Annual Hub Report: Ahmedabad Global Shapers

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n n u a l

Ahmedabad Global Shapers An Initiative of the World Economic Forum

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e p o r t

2016

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

About Ahmedabad Global Shapers The Ahmedabad Global Shapers is part of a network of hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievements, and their drive to make a contribution to their communities.

My heartfelt thanks to all the shapers, who trusted in my leadership and gave me full support in my endeavours and encouraged me in my ideas.

I welcome the incoming curator and vice curator who will take this AGS journey forward and will bring more accolades and achievements to the hub.

Kumar Manish Curator 2015-2016

Curator’s Note Ahmedabad Global Shapers hub curatorship has been a fantastic journey of learning, unlearning and relearning during last one year. My stint as a curator gave me an opportunity to work in a collaborative way with different set of individuals with different sets of expertise, and with different thought process but all tied with the idea of doing social good.

This year hub was dedicated towards social engagement with economically disadvantaged group, community engagement among different religious group and building local partnership with organization in the city to promote and create awareness on entrepreneur ecosystem in the city.

We were able to organize some One

of the most memorable, gratifying and impactful events in the city.

Ahmedabad hub got selected to organise Shaping Davos, as part of Davos summit in Ahmedabad.

This was a great moment for all the shapers. We all came together and organized a power packed event to nurture and build a vibrant local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This year, we also went deep to strengthen the foundation of Ahmedabad Global Shapers hub.

We dedicated a good amount of time on building our social media presence and engage with likeminded people. We achieved few milestones on social media and that was a huge encouragement for us. We also recruited new shapers through our maiden Young Shapers Initiative to find potential shapers from the city.

I also attended the Annual Curator Meeting(ACM) in Geneva which

was an experience of lifetime.

Meeting 450 young changemakers from all across the world under single roof was an out of world experience. I also got an opportunity to present Ahmedabad hub work at ACM Geneva which was really appreciated there by senior officials and fellow shapers.

The Global Shapers Community is a network of city-based Hubs developed and led by young leaders between 20 and 30 years old who want to develop their leadership potential towards serving society.

To that end, Hubs undertake local projects to improve their communities.

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Annual Curator’s Meeting-2015

Kumar Manish of Ahmedabad Global Shapers(AGS), represented Ahmedabad hub as curator at Annual Curators Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting is was from August 13- August 17, 2015.

The theme of this year ACM was “Shaping”. Shaping is a journey of learning, caring, sharing, listening, disrupting, doing and more!

The community now counts 456 Hubs in cities across the world. Globally, shapers are having impact and changing people’s lives, bringing food and shelter to refugees, helping disaster victims, main streaming sustainability, supporting entrepreneurs and helping young people find experiences that lead to gainful employment.

On the meeting, Kumar said, “It is a privilege to represent Ahmedabad hub at the global meeting and meet with young leaders from across the globe. This will be a melting pot of ideas, culture and beliefs to transform the world for better. It will be also an opportune time to learn and share on how youth engagement can bring transformational change in the cities,”

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“Curators were invited to create impact in the host city of Geneva by serving the local community. Community participated in an array of activities and discussed areas such as agriculture and food security, employment, Skills & Human Capital, Environment & Resource Security and Future of the Internet, Peace-making and security and other related global issues.

Kumar works on sustainable mobility issues, digital media platforms and on crowd funding initiatives

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Joy of Giving Week As part of Daan Utsav, the hub organized a special screening of the much acclaimed film “ I am Kalam”, where APJ Abdul Kalam plays an important role in the life of protagonist of the film Harsh Mayar, a Delhi slum kid in real life for slum kids in Ahmedabad.

None of the kids there have ever heard of APJ Abdul Kalam.

Kalam, also know as the Missile man of India is hugely popular among school kids in India and is revered by all for his inspirational talks. More than 20 slum kids and their family members sat through the one and half hour long film screened at road side cinema by using a projector.

Screening of film “I am Kalam“

The best part was when kids showed enthusiasm for studying and their parents also showed some willingness to send their kids to school after the end of the film ! But it is not an easy task. We hope the film ignites some mind to purse their goal despite all the hardships.

