Before I met the inspiring Jagriti Yatra team, I was your average “bindaas” girl who was caught up in a busy schedule that revolved around work and friends. My friend introduced me to the concept of Jagriti Yatra after attending the Yatra launch on the eve of India’s Independence Day. After hearing about the concept and meeting the team, I was tremendously inspired by their vision of empowering the youth of India by awakening their spirit of entrepreneurship and urging them to define their own destiny and the future of India through their entrepreneurial efforts.

I am inspired by this effort to make a difference to the society we live in. It has changed my entire perspective and lead me to staunchly believe that I as an individual can make a difference. The positivism of the team as well as their belief that each individual has the capacity to bring about change instigated me to think positively and find ways that I can contribute to this great effort. Imagine the potential of being on a 16 day train journey with 400 likeminded individuals who are fired by the same zeal and enthusiasm- I see limitless potential ahead of us.   Together, we can define the future of our nation.

Frankly speaking, I would never have gathered courage on my own to even dream of such an ambitious journey for youth to bring about positive change through a train yatra across India to meet real heroes and learn from bottom-up innovators and entrepreneurs who are changing, challenging and redefining India today. Today, I am inspired to dream big and have the wings to dream and aspire towards contributing to India’s future.

Before getting involved in Jagriti yatra, my thinking was limited much like that of the common man battling the everyday urdles of life. Like the majority of youth, I admired the Tata’s and Ambani’s from afar for their long hard journey to success. Films of a patriotic nature such as Rang De Basanti and Lagaan had a fleeting impression on me rather than inspire me to think about how I could contribute towards the building of my nation. We are so caught up in our daily schedules that we ignore the greater mission of our life – to achieve something that touches the lives of others and make a lasting impact long after we are gone rather than remain caught up in a net of day to day personal issues. Life is too short, if seen in limited focus of living from day to day.

As the population grows, an economy has to provide more jobs, more goods and services for the growing population. Copying others won’t help. People these days are so afraid of taking risks, of taking an innovative approach to beating competition because we are unwilling to give it a shot for fear of failure. One forgets the dictum that “if there is a will that is a way”. We need to acknowledge risk and yet dare to dream big. We can find answers to the challenges of today if we have self-confidence and are willing to think of innovative and creative solutions. I believe that if have confidence in our ability to innovate, no power can stop us from achieving our dreams.

 Jagriti Yatra boosts the confidence of budding young yatris to innovate, to think out of the box and dare to take calculated risks. Innovation is fundamental to being a successful entrepreneur. I think Jagriti Yatra will cultivate entrepreneurs amongst the participants by empowering them with a vision, self belief and the freedom to dream.  India needs entrepreneurs to create wealth and sustain the current level of growth. Entrepreneurs have the power to drive the future development of this country at a pace that has not been seen before.

 Learning a subject in a classroom setting has little impact. Jagriti Yatra gives us the opportunity to meet and learn in a practical manner from entrepreneurs in their “karma bhoomi”- those who have made a difference. Each Yatri will explore their own ideas, and develop their latent potential for innovation by meeting real entrepreneurs face-to-face and learning from the experience of the real heroes when they started out in their incarnation as an entrepreneur. The main aim of the journey is to get Yatri’s to think in a systematic way pertaining to all the aspects of innovation and in turn entrepreneurship.

Through this yatra I feel each participant will get to discover the entrepreneur in themselves by learning to explore their passion, dream big, innovate upon their ideas for change, explore opportunities within risks, the role of leadership and team work and the ability to think outside the box. This is a key life skill and I recommend it highly to each one of you. Come, be a part of a new generation of change makers.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Jagriti Yatra. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.