
How is life with the Fellows for everyone? And what happenend to that facebook page?? didn’t get the invite yet.
Thien (on behalf of Kalpana’s Office)
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June 25, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Kaydee
Thien! How awesome to hear from you and on behalf of the others!! What is your presentation about? Have you met with your fellow at all? Are you experiencing collaboration?
June 26, 2008 at 4:48 am
Thien
Hey there Kaydee. I hate to admit but this insurance aggregator model of my Fellow is so complex that I had to do a whole presentation on my understanding/assessment of it, which I’m now going through with her right-hand person, before figuring out a good way to present it to her. And no, I still don’t understand the model at the end of the day.
Collaboration? Everyone, I’m not sure about the personality of your different fellows, but if they are really passionate and get emotional about their projects and you have to give them tough news, I’ve found it helps to talk to a more objective close confidante of them first and winning her support for your ideas/insights.
Interesting enough, all our Fellows are at very different stages. In my case, it’ll have to be both a turnaround and a growth story that needs to happen for this to have an “all’s well that ends well” outcome.
How are you guys getting along with other interns/employees of Ashoka in your regions? Cool people here so far. We have guests every other day, like someone from Google.org I believe a while back, all approaching Ashoka about different projects.
August 3, 2008 at 5:33 pm
ferfornriff
Thanks for the post