Yuva Summit 2016


Yuvasummit Speakers 2015 The 6th Yuva Summit, an international youth conference on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship hosted by the Leaders Accelerating Development program, began in Hubballi on 6th February with over one thousand attendees, including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and honored guests.

The day began with LEAD Talks, whereby seven stand-out young LEADers from across India, these young leaders inspired the audience of not only their peers, but their elders too. The LEADers shared their stories, including both their challenges and successes, to the packed auditorium of 500+. Featured leaders were Chetan Upadhya (SDM College of Ayurveda), Supriya Runwal (A.S. Patil College of Commerce), Yuvaraj Patil (COLLEGE), Manjunath Gogi (KLEIT), Naveenkumar H P (BVBCET), Chanukya (MVGR College of Engineering), and Alysha Tharani (Founder of RAW Dreams).

The afternoon also saw many notable role models take the stage to inspire the attendees. Mr. Shekhar Gupta, the leading columnist associated with The Indian Express, conducted a short surprise session for the Yuva Summit audience. Prodea Systems Co-Founder and Chairwoman Ms. Anousheh Ansari, and also the first private female space traveller, graced the stage and captured the audience with her passion for space and her determination to make her dreams come true. She told the audience, “things are changing so fast that it really allows us to make a difference”, words that couldn’t echo better than to this group of young aspiring changemakers. The next speaker, Mr. Narayana Murthy, Chairman Emeritus of Infosys, earned a standing ovation before even speaking and conducted a question and answer session with the eager audience. “It’s only entrepreneurs that can turn their ideas into jobs for others” was only one among a myriad of quotable moments with the business and IT legend.

The Faculty Panel session featured Dr. H C Chaudary (Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi), Dr. Sudil Jain (IIT Gandhinagar), and Dr. Suchil Vachani (IIM Bengaluru) were the esteemed faculty guests of the panel, and also featured stand-out LEAD faculty co-ordinators Prof. Harshit Kulkarni (KLS Gogte Institute of Technology) and Dr. Jayashri Nagaralli (A.A. Patil Women’s College Chikodi). The panel primarily discussed the ways in which colleges can help support leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation training. Immediately following this panel, IIM Bangalore offered a session about MOOC’s (massive open online courses), demonstrating the potential of online learning.

Throughout the day at Yuva Summit, 60+ of the top LEAD projects of the year (chosen from over 2,400 total) were exhibited on the event grounds. After the Youth for Change Rally walk to the Taj Gateway, 10 LEAD students, 2 colleges, and 1 faculty were given awards by the night’s legends: Ms. Anousheh Ansari, Ms. Malathi Holla, Mr. Narayana Murthy, Prof. Muhummad Yunus, Mr. Shekhar Gupta, and Mr. Gururaj Deshpande. In front of a crowd of more than 4,500 students, faculty, entrepreneurs, leaders of their fields, and special guests, these individuals were brought to stage to have their projects and positive impacts celebrated.

Gogte Institute of Technology Belagavi was the winner of the Best Supporting College Award. With over 650 students participating in LEAD and extensive support for the program from the top of the college, GIT’s decision to make LEAD a part of the curriculum is creating big waves of positive impact in Belagavi.

Raibag Polytechnic was the winner of the Best Performing College award. With over 160 students involved in LEAD and over 350 projects this year alone, Raibag Polytechnic’s decision to allot a computing lab to the LEAD students in order to better their research abilities and technical access for their projects is paying off with huge benefits to the community.

Dr. Jayashree Nagaralli from Smt. A.A. Patil Women’s College Chikodi was the winner of Best Faculty 2016 award. Dr. Nagaralli has worked tirelessly to inspire the young ladies at her college to go out into the community and make a difference. 50+ students and 100+ projects have gotten involved; including three students who created a project also awarded a Best LEADer award at the night’s ceremony. Dr. Nagaralli personally mentors and “leads from behind” to help the young ladies gain confidence and unleash their leadership potential.

Soujanya, Dipika, and Deepali from Smt. A.A. Patil Women’s College Chikodi, were winners of a Best LEADer 2016 award. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, under the Clean India Mission, makes toilets available to villagers who apply for them. However, Soujanya, Dipika & Deepali from Smt. A. A. Patil Women’s College noticed the implementation of scheme was extremely slow, partly because of hesitation and lack of knowledge of the villagers. Soujanya and her team went door-to-door in nearby villages, educating about sanitation and helping the villagers apply for a toilet as well as holding rallies to garner support. Thanks to the team’s canvassing and following up to make sure the toilets were built, over 250 toilets have been installed, with the goal of 400 well in sight. This has generated a worth value of Rs.30 Lac from the government to the village people.

Harish D from Veershaiva College Bellary, was a winner of a Best LEADer 2016 award. Harish took up an initiative to create awareness about new techniques for farmers. Harish and his team created awareness for close to 500 farmers. With the help of John Deere Tractor and SBI bank, he helped 10 farmers to take out loans for equipment’s creating a worth value of 46 lacs and in which he was able convince the company’s to give a discount of 14 lacs on the equipment purchased.

Priyanka Dey from Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, was a winner of a Best LEADer 2016 award. Priyanka D has a passion for improving the education of underprivileged children. Teaching them the value of education as well as basic skills such as hygiene and health, Priyanka is awakening a love for learning in poor children and encouraging them to follow an academic path. Thanks to her efforts, the school in which she has been running her project in has dedicated a part of the schoolhouse to her. There are 57 students now who are getting tuitions, 7 have been sent back to school, and 12 students have joined school for the first time.

Ramesh Vaddodagi from MSW College Bagalkot, was a winner of a Best LEADer 2016 award. Ramesh started Child Bank, which allows village children to start saving their pocket money, when he realized many children had no concept of finances. The children are given a passbook that acts as identification and savings tracker, and phone numbers to call Ramesh and obtain their savings when required. Children can withdraw not only saved money but also four to five times of their balance, and this project has now started being used by women in the village as well. 15 kids so far collected 15 thousand and youth 12-18 contributed 7200 thousand.

Santosh Patil from Jain College of Engineering, was a winner of a Best LEADer 2016 award. Producing several projects for application in his village, Santosh Patil has turned his village into a model for how youth leadership and innovation can make big changes. His projects include an organic pesticide made from an extract in a weed normally tossed away as waste, a library of books Santosh and his team got donated to them, and applying radium bands to the railway boom after an initial survey. Apart from all this he has been an inspiration and channel for his juniors to the path of leadership; he has inspired 400+ students from his own college and has been continuously helping and supporting his junior in all the projects.

Supriya Runwal from A.S. Patil College of Commerce was a Best LEADer 2016 awardees. After only joining LEAD months prior, she has built an incredibly successful project. By selling low-cost saplings door-to-door, she informed constituents about the value of growing their own fruits and vegetables and raised 18,000 Rs. that have been put towards developing 1.5 acres of barren land into an organic farm for Bijapur Orphanage that will provide healthy food for years to come.

Yuva Summit was anchored by An Evening with Legends, where the six legends on stage shared their knowledge, passion, and inspiration for making a difference. Inspiring stories and anecdotes from their personal and professional lives filled their time and stage and offered a glimpse of success across many fields from the thousands in the audience. And with that, the 6th Yuva Summit concluded under Hubballi’s night sky.