sahil parikh’s work+life stream

I was recently selected as one of the fellows for the Paragon100 foundation.

Looking forward to interacting with other young entrepreneurs from the Asia Pacific region!

About the Program The Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship (FYSE) is a regional organization with the aim to inspire and empowering young people to become entrepreneurs. By building an entrepreneurial environment for young people we support them to realize their ideas, to make a positive impact on their society and to gain valuable soft skills while doing so. We believe young people in Asia have the passion and potential to succeed as an entrepreneur, all they need is further encouragement and support to turn ideas into successful ventures. By providing a range of tailored support including our regional youth entrepreneurship campaign, and entrepreneurship and social innovation training that is youthful, exciting and dynamic we aim to inspire youth to take actions now, no matter how big or small their actions might be.

The profile of the Paragon 100 fellows includes young entrepreneurs and social changemakers of up to 30 years of age who are an inspiration to other young people. Paragon 100 members are young people who dared to stride out by setting up their own business, social enterprise, NGO or sustainable project. They have overcome challenges by realizing their vision and believing in themselves.

See profiles of all 100 fellows here - http://www.paragon100.asia

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In the last couple of months I have been meeting journalists from Indian publications and news channels as they have become eager to know more about the startup/internet/web 2.0-type culture here in India. Startups have more energy and are more interesting to cover and are moving quickly in the Indian entreprenership space. There are several news channels devoting stories just for startups and innovative technologies. Very cool. Though, Friday evening was something very different.

My wife and I were fortunate to meet Edward Iwata (bio at the end of the article), an award-winning journalist, blogger and author from Silicon Valley. Edward was down on a one-week trip to Mumbai to research his book Fusion Leaders: How Cross-Cultural Executives & Entrepreneurs are Changing the U.S. & World Economy (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2010), and to attend the Asian Venture Capital Journal private-equity & venture conference (www.asianventure.com) at the Grand Hyatt. We met at the Willingdon Sports Club at Mahalaxmi over some Indian chaat, dosas and juice. Edward was very interested in knowing more about the Indian startup culture, entrepreneurship in India, cross-border business models, management styles, marketing strategies that could be different from the Western-style business practices of a generation ago. I have always been very fascinated with the people from the U.S. (since I lived there for almost 8 years) and their quest for knowing more and their ability to inquire, question and dive deep into other cultures. I was very excited to meet Edward as he was from the Valley - a place where I would be living had I not moved back to India.  Though the Silicon Valley-type startup culture might not come here entirely very soon I see 2009 as being the year of innovative Indian startup companies building global businesses and products and moving up the value chain from just being a country of outsourcers and inexpensive labor. Edward was kind enough to publish our talk and a bit about my company on Venture Beat -Indian innovation thriving despite downturn and terrorism, the popular Silicon Valley blog that is ranked on the Technorati 100 and on his personal blog Cool Global Biz - Young entrepreneurs bring startup culture to Mumbai, India. The same story is now also syndicated by New York Times - Technology.

About Edward Iwata: Edward Iwata is an award-winning journalist, the blogger of CoolGlobalBiz.com, and the author of a forthcoming book on business, diversity and globalization (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2010). He’s a former staff reporter and contributor to USA Today, the old Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. Ed has covered business and the economy, the Pacific Rim, the technology industry, legal and regulatory issues, cultural and diversity subjects and other topics.

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Here are some pictures of the launch of the E cell Magazine ' E-Spire'  at Dr. D Y. Patil University , Dept. Of Business Management, Mumbai last Monday Feb 9th 2009. I was invited to give a brief talk on my experience as an entrepreneur and also to launch their new website and magazine. There were about 100 students in the audience and its was amazing to see that colleges/universtities are now taking up entreprenership seriously. All along, its been - goto college and then get a well paying, secure job. Now, I see it as - goto college, start a thriving business and change the world. Super!

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