I flew to India in November 09, in order to network with entrepreneurs and the investor community. What a productive tour that was! As soon as I  had landed in Bangalore, I had secured an invitation to address HR managers at HR Share 09, organised at Orchid Hotel, Bangalore on November 20th and 21st by International School of Business & Media.  My welcome address was on ‘Aligning Indian HR with international practices”, and was very well received by my Professor and friend Dr Pramod Kumar, Founder of ISB&M, HR managers and MBA students alike. I will post the content of all my talks at a later date.

I visited my alma mater IIT Madras on November 27th to meet my Professors and Dr L.S Ganesh in particular who I had been corresponding with on my vision for nurturing entrepreneurship in India, and fortuitously noticed the TIECON Chennai poster on the institute notice board.  As luck would have it, I was told that Prof LSG, as he is fondly called, may also be found at the conference. I headed straight to the conference at Chennai Trade Centre and spent a couple of hours networking with the organising committee of TIE Chennai, and a few other participants like Arun Balachandran, who was running the incubator at Vellore Institute of Technology.  I also ran into my classmate from IIT Madras, Anil Kumar, who had come down from Chicago in his bid to launch his career as an entrepreneur with a premium match making portal! Anil introduced me to Singularity Ventures. When I left Chennai for Kadiri, my hometown, my inbox was overflowing with messages from entrepreneurs who wanted to meet me, business plans and an invitation to speak at the inauguration of  Innovation Lab, courtesy Mr Balachandran of VI I had met in Chennai.

I accepted the invitation for Cochin and left home telling my mother not to expect me back for long, and gave a talk there on 15th December. My first trip to Kerala and a long-awaited one was thus an eventful one! I ended up inspiring a lot of folks there with my experience in the Private Equity world, and snippets from my life. Among the people I met were Mr K.C Chandrasekhar Nair of TechnoPark, Mr Arun Balachandran, CEO of Innovation Lab, who was following his calling to inspire the masses, shunning the safety of a corporate job, and Yathish from Nasscom.  Sanjay Vijayakumar,the young CEO of MOBME Wireless Solutions, a mobile media entertainment company regaled me with his tale of spunk on how he started his business from college, and raised his first round of funding of Rs 8 million from Mammooty or Mohan (I cannot remember now, but yes of course the f amous celeb from Malayali cinema or Kollywood).  Goes to prove once again – Where there is a will, there is always a way! Sanjaya also sits on the board of Technopark incubator.

I left Cochin the same evening for Mumbai, my favorite city! Something about Mumbai electrifies my core being and always gives me the confidence that I can do anything I set my mind to, almost! I requested meetings with the British High Commission and UK Trade and Investment, indulged my old passion of fashion design, shopped for dress material, ate to my heart’s content, and met up with old friends, while waiting for the TIE Entrepreneurial Summit in Mumbai. Actually, the first thing I did in Mumbai was to contact the office of my friend and mentor, Mr. R.Ravimohan, ex-Chairman of CRISIL. When I was told that he was no longer with CRISIL, my system went into shock as I had always been used to his presence there as CEO and later Chairman, ever since I knew him as my boss from my days as a Rating Analyst at CRISIL. Anyway, I was glad to learn that he had become Executive Director at Reliance Industries Limited, re-established contact and set up a meeting immediately after my TIE conference. My heart stoops down with weight, whenever I recall my luck and privilege in receiving his guidance as an extremely able, curious and willing mentor, as passionate about my success and achievements as I myself can be. He has never failed in providing me the right advice, be it personal or professional. Of course, we all make mistakes and on occasions I did not bother to consult him on important decisions. But, independence of thought was something he appreciated too!

Then came the much awaited TIE Entrepreneurship Summit ‘09 in Mumbai Dec 21st to 23rd 2009. Nothing prepared me for the conference though! Right from the vast open space of acres of barren land in BKC where the dismantleable venue was erected overnite as the organisers claimed, the number of entrepreneurs or Indians who passionately made or were about to make a difference to India, to the eclectic ensemble of the famous faces I was just about to see, or the very significant life changing connections I was about to make!

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Arifa Khan is the Founder and Managing Director of Genius Incubator