‘Entrepreneurship’
So, what is it? One way to describe it would be the most plundered synonym of this day and age. A word thrown around so casually and recklessly by every Tom, Dick and Harry yearning to leave a mark on this little world of ours. A new phase has been ushered with this new world mentality, where looking for a job has become somewhat more of an inconvenience contrary to simply creating one. Everyone wants to be a revolutionary force, a messiah of change without even thinking about whether or not the world even needs one. But then again, what gives me the right to go on ranting false prophet to this claim? Well, for one, attending the AIESEC Youth To Business Forum 2014.
One day, eight hours and over 500 delegates – All there for one reason and one reason only. To know what it means to actually be an Entrepreneur, a leader in every sense of the word. A visionary’s pilgrimage if you will lead by the who’s who of today’s industry. A class of only the most decorated industry veterans : Mr. Sunil Sanghai – Managing director of HSBC, Mr. Shailendra Singh – Managing Director of Percept ltd and Mr. Ajeet Khurana of Angel Investors’, Ambarish Dutta( MD & CEO of BSE Institute Ltd),Srinivasan Swamy (Chairman of advertising major RK Swamy BBDO),Chetna Gala Sinha (Indian social entrepreneur, founder and president of the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank), Bhaskar Das (Group CEO – Zee News)Vikram Sakhuja (Global CEO- Maxus), Manish Gandhi (CEO of ABEC), Yashraj Akashi( Senior Ambassador, TEDx India, Satyen ( Co Founder CitrusPay) As they spoke about their journeys, struggles and joys to getting where they are today, and what it means to be a true Entrepreneur.
Among the listed orators, one being very close to the AIESEC family was Gurin Pal Singh – President (elect) of AIESEC in India . Being an heir of the land, Gurin spoke about the quintessential problems that have been primly responsible for holding our nation back in the form of corruption, unemployment and the quality of education of our country. He spoke about how we as the youth could very well be the catalysts of the needed change, and all you need to do for this is recognize your role in this change. To do so Gurin said emphasised on how practical leadership experiences are the morst important experiences in shaping individuals.
However, if you think about it in a deeper sense there is a lot more to leadership than the conventional rule of command to bring about a competent change – more being a vision. Imagination is the beginning of creation. What good is a leader without a vision? You imagine what you desire, as you will what you imagine. As in his brief time on the microphone, the director of Percept ltd went on to highlight how the glut emphasis of knowledge is what we seemingly let rule our life. “Imagination is more emphatic than knowledge. Knowledge has boundaries, but imagination is boundless”. But then again, what good is a vision without execution? It’s equivalent to a hallucination, a façade. In conclusion, knowledge and vision are both faces of the same coin. The essence of each lies in the presence of the other and an equivalence of both is what leadership is all about.
AIESEC has always believed that leadership is something genetically coded within each and every one of us. We all have and shall take charge if a situation ever calls to. But in a world like ours opportunities that allow an individual to truly take control of a situation are sparse. So, how does a person become a leader in such an environment? For one, why not take up a Youth Global Entrepreneur program? A program that will put you directly face to face with global dilemmas and give you the liberty of implementing your ideas for solving such problems? Much like what many of the many delegates in this forum have already been a part of.
As much as it may sound like one, this is not a career coaching seminar. It is an experience, and a once in a life time one at that. Personally, to me this was more like a passing of the torch so as to speak. You have some of the all time greats of the past decade or so sitting across one side of a room, and the ones that will eventually become driving forces in the years to come sitting right across them as ready as ever to take charge.
Everybody wants to make it big. Everyone wants to touch the stars and feel the skies, but have you taken that first step yet? Well, speaking on behalf of these 500 delegates at the Bombay Stock Exchange on the 24th of April and myself included – We certainly have, which now makes it your turn to…
…Think, Dream and Execute.
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