Special thanks to our Young Shapers team for leading the initiative.

This particular project was protectively planned and executed by Young Shapers.

Shapers with the kids for whom the film was screened.

The screening was joined by the parents. These kids are from the slums at Dordarshan Towar, Ahmedabad.

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Adding New Members Young Global Shapers We began the year with building the capacity of the hub as discussed at the Annual Curator’s Meeting, 2015 in Geneva.

One of the problems faced by the hub over last 3 years was adding new shapers in the hub. Bringing new passionate & committed members to the hub based on the exiting selection process which was application and interview was not working as we expected it to be. Our process was capable of getting the best and most inspiring people from the city doing remarkable work for the community. But it was not ensuring their commitment for the hub’s initiatives. This year we came up with new process under Young Shapers Initiative to recruit new shapers. The Young Shapers programe is for three month time period under which selected candidates have to do a small project of their interest and present it to the hub at the end of the programe.

It gave an opportunity to hub to interact with future shapers and they also got to know about the vision and mission of Ahmedabad Hub

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www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Process of Young Shapers Initiative by Ahmedabad Hub for recruiting New Shapers.

1.

Announcement of Young Shapers recruitment process through official hub social media channels.

2.

Scrutiny of application process by a dedicated three member team (Curator, Vice Curator and one Shapers) 3.

The selected Young Shapers list shared with members of the hub for feedbacks.

4.

Inviting selected Young Shapers for a group interview by the hub members.

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The Ahmedabad Shapers evaluate the applicants on pre-defined parameters for selection.

6.

Final selected List of Young Shapers were announced.

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Three Month of probation periods for Young Shapers to do a Project.

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Final presentation of Young Shapers project to Hub afterthree months time.

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Orientation/Immersion session for Selected Shapers.

Out of 10 young shapers, based on their engagement with the hub over three months programe, we have 3 new shapers in the hub: Harmeet Kaur, Sharad Parekh and Minal Mehta.

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Ahmedabad Ni Diwali Ahmedabad Global Shapers and The Heritage Club of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad brought different communities together to celebrate, meet and engage with each other and create dialogues during Diwali celebrations.

It was an effort to create dialogues and rejuvenate the traditions of “Ahmedabad ni Diwali” during Diwali, the festival of light in India. The traditional Gujarati families played hosts with traditional sweets and snacks. People from different communities and different areas of Ahmedabad came to be part of this event and they engaged with others through activities and stories. Festival is for all communities and that’s the beauty of it. We hope with this event that we all celebrate and connect more through it.

Festival are for all communities and that’s the beauty of it. We hope with this event that we all celebrate and connect more through it.

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www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Different Communities Come Together to Celebrate Diwali We had 200 participants from different communities. There were school principals, kids from Orphanage, and families. The event stated with a story sharing session where the participants shared their thoughts about the city and what more can be done to build a more peaceful society and bring the citizens closer to each other.

The kids made a Rangoli, lit up the place with lovely diya and then we all sang our favourite Hindi and Gujarati songs. There was also a drawing competition where the teams had to draw one thing they love the most about the city. The local families brought traditional food which was enjoyed by everyone.

200 participants: Kids from Orphanage, School Principals and Gujarati families

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Shaping Davos Shaping Davos summit in Ahmedabad focused on bringing diverse perspectives from emerging sectors for nurturing entrepreneurship and crucial for shaping jobs.

Shaping Davos summit in Ahmedabad focused on bringing diverse perspectives from emerging sectors for nurturing entrepreneurship and crucial for shaping jobs. The speakers cum panellists shared insights about entrepreneurial opportunities in Indian Railways, Defence sector, social enterprise, women entrepreneurship, rural entrepreneurship, government of Gujarat schemes and new start up assistance scheme policy in which Ahmedabad Global Shapaer have contributed immensely. Also, bringing the role of mentors in supporting young entrepreneurs.

The event started with all the speakers speaking for 7-10 minutes on opportunities and challenges in their respective fields for entrepreneurship. Later, they all participated in a panel discussion moderated by Founding Curator of Ahmedabad.

