With the vision of constantly engaging with young leaders, the School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) has organized several interactive sessions this year for school and college students as well as young professionals.
On January 22, 2011, young enthusiasts came together for a Career Workshop to achieve more clarity on the best possible career paths.
The workshop began with an introduction by Anil Sachdev, founder of SOIL, welcoming the students to discover themselves and make one of the most important decisions in their lives choosing the right career opportunity. The ice breaker session saw the participants engrossed in presenting cross role-play activity by pairing up with the participant sitting next to them. This introductory session set the stage for the interactive day ahead.
The next part was that of Appreciative Inquiry, an approach that solves problems by focusing on what is going right rather than what is going wrong. This session was used to help discover the strengths and desires of the participants. The Six circles model was also explained to understand the higher purpose of life, wherein on the outer periphery are the five senses and the core is the I.
The next session was with Arunav Banerjee, Chair of the HR Leadership Program at SOIL. This focused on various psychological aspects and he also explained the Whole Brain Model that is used to understand facts, form, future and feelings of a person. This helped the students draw a mind map for themselves.
SOIL then organized a youth forum on February 2 called Meeting of Minds, where young achievers were invited to share their journey with others. The event began with an Opening Circle, where all the participants came together, joined hands and shared their thoughts. Some offered prayers while others shared why they were present and how they connected with the event.
The tone of the session was set by Anil Sachdev, who shared his thoughts about the purpose of life through his own stories and experiences. This was followed by young speakers talking about how they were making a difference to the world through their chosen career paths. Whether it was Ishita, founder of the YP foundation, who was working with young people in the area of human rights or Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, founder of the Viewspaper, an online newspaper for the youth to express their opinions, every speaker shared their journey in their own unique ways. The participants were delighted to speak to experienced people who were consciously giving back to society – Prem Kumar Raja, founder of Nightangles Medical Trust which is providing medical care to old people in and around Bangalore and Jerininio Almeida, founder of ICONGO, who gave the participants a wakeup call and helped them understand that democracy is not only about enjoying and exercising rights but also about performing our responsibilities. Amidst all these eminent speakers and young achievers there was a young 9th grade student, the winner of our previous event Xpressions. She left us all inspired with her sheer passion for human rights and doing something of significance for the world.
With these forums behind us, SOIL is proud to host our Annual Inspired Leadership conference, the theme for which is Peaceful Asia. Prosperous Asia. Since we spend most of our working hours at work, organizations play a big role in shaping values of our society and therefore it is time for the business fraternity to think and act on the idea of peace for it may be too late if we fail to realize right now that The Business of Business is Peace.
SOIL is privileged to have realized this urgency and is humbly playing its role as the initiator of conversations that bring about peace in Asia. The Inspired Leadership Conference 2011 will bring together more than 200 inspired citizens from various walks of life including leading Corporate firms, B-schools, Young citizens, Government representatives and the non-profit sector to share their perspectives on the nature of peace, the process through which it can be acquired and the reasons we desire peace.
Speakers who have confirmed their presence are,
Swami Nikhilananda ji, Chinmaya Mission
Bharat Wakhlu, Resident Director for Public Affairs for the Tata Group
Syed Nazakat, Senior Correspondent, The Week
Lt Gen Rakesh Loomba, Second in command to the Chief of Army staff
Prof Yoshikubo, Shibaura Graduate School of Engg Management, Japan
A significant part of the day will be devoted to Open Spaces. We will explore our theme by opening space for participants to self-organize around whatever key questions they feel are relevant and want to propose. Our methodology, Open Space Technology, is used world-wide for challenging transformational work by many businesses and organizations including The Boeing Company, Microsoft, ATT and others.
SOIL has chosen to take the road less travelled. Do you have what it takes to take this road?
(Note: This is a sponsored article and has NOT been written by the PaGaLGuY Editorial Team. It is intended from an informational perspective only and it is upto the readers to research and verify the claims and judgments in the article before reaching a conclusion.)