Meet keynote speaker Sudhakar Kesavan this weekend with NetIP

Sudhakar Kesavan serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ICF International. In 1997, he was named President of the ICF Consulting Group when it was a subsidiary of ICF Kaiser. Since he took on this leadership role, he has led ICF through a leveraged buyout, an initial public offering, and consistent growth. Mr. Kesavan’s leadership in global environmental issues helped ICF International to become the first professional services firm in the world to go carbon neutral and to achieve recognition by the United Nations as one of the first firms to participate in the Climate Neutral Network.

Mr. Kesavan serves on the Board of the Rainforest Alliance, a New York based nonprofit environmental organization committed to protecting ecosystems by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior. He is also the vice chairman of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), the largest technology council in the United States. In addition, he is an active supporter of IIMPACT, a nonprofit focused on primary education for girls from economically- and socially-underprivileged rural areas of India.

Mr. Kesavan received the Executive of the Year award in 2009 from the Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards in the large-sized firm category. He was also named a “Tech Titan” and “industry leader” by Washingtonian magazine in 2011.

Mr. Kesavan received his Master of Science degree from the Technology and Policy Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his postgraduate diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his Bachelor of Technology degree (chemical engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Am I an NRI? The Non-Returning Indian?

Written by Pawan Kumar Sharma of NRImatters.com

I want to return to India someday. When I am done looking for what I’ve always wanted in life – wealth, lifestyle, progress and success, I would surely go back to India!

How can I ever forget where I come from? No matter how rich I become or how much luxury I enjoy, it will always make me really happy to go back to the place I was born and raised. The local village ground where I played with my friends, my one-storied rugged old school, my farm, and the narrow street lanes just next to my ancestral house that was built in red bricks.

The smell faces and the places that reminded me as I got up every early morning that this is the place where I belong. This is the space where I will always be welcome no matter where I go to live in the world or whatever I do!

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.” That’s the beauty of life. It made me realize that as an NRI, all my dreams, ambition and hunger to excel will eventually fizzle-out like those soft drink bubbles once I have had some luck, when someday I feel that my longing for material wealth and pleasure has ran its course!

Look at India today…..India’s great! The economy’s booming, now they have so many multi-million dollar companies, the standard of living is better; it is better connected through airways and roadways. I guess someone in that country has finally woken up to the untapped, infinite potential that a mammoth country like India has!

I just love what the country has to offer now! Global recognition in the form of being an, “IT giant”, “Bio-technology hub”, economic powerhouse and one of the finest medical tourism industry in the world! The other day I even heard that now there are more millionaires in India than any country in the world after United States and China! Phew…that’s gonna take the icing on the cake!

I mean, seriously, the amount of progress, wealth creation and economic transformation that India has had over the last 15 years have been nothing short of phenomenal! For the first time in my life, I have really felt proud of being an Indian. The other day some random guy in the US came to me and congratulated saying,”Hey buddy, I heard you guys made the world’s most economical car at what? 25, 00 bucks or something that runs 15 miles? If that’s true than why don’t you tell our guys to stop wasting millions of dollars on that stupid bio-fuel thing?”

I was spell-bound to hear this and felt like people from India do have the ability to surpass even the American technocrats when they have the desire and the fuel and opportunities that fund this desire!

You know I really feel like returning to India now! There’s no such thing in this first-world country that India does not have anymore. With world class malls, multiplexes, shopping arcades, fast food chain of restaurants, the KFC, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Levis, Gucci, Rado and what not? As a person now habituated to foreign lifestyle and culture, I can get anything and everything I want at my fingertips! I miss so many things….my habits, my ways, my Desiness. For a father, it’s like missing out on his infant daughter growing into a teen and finally a beautiful woman ready to get married.

When I first stepped out of India to do a respectable white collar job in a foreign country, I thought I would make quick buck working really hard for a couple of years and finally return back to India to my small village life and my family. Today, I cannot recall when those couple of years ate into my whole life and I am still living in the same alien, foreign country that I never feel attached to or comfortable with- be it the culture or daily routine.

