NetIP Chicago – 2011 Year in Review!

NetIP Chicago has had an extremely successful 2011.  NetIP Chicago won three awards, Best President, Best Initiative for our new Technology Platform, and Best Community Service Event across all 23 NetIP Chapters.  Additionally, NetIP Chicago was chosen as the “host city” for the 2012 Annual Think Change conference. 
 
Over the past few years, NetIP Chicago has become the “catalyst” that is leading a revolution throughout the NetIP community by re-branding and re-focusing its mission towards community and impact. 
 For three continuous years, we have been hosting a large-scale charitable campaign to support the needs of our Chicago community, where we live and work.  Collectively over the years, NetIP Chicago will have donated over $200,000 to various local programs here in Chicago.  In 2009, we selected Apna Ghar, a domestic Violence Shelter. In 2010, we launched Cancer is Colorblind and further expanded our impact by hosting a year long campaign that included grassroots fundraising, awareness and volunteer events to make a difference in the lives of those that have been affected by Cancer.
 
Across our four pillars, NetIP Chicago has been introducing new programming and new initiatives. In 2010, we launched NetIP 2.0.  A newly, re-branded organization brought to Chicago a professional development speaker series, a cultural show and much much more.  We also started to build relationships within our community across our pillars.  2011 has taken the “concept” from 2010 and turned it into a culture for NetIP Chicago!
 
Our mission this year was focused on expansion and sustainability of our new brand.  We not only sustained our Cancer is Colorblind campaign but introduced a new program, the Chicago City Challenge.  We further expanded our community outreach efforts by hosting a “weekend of service” where we brought in CNN Top 10 Hero, Mr Narayanan Krishnan, founder of Akshaya Trust all the way from India! Mr Krishnan supported our service initiatives and spoke at a luncheon where we raised over $2500 and inspired the community to make an impact by sharing his passion to cook and feed the homeless and poor in India. 
 
In our Political Awareness pillar, we introduced new programming to include political coffee chats and a “meet your elected officials” mixer.  Our focus was to educate and create an awareness within our community of key issues on the local, national and global level and its impact on us.
 
We took Professional Development to a new level this year.  We hosted a series of self-development sessions such as “How to Network?” “How to Market One self and climb the corporate ladder?” and “How to pursue your passion – whether it be entrepreneurship, politics, non-profit or something else!”
 
At NetIP we definitely believe in working hard and playing hard! We partnered with Eye on India, an Indian cultural festival hosted this past summer and set-up a “culinary workshop!”
 
If this isn’t enough, NetIP Chicago also focused on sustainability within the organization. We understand that everyone that works with NetIP does it on a purely voluntary basis.  And they are all superstars in their careers and personal lives as well!  So we took on an initiative to overhaul our membership, technology and operational platform and reduce time spent on event planning and marketing. The initiative was so well received that NetIP across the country will be adopting the idea and applying it to its local chapters next year!
 
All in all it has been an amazing 2011.  The NetIP Chicago team has worked very hard to make this year a huge success.  Our executive team consisted of Rishi Seth VP of Charitable Campaigns, Amit Shah, VP of Finance and Technology, Nirav Amin, VP of Operations and Strategic Development and Sri Devi Mudragada, VP of Marketing, Membership and Admin.  
Our board and volunteer team included Rubina Singh, Kavita Singh, Priti Trivedi, Surabhi Saraswat, Pardip Nayyer, Anand Mathew, Shantel Bridges, Radha Patel, Ren Cuevo, Smita Kamath, Steve James, Trusha Bhatt, Taral Patel, Anita Oak, Suzy Singh, Ronak Joshi, Manish Kumar, Marina Isaac, Natasha Kapoor, Morlie Patel, Smita Chand, and Kelly Christensen Mims.   Without the hard work the dedication of this team, NetIP would not have had such as wonderful year!