Also shared the initial findings of survey conducted

by Ahmdedabad shapers to understand the local ecosystem in the city to support entrepreneurs. .

Afterwards, it was followed by interaction & questions and answers with the audience. The event got over with a thank u note to all the participants followed 10 by networking opportunity over high tea.

Audience : The audience had a mix of aspiring entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, students, local youth community leaders, academicians, social sector representatives and business professionals. More than 200 participants attended the event.

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Shaping Entrepreneurship in Ahmedabad The activity brought all the stakeholders on a single platform that are committed to nurture and support entrepreneurship in Ahmedabad. It also projected Ahmedabad as new destination for startups in India.

This event also inspired a huge number of young entrepreneurs to explore Indian Railways and Defence sector for entrepreneurial opportunities. This was a great shift from mobile based and e-commerce platforms which are getting launched in Ahmedabad.

This was also an opportunity for Government of Gujarat to share updates on “Start Up Assistance Schemes�under which they are providing monetary support, incubation support and monthly sustenance allowance for the selected young entrepreneurs.

Launch of survey dedicated to understand the local ecosystem which will be submitted to Government of Gujarat for strengthening startup policy.

The issues : Lack of mentorship available in the city which is crucial for the growth of a student as job creator than just a job seeker.

Government support for infrastructure facilities to the young entrepreneurs was also discussed.

Rural entrepreneurship need to be priorities and supported well by creating incubation hubs in villages and similar hub like system in different villages in the Gujarat.

Entrepreneurs have to go beyond mobile and e-commerce platform but to explore sectors like Railways, Defense and social sector for new enterprises.

We submitted a survey finding on local ecosystem to be submitted to Government of Gujarat for policy changes to support & accelerate the entreprenmeual initiatives in the city of Ahmedabad .

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Ignite Talks Anders Indset is a business philosopher , seria entrepreneur , management-thinker and sought after speaker in the field of leadership, branding and innovation. We had a great learning session with Anders at Venture Studio, Ahmedabad.

Anders mainly talked about German management style and focused on the words ‘mensch’ and ‘ubermensch’.

Mensch means human being. Ubermensch means super human being.

His talk was mainly built around understanding from where are we coming and where are we heading towards. We need to learn from the history. He cited about the qualities of Barbarian Vikings which made them world famous despite of being very small group of people. They were very real and authentic.

The biggest innovation – Printing press, took place about 600 years ago where the cost of publishing went down. The speed of change is quite fast. Thereafter, industrial revolution happened wherein physical activities were put into machines.

He made a very important point about the economy by stating that Germany has trade surplus of 24 Billion Euros, however India is running into trade deficit of 135 Billion Euros.

He also explained the concept of Hidden Champions who are the real reason behind Germany’s superb economy. Hidden champions are those who are responsible for the greatest things but remain behind the veil.

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www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Meet The Leaders Sessions

Ahmedabad Shapers meeting with Hanmantrao Gaikwad, a rags to riches story.

Gaikwad, chairman and managing director of India’s largest housekeeping firm, the Rs 1,000-crore Bharat Vikas Group (BVG), took pride in himself from an early age. Son of Ramdas, a Pune sessions court clerk, he would sell fruit at Pune’s railway station to supplement the family income. Their struggles increased when his father passed away in 1990, but his mother took a loan of Rs 15,000 for him to study BTech at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune.

The IgniteTalk was well received by the Audience of close to 80 people and lot of networking also happened post the talk and innovative ideas were discussed.

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A city like Ahmedabad has more than 15 Olympic size pools operated by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and many other public and private pools. But most of them are not conducive for women swimmers, women swimming timings are only between 3 to 5 p.m. Realizing that the basic civic amenities are not accessible to women and men equally in #Ahmedabad. AGS decided to take this up as a project. In this project we are going to mobilize the women/families, create awareness, approach the Municipal authorities and systematically work towards getting conducive swimming timing for working women and families.

All the other cities (Mumbai, Pune, Baroda, Bangalore) only women timing are in the afternoon.

But Working women have access to swimming pools in these cities as they go in common(men and women batch) batches.

In Ahmedabad we have no common timings for swimming pool. Men and women can not swim together. As a result, women are left with only afternoon timings.