I keep asking myself the same question- will I ever go back? Here, I have wealth, better standard of living, less chaos (unlike in India), order, law, safety, life has a value. In India, I have my culture and roots, my relatives, less cost of living and education, my parents, my brother and sisters, my friends- my identity and existence!

For people like me who have settled in a foreign country for the last 20 years- there’s one recurring question and thought that we all are afraid to answer and confront- how will I start my life all over again? I left India to have a good, better life. Now I have everything I had set out to achieve but if I have to return to India today- my social existence, my friends, my relations, my lifestyle and myself will have to undergo so much transformation which might not be easy after getting accustomed to a foreign culture and lifestyle for the past 20 years of my life.

It’s a catch-22 situation and there’s no easy answer for a guy like me- a Non-Returning Indian!

Chase your dreams wherever they take you

This is a sponsored message.

Ullas Narayana, an artist from Bangalore, India, is fulfilling a dream beyond his expectations — and entertaining millions while he is at it. He is a senior animator at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), synonymous with groundbreaking visual effects work and headquartered in San Francisco.

Last year, Ullas worked on not one, but two, hugely successful Hollywood franchises – Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides and Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon.   He perfected several of the live-action animation sequences under the supervision of visual effects pros like Ben Snow, who has four Oscar nominations, including one for last year’s Iron Man 2. The amazing thing is, Ullas lives nowhere near California.

Ullas was one of the original 11 who started up Lucasfilm’s Singapore studio back in 2005.  In the first three months, he was trained by none other than Rob Coleman – a two-time Academy Award nominee and Animation director of the three Star Wars prequels, The Phantom Menance, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Shawn Kelly, another leading name from ILM, was also a mentor.

This is quite an achievement for Ullas, who initially spent 3 years at university studying to become an accountant. His love for animation, combined with a natural talent for drawing and sketching, eventually led him to change career tracks.

When his chagrined parents tried to reason that animation should remain a hobby, Ullas convinced them to let him chase his dream instead.  He went to learn animation at Vancouver Film School and eventually received a degree in digital arts from the Australian National University.

“I always knew I wanted to be in the animation industry and I had to work very hard to be able to do what I love today,” he said.

With more high profile movie projects coming through the pipeline, Ullas feels little need to chase jobs around the world to gain the necessary exposure. On the contrary, Singapore has attracted a growing pool of internationally experienced visual effects specialists. He notes that opportunities in Singapore’s animation industry are growing, and enjoys very strong public funding and support, but it is also very competitive and standards are climbing fast.

“Have a great showreel, even if it is short,” he said. “Companies wants to see your passion and that never fails to shine through, even in a shot that lasts just a few seconds.”

For information on working and living in Singapore, visit www.contactsingapore.sg or email Ms Chew Wee Ng or Ms Suzie Chiang at sanfrancisco@contactsingapore.sg

Kaplan presents Road to Business School

Kaplan cordially invites NetIP on the Road to Business School.

Overview

2010 was the inaugural year for the Road to Business School. Here are a few highlights from last year’s 7-city series:

• The series had 4,489 total registrants and 2,260 attendees.
• Show rate was strong at 50% (counting walk-ins as shows).
• Candidate mix: of the registrants, 49% were new to the Kaplan database, and 51% were preexisting in the database. Those figures indicate a good mix of candidates for all organizations co-marketing the series.
• Demographics: Attendees were 42% female, 17% international, and 56% non-white, with 9% African American and 9% Hispanic. These figures – and also the fact that 83% were working and 17% were in school – highlight that the events drew the right balance of young professionals and of the demographic groups that are key recruiting targets.
• Schools: 67 U.S. and international business schools participated in last year’s series including Chicago Booth, Cornell (Johnson), Duke (Fuqua), Harvard, INSEAD (Paris), MIT (Sloan), NYU (Stern) and Yale to name a few. To view the full list, click here.

In 2011 the event has expanded to 11 cities from August 4^th – 23^th

Kaplan will host live web-based events that can be accessed globally. The list of participating schools has already surpassed that of 2010 school list and again features the top b-schools around the world.

