By Azeem
This week saw the 23 IIC fellows reuniting for a 4-day training series run by the IIC core team. The five teams (Mission Garima in Mumbai, EPIC in Mumbai, Millenium Alliance in Delhi, QIP Haryana, and CCE Rajasthan) of the ‘15-’16 IIC cohort got the chance to take in some of the grey, copper-tasting Delhi air while enjoying workshops and guest lectures at the University of Chicago Centre in Delhi.
The first day consisted primarily of trainings for the QIP Haryana and CCE Rajasthan teams, but a guest lecture with Rick Rossow brought the full cohort of fellows into the same room for the first time. Mr. Rossow, a senior fellow and Wadhwani Chair in US/India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, gave his perspective on the obstacles and opportunities that Indian policy presents to international investors and businesses. A fiery Q&A session proved to be enlightening, with several fellows staying back to speak individually with Mr. Rossow after his talk ended.
The following days held a variety of things in store for our team. Housekeeping meetings with the core team, a negotiations lecture and training session with a Booth professor, and a talk on national-level medical interventions with Dr. Varun Vij on his work as the Indian program leader for PATH were all opportunities afforded to our team. There was also a theme of preparing and framing our work this year in preparation for our future careers. Nicole of the IIC core team ran a workshop that, amongst other things, stressed the importance of both following your interests as well as thinking retrospectively to help create a narrative when talking about your work history.
This was also a time for the fellows to crowdsource on how to overcome obstacles that had come up in their work. In addition to core-team led workshops, Rhythm and Janey also organized an informal session amongst the fellows that allowed people to both air frustrations and solicit advice candidly fashion. All of the fellows attended and the conversations seemed to get pretty in-depth so I think we can reliably chart up that session up to a success. Even more exciting: the topic came up of the fellows organizing and hosting a conference of our own, in which we’d be able to solicit speakers and create panels on topics that are very targeted to our interests. If this moves forward we’ll definitely be sure to get the word out about it - it could definitely be an exciting event!
All in all, I think I can say the MG fellows came back somewhat recharged and ready to tackle our work with new energy and, hopefully, from new angles as well. We’ll keep you posted.