We conducted a survey, approached authorities in the Municipal corporation departments, mobilized media to write about the issue. Our efforts resulted in sensitizing the citizens with the problem and soon we were joined by many women in our initiative.

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Media coverage in local news-paper, DNA

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Impact of the Project

Due to our collective efforts, Eklavya Sports Academy, Thaltej started a late evening batch for women swimmers clubbed with kids learning batch. This could be a good start as we can ask other AMC pools to combine kids and women batch together giving us more flexibility in timings. Eventually we want common timings for all, where men, women and kids can learn and swim together in municipal swimming pools.

Small steps towards a bigger change.

Common timings for kids and women in 1 swimming pool Participation of women grows to 6 times, 142 members ine Facebook Group, 112 response on survey done for getting family timings in municipal swimming pools 15

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Menstrual Education in Low Cost Schools in Rural Gujarat Menstrual health program was funded by Nirav Modi Foundation after one of our shaper meet Nirav Modi at Summer Davos, 2014.

Our hub distributed 1000 free Menstrupedia Comics. Shaper Aditi conducted workshops on periods to 12 school caterning to low income group and 4 villages in Gujarat.

Periods are a taboo topic and in our school text books, it is not explained well. Also teachers feel shy talking about the subject to their students.

One of the main reason of existence of the taboo is the fact that our curriculum fails to explain the biological aspect of the process. We can deal with the taboo if girls and women are able to make the connection between science and this essential biological aspect that their body goes through every months.

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Ahmedabad Global Shapers Stciker behind each book those were distributed for free.

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

DIY Science Kits For Periods

Monica worked on a quick science kit and tested it with some 100 girls during our interactions. We developed a DIY prototype of the kit using clay and every day stuff.

Enabling people to experience the science behind menstruation would be one of the most crucial step in tackling the stigma around periods. This will make the subject taboo free and would be a great step towards fighting the myths and misconception around periods and hence remove the discrimination against females during their periods. Girls will stop looking at their body as a dirty vessel and would be more confident about themselves and their bodies.

Girls loved learning the science behind periods using the kit, we shall continue developing this kit further.

Girls at GLS School in Ahmedabad learning the biology behind periods using the DIY science kit.

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Shaper at Annual Meeting of New Champions Ahmedabad Shaper, Sneh Bhavsar was awarded New Champion at World Economic Forum’s AMNC 2015 at Dalian, China Global Shaper from Ahmedabad Hub and the Vice Curator, Sneh Bhavsar attends Annual Meeting of New Champions 2015 at Dalian, China. The conference which brings more than 1600 participants from across the world belonging to different communities of the World Economic Forumby Founding Curator of Ahmedabad.

He draws his experience of attending a 3 day event in a business port of China, Dalian. Let’s hear Sneh’s experience in his own words: “It was my first forum event and the most interesting part was I didn’t meet any of the participants or the persons ever before. I didn’t have much idea until I discovered the overwhelming opportunity to interact and meet some of the best leaders from across the world. Three days, hoping sessions to sessions, people to people, getting inspired, making conversations, meeting the role models! Aah, was just too much to take in a very short time.

The host city was equipped with amazing venues, facilities and volunteers to guide us through every event. Private sessions with Jack Ma (Alibaba), Tony Fernandes (Air Asia) and meeting Ron Gutman (Healthtap, USA – who is personally my role model) – were the invaluable times I spent at AMNC. 18

One of the most moving experience was the Clouds over Sidra – a virtual reality experience where we put on these gadget on our eyes and we are right there, in Syria, playing amongst children, sitting a bakery, looking at the people and looking into their lives that close! It was choking. I think this can allow the chance for every one to look into others’ lives, and how we can just erase the judgmental assumptions, disliking or hatred for anyone in this world. Truly inspiring!

Meeting shapers from all across the world was an un-matchable experience! Can’t really explain… In a few hours it felt like we went to college together.

The culture of being a global shaper is so powerful, communities can come closer in no time.

