Scholarship / I have used networking to promote and advance peer-to-peer learning. Scholarship writing [5]

Hi all, came across this forum just a few days ago. It will be very helpful if you all can review my networking essay for the Chevening Scholarship and give me some feedback!

Thanks in advance.
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Networking Essay for Chevening

I have used networking to promote and advance peer-to-peer learning. During the YIF, I viewed every interaction as an opportunity to learn from peers, professors, and alumni. My biggest learning about social enterprises and business models came from Deep Kalra, CEO of MakeMyTrip who I met at an informal breakfast gathering. At that time, I was building Karmaara, my social enterprise at the intersection of handicrafts, skill building and livelihoods. Mr. Kalra, drawing from his interest in skills training and job creation, explained the importance of scalability and replicability of a business model to ensure higher success and impact. This helped me focus my thinking and ideate on a robust, well-rounded model for Karmaara, and is a lesson I use today while evaluating social enterprises applying to Villgro's incubation programs. Such peer-to-peer learning will be amplified through interactions with fellow Chevening scholars, given the focus of bringing together students from a variety of departments and universities. I envision long and fruitful interactions with fellow scholars to gain learnings I can tangibly apply to my work post my course.

Additionally, networking has helped me build connections that enable me grow professionally and personally by initiating long-lasting and prosperous relationships. At Villgro, I was chosen to design a special program, the Technical Assistance Pool, to create a network of service providers and resources from Legal, Finance, to Product Design and Patent Licensing to assist Villgro's portfolio companies. I actively solicited recommendations for such service provides from entrepreneurs, peers, mentors, and leaders in this field, conducted an active due diligence on these recommendations and engaged with appropriate providers to build an active Technical Assistance Pool network. In less than a year, I had signed on 15 such partners. These partners have gone on to work with 25 of Villgro's portfolio companies since. Forging strong relationships within the Chevening Scholars' community will not only expand my own base of knowledge but also allow me to better support the young businesses I will work with by enabling me to connect them with the right mentors and networks to scale their businesses.

And finally, giving back is crucial to keep the networking cycle alive. I was recently chosen to participate in the Tamil Nadu Young Thinkers' Forum 2017, an independent association of youth committed to the betterment of the social and economic ecosystem of Tamil Nadu and India. Through this forum, I interacted with several youths working on innovative solutions to counter poverty in Tamil Nadu. I was approached by a Senior Bureaucrat in Goa's Cabinet to help him draft a special social entrepreneurship policy for Goa, given my experience with social enterprises and impact. Giving time outside of my work, I co-created the first draft of this idea with the officer and enabled him to build a strong, mature policy to present to his cabinet. I look forward to collaborating and assisting my fellow Chevening Scholars to enable them to give the best to their work and personal lives.

Scholarship / "One day, I'll own a company larger than FabIndia." Leadership essay [2]

Hi all, thank you for the feedback on the Networking Question! Hope you can read my leadership question and give me your thoughts on my answer. Thanks!

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Leadership & Influence: Chevening is looking for individuals who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer. (100 - 500 words)

sharp brain and a quiet determination

"One day, I'll own a company larger than FabIndia.", I assured my mother when I was just eleven years old. While I haven't established that company just yet, creating Karmaara felt very close to the real thing.

While enrolled at the Young India Fellowship ("YIF"), a one-year postgraduate diploma program in liberal arts, I decided to pursue my dream of launching an entrepreneurial project in handicrafts. It helped that I found peers who shared my passion. As a team, we brought complementary skills to the venture and had a shared vision to create beautifully handcrafted products while reviving a dying crafts industry. But to find the exact area of focus required robust market research and strong analysis. I interviewed experts in the field. The narrative that emerged was the steady decay of handicrafts in India due to declining wages and shrinking clientele. Our analysis presented a compelling opportunity in the nascent handcrafted footwear market. We founded Karmaara to ensure sustainability of the cobblers' profession through footwear design interventions and providing a platform to sell.

To convince the cobblers to join our platform, I met with them every weekend grow trust. For 2 months, I heard their stories, problems and aspirations. We utilised these learnings to customize the platform to meet their requirements while also persuading them to join us. This paid off when after 2 months, 8 of them agreed to be a part of our platform. We worked tirelessly over 5 months to design shoes, assemble raw materials and manufacture pieces. Drawing from my marketing internship with the Chennai Hip Hop Festival, I conducted photo shoots, built Instagram and Facebook pages to cultivate a strong brand presence and spark customers' interests. These garnered followings of 790 followers in a single week!

Finally, in our first sales, only 7 months from the time we began Kamaara, we sold out all seventy pairs of footwear in nine designs to break-even! We even devised a unique profit-sharing model with the cobblers whereby we shared a percentage of the sales with them, over and above the actual wages.

While I have held various leadership positions in the past, this single experience of building and growing Karmaarahas been instrumental for me to understand my leadership qualities and strengths. Focusing on my inquisitiveness, empathy, open-mindedness and decisiveness have helped me transform daunting leadership situations into opportunities to bring impact. I've led operations of an accelerator program in Vietnam, spearheaded special technical assistance programs for early-stage stage social start-ups, and formulated the growth strategy for a 17-year- old incubator among others.

My personal brand of leadership can be summarized thus: While I may not shout the loudest, my introversion is characterised by a sharp brain and a quiet determination to succeed. I've learnt that it is possible to support the causes I strongly believe in - social entrepreneurship, innovation and handicrafts - through silent yet persistent confidence. I intend to use my position as a Chevening Scholar to build impactful and innovative businesses.

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