Marketing for the 2011 series will reach 5,000 prospective business school students throughout the world and through a variety of channels, including Kaplan’s database marketing, young professional organizations in all participating cities, social media channels (through Kaplan and partners), college campus organizations, online ads, and public advertising in some areas.

Click here to learn more.

Building Business − A Regular Anthology of Professional and Business Development Articles

A collection of article summaries from various sources (with links to actual articles) focused on Professional and Business Development.  We’ve collected them in one spot, so you can easily scan, review and apply to your career and business.

A Better Family Business Succession (SmartBrief) – Whether you plan to leave your family business to one child or sell it to a third party, open communication with your children and family is key, writes Louis Pashman, who breaks down three possible succession scenarios.

Protect your personal assets when seeking business loans (SmartBrief) – Many small-business loans require a personal guarantee that can put your family’s assets, including your home, at risk. If you must agree to such a guarantee, lawyer Richard Reinis offers some advice: Tell your spouse, limit your exposure, narrow the conditions for enforcement of the guarantee and take out insurance in case of a worst-case scenario.

Good innovators know how to figure things out (SmartBrief) – At its core, innovation is simply the art of figuring things out, writes Dennis Stauffer. That means that the basic skills of good innovators are transferable to almost any situation or problem. “The more skilled we become at figuring out, the more likely we are to find success in any endeavor,” Stauffer writes.

Advice for getting started, from an old hand (SmartBrief) – Launching a venture can be “exhausting, ego shattering and (at times) infuriating,” writes serial entrepreneur Farid Naib, but it’s also “one of the greatest thrills in my life.” To anyone thinking of taking the plunge, he says to go for it, be ready to fail and be prepared for growing pains. And don’t be shy about asking for help, he advises.

Is it time for your business’ checkup? (SmartBrief) – As 2011 nears the halfway mark, it’s a good time to take a step back to evaluate your finances, operations and what you could be doing better, say experts. “Give yourself time to make some adjustments,” said Christina Cardenas. Other experts advise examining personnel needs and inventory as well as accounting and financial processes.

Where to find government money for your business (SmartBrief) The federal government awards cash grants to small businesses every year, but unless you operate in a handful of industries such as biotech, health care or clean energy, you’re better off pursuing state and local awards, writes Louise Lee, who offers tips for getting your share of government grants.

5 Tips For Deal-Making Under India’s New M&A Regime (Law360) – Even after an extensive last-minute rewrite of the regulations, India’s brand new merger control regime — which went into effect this month — will force dealmakers to live with some amount of uncertainty, experts say, at least until regulators tackle a few test cases. Until then, experts say companies should keep these five things in mind when negotiating tie-ups that could have an impact in India.

Richik Sarkar is a partner at Ulmer & Berne LLP, a Cleveland based law firm with a national practice.   In addition to practicing law, Richik is trying to reactivate the Cleveland Chapter of Net-IP.  For more information about Richik vist his LinkedIn Profile.

VIP Pass to the worlds BIGGEST MBA Fair!!

EXCLUSIVE OFFER for NetIP Members and Associates: You’re invited to attend the QS World MBA and Grad School Tour this fall for FREE…

Secure your place now and get one step closer to your ideal MBA or Grad program.

Registrants will be able to do the following on the day:

• Speak directly to admissions directors from the world’s top schools, colleges and universities about all things MBA or Grad related
• Apply for over $1.2m worth of exclusive QS scholarships to help fund your education
• Discuss the common do’s and don’ts of applications
• Participate in discussions with national and international MBA and Grad school admissions officers, directors and alums
• Network with fellow applicants and alumni
• Sit in panel discussions with alumni from Harvard, Wharton, Columbia and NYU-Stern
• Attend a GMAT or GRE seminar with a leading test prep
• Get all the relevant info about career opportunities after your program

All this and so much more… only at the world’s BIGGEST MBA and GRAD fairs

To register for the QS World MBA Tour click here to activate your complimentary VIP admission.

The QS World Grad School Tour VIP Pass can be activated by registering here.