Meeting the Indian Ambassador

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of meeting The Honorable A.R. Ghanashyam, Deputy Consul General, Consulate General of India, New York. His presentation was entitled Doing Business In India. At left is a picture of us together after speaking on matters of international relations and business. At the far left in the picture are fellow members of IBG, Rain and Ashley, and at far right is Karolina Kotas, its president. It was such an amazing opportunity to speak with him one on one. The last line of the man's resume reads something akin to "secured the release of 200+ hostages from an Air India liner hijacked by terrorists." Our conversations ranged from the role of population control in economic development to how India is outsourcing call centres to the Phillippeans because even the Indians are getting sick of telemarketing.

Other presenters included Ms. Alpa Patel, Esquire, of Hiscock & Barclay, LLP, who spoke on Cultural and Legal Aspects of Business In India, John Tracy of Mohawk Global Logistics, who spoke on Logistics and Infrastructure, I.C. Shah, President of ICS Telecom, Inc, who spoke on The Rochester Business Experience, and Dr. Intekhab Alam, a professor of marketing at SUNY Geneseo, whose presentation Tying it All Together included fascinating pictures of the foods McDonalds markets in India. Have you ever heard of a McAloo sandwich or the Maharaja Mac?

Over lunch, the entire panel was joined by Mr. Carlos Carballada, the Commissioner of Economic Development for the City of Rochester. Several of my readers will be pleased to know I enlightened him as to the dearth of things for youths under 21 to do in this city, and the fact that because they tend to live with or recieve significant support from their parents, they actually do spend a significant amount of the money they earn!

Finally, I cannot forget to thank Ms. Sharon Badenhop for once again including students like yours truly, from local universities, in this a event. She is included to my immediate right in the picture at right. The next presentation will be entitled Negotiating Across Borders, and will occur on October 24 at the Strathallan Hotel on East Ave.

For more information, visit the IRG's website. IRG: http://www.irgnet.org/

The Alzheimer's Memory Walk '06

Today, I captained the Lowenthal Coalition of Teams in the Alzheimer's Association's Annual Memory Walk. The Coalition was composed of members of the usual Lowenthal Service Group, but this year also included members of the Business Leaders of Tomorrow special interest floor, as well as the Alpha Phi Omega chapter at Alfred University. This was the first time Lowenthal partnered with a group outside RIT for the walk. The entire event itself pulled in over $62,000 for the Alzheimer's Association. Our team had 22 members and raised over $2900. I raised $2325 of that amount personally. This made it 3.75% of the total raised by the walk. This was a tremendous increase over the amount I pulled in last year, $1800. Next year, I'm setting the personal bar at $2500. I think it would even be fun to try and generate a large amount of money for an account, and set up a perpetuity to make an annual donation automatically. Setting goals is so important for motivation when it comes to this sort of thing. It's always a pleasure to serve this worthy cause in memory of my father. It also gets the name of the E. Philip Saunders College of Business out there as serving the community.

I want to take a moment and give a special thanks to my committed team! That lunch after the walk was well deserved. Excellent work!