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Shaper at Annual Meeting at Davos

Aditi Gupta, Shaper and co-founder at Menstrupedia represented the youth of Ahmedabad at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos-Klosters, Switzerland on 20th January. Aditi gave voice to local concerns at a global platform by participating in strategic discussions around women’s health and women’s rights in the year’s biggest conclave of world leaders and influencers like Satya Nadella and Sharan Burrow.

Aditi was selected as one of the 50 shapers around the world, who were part of this year’s annual meet.

Moderating Meet The Leader Session With Melinda Gates

Media coverage of the participation

Interview with HuffPost Women at Davos

Aditi Gupta had the honour of moderating a “Meet The Leader” session with Melinda Gates during World Economic ForumForum Annual meeting at Davos.

Melinda shared her leadership journey, her challenge of working with women health, and how can Global Shapers contribute to her vision of “All lives have equal values”.

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Documentation of Davos Experience

I grew up in plains and have always lived in a tropical climate. When I reached Switzerland, everything I could see was cold (only the temperature). I could survive the sub zero temperature because of the group hugs that I got from fellow shapers. In fact, group Hugs are the reason I survived Davos

“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”

-Frida Kahlo

My biggest take away from the Conference was this: Seeing the world by standing on the shoulders of giants.

The question is, who are you preparing your shoulder for?

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Learnings from meet the leader session with Canada’s Prime Minister- Justin Trudeau

www.ahmedabadglobalshapers.org

Gandhi Change Grant (GCG) was started at the first edition of Shape South Asia in 2014 by the Ahmedabad Hub of Global Shapers Community. As the summit was themed around Gandhian ways of solving problems, it was an apt occasion to recognize such initiatives by South Asian hubs.

Gandhian ideology is not a rigid, inflexible doctrine, but a set of beliefs and principles which are applied differently according to historical and social settings.

Although there are elements of unity in Gandhi’s thought, they are not reduced to a system. Interpretation of the principles underwent much evolution during Gandhi’s lifetime. In coming to grips with Gandhi’s way of thinking it is most important to understand that the perception of truth is an ongoing process of refinement which is evolutionary in nature.

Gandhi Change Grant (GCG) was started at the first edition of Shape South Asia in 2014 by the Ahmedabad Hub of Global Shapers Community. As the summit was themed around Gandhian ways of solving problems, it was an apt occasion to recognize such initiatives by South Asian hubs.

GCG recognized the hub projects which worked towards sustainable solutions which contributes to the welfare of human beings.

Continuing the Gandhi Change Award would be encouraging for many impact-oriented initiatives taken up by the Shapers across South Asia. After the massive earthquake in Nepal – the Kathmandu hub has shown resilience and organized Shape South Asia 2015 with the theme of “Building Sustainable Cities: Disaster Risk, Recovery and Rehabilitation”.

Gandhi Change Award, and encourage hubs from around the South Asian region to apply for the Award with projects targeted to addressing the issues of Urban SDG, on how to make our cities sustainable, inclusive, and healthy.

We are looking for projects & initiatives from South Asian Global Shapers communities that will be working towards achieving the 17 sustainable development goals for year 2030. The project must be addressing at least one goal among 17 SDGs to qualify for the final selection process for Gandhi Change Award 2015.

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Global Shapers at our hub

Aditi Gupta

Hiranmay Mahanta

Kanan Dhru

Ketan Rava

Gujarat Technical University

Research Foundation for Governance in India

Kumar Manish

Monica Yadav

Nirmeet Kacheria

Prakshal Mehta

Pranav Daure

Sneh Bhavsar

Sunil Parekh

Tanmay Desai

Wricha Johri

Minal Mehta

Sharad Parekh

Harmeet Kaur

Co-Founder Menstrupedia

Communication and Digital Media Strategist

Founder & Director H iddenstroke Film Production Pvt. Ltd.

Founder Penpals

Innovation Council

Founder, Respire Experiential Learning

Co-Founder Oo Womaniya

Founder B. Minal and Co.

Co-Founder Guardian Glass Pvt. Ltd.

Founding Curator Innovation Incubator

Straut Renewables Pvt. Ltd.

Nurturer Lets Nurture

Co-Founder World Around You

Co-Founder Magnet

Co-Founder The Pink Foundation