http://www.grameenfoundation.org/vote

Grameen Foundation is in the final countdown. It’s still in a tight race with a very strong competitor where EVERY vote counts. After battling for the last 12 weeks for a $200,000 grant from American Express, the Foundation is hoping to put this money to good use helping the world’s poorest.

NetIP, our support is crucial. With an outreach to over 40,000 South Asian Americans and the drive to succeed, we have the voters Grameen Foundation needs to get this grant and help empower the poor in South Asia – and throughout the world – by providing access to microfinance and technology.

Let’s create a world without poverty!

If you’ve already voted, thank you.  If not, please take the time now – it will only take a couple of clicks and minutes of your time. You can vote once from each e-mail address you have.

And no matter what, please encourage everyone you know to vote for Grameen Foundation before 11:59 p.m. PDT on Sunday, August 22nd. This is the last weekend!

A vote for Grameen Foundation is a vote to make poverty history!

Thanks,
All of us at Grameen Foundation

P.S. After you vote, please spread the word to your friends!

Tweet this:

Join me and #netipna in fighting global #poverty w/ #microfinance & VOTE 4 @GrameenFdn to win $200K! http://bit.ly/Vote4GF #Vote4GF

Tell your friends on Facebook. Copy and paste this text as your status:

LAST CHANCE! Vote before 11:59 p.m. PDT to help Grameen Foundation create a world without poverty by providing microfinance and technology products and services to the world’s poorest, especially women. Make a difference! http://bit.ly/Vote4GF plz RT

Not sure if you saw the article in LA Times about desis and their affinity to South Asian programming on Dish…pretty interesting, especially when they quote that roughly one-third of all South Asians in the US subscribe to some sort of South Asian programming.

The numbers are out there: “According to the U.S. census, the Indian American population in the country was 1.7 million in 2000, a figure that had doubled since 1990, and is likely to have doubled again. The largest concentration is in California, followed by New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Florida. The majority are college graduates. They have the highest per capita income of immigrant populations. Advertisers appealing to the demographic include Citibank, State Farm, Vonage and Metlife, which create ads specifically for the market.”
More interesting quotes..“We’re seeing a real flowering in demand,” said David Jensen, vice president of content acquisition for Comcast. The cable operator provides eight South Asian linear channels — among them SET Asia (Sony), Zee TV and STAR India PLUS — in Northern California but is looking to expand its reach into other parts of the country this year. A new platform providing some 90 ethnic channels will include 10 targeted toward Indians. Comcast also carries “Bollywood Hits on Demand” nationwide.

The rise in population numbers, awareness and demand has dovetailed with increased technical capacity, he said. “Those in programming will be asking, ‘What can we do with all this new bandwidth?’ And the two areas that stand out are Bollywood and the Hispanic community,” he said…”

Have we truly arrived?

The Network of Indian Professionals North Carolina Chapter was recently one of the leading organizations at Charlotte Walks Together.  This event, touted as one of Carolinas’ most human-engaging events, was held on Saturday April 17, 2010.  This annual gathering utilizes a non-competitive walk to provide an opportunity to join hands with all and promote unity in diversity.

Each year the Charlotte Coalition for Social Justice (CCSJ) organizes this event with a variety of major partnerships including corporate giants such as Bank of America, Wachovia, JPMorgan Chase, Lowe’s and Nascar, as well as entrepreneurs and political leaders.  NetIP North Carolina was present representing the South Asian community. CCSJ has been able to engage senior leadership at partner corporations and integrate large crowds to pass on a strong message of unity, which accounts to a stronger community of Carolinas’ corporate as well as entrepreneurial world.  The key note speaker for this year’s walk was the CFO of Wachovia/Wells Fargo, Mr. Howard Atkins.

This year’s walk was a tremendous success as it engaged more than 500 people from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds and also raised eyebrows by collecting more than 50 thousand dollars for charity work. These donations, as in the past, will be utilized for uplifting children’s education and giving them equal opportunities for betterment.  This event also presented an opportunity for people to reach out and connect with other participants regardless of their background and status, allowing them to learn about one another, their views, lives & cultures, in a casual way.  There were many friendly scenes during the walk which eventually ended with ethnic and cultural presentations and food and refreshments for the walkers.

This was NetIP North Carolina’s 4th year of affiliation with CCSJ in the form of community representation and donation generation.  Event’s such as these continue to promote NetIP’s mission and integrate South Asian Professionals with other mainstream professionals, thus NetIP North Carolina will strive to participate in Charlotte Walks Together every year moving forward.

To learn more about NetIP North Carolina and their upcoming events visit www.NetIPNC.org or send an email to info@netipnc.org

Edited by Latha Nehru, VP of External Affairs, NetIP North America

www.NetIP.org

15 amazing show, 12 tireless months, 20 big-name personalities (including the NetIP Executive Team), a valuable alliance partnership & thousands of man-hours of prep later, we are at the one year anniversary of our most successful visibility campaign- Primetime with NetIP. About a year and a half back we got together and dreamed of creating a radio show dedicated to NetIP listeners and covering topics & speakers that would be valuable to our diaspora. After bringing on our first guest (Saira Mohan on May 25th, 2009), little did we know that we had created a “monster” that instantly attracted globally admired and recognized personalities. A show that propelled NetIP’s visibility to a whole new level. A show that attracted over 200,000 listeners both on the radio and through live internet streaming. A show that helped us acquire key sponsors. A show that helped us build one of the strongest Alliance Partnerships  in NetIP’s history with World  Band Media and Hum Desi Radio.

This unbelievable success is owed to the support of the NetIP Executive Team, the many tireless NetIP-NA volunteers, the support of the NetIP Chapters who participate and promote  the show, support of World Band Media and Hum Desi Radio and most of all to the efforts of Pooja Dhawan, Brand Strategist for the NetIP External Affairs Team!
What’s next? NetIP on Public Television and Radio?
Stay tuned…

Many refer to Seattle as being  ‘metronatural’, the perfect blend of city and nature.  We prefer to think of Seattle in the summertime as the perfect mix of temperature and scenery.  While most parts of the country are slogging through the dog days of summer, Seattle is graced with clear skies and temperatures hovering in the pleasant mid-70s.  This pleasant setting extends to the balance of metro and environment, as Seattleites don’t just respect the environment, we embrace it.  Call us green, call us tree-huggers, we love Mother Nature.  This is another element we’ve melded into the conference, as we’ve made sure this conference is not just informative, but sustainable.  The hotel we’ve booked for our conference will employ a number of green practices, but specifically less paper being used for materials (as most collateral will be electronic).

Seattle in August is not just a destination, but an experience – a locale we encourage you arrive early to and leave late.  Bordered on three sides by breathtaking water views (Puget Sound to the West, Lake Washington to the East, Salmon Bay and Lake Union to the North), it’s hard to get bored with the landscape of our town.  Known for being extremely tourist-friendly, Seattle boasts a number of ‘must-sees’ within its city limits, from the infamous Space Needle and Pike Place Market to lesser-known landmarks such as the Experience Music Project and Queen Anne Hill.  If one chooses to venture outside of the city, to the east one can find Leavenworth (a traditional Bavarian village), and to the north, the 2010 Winter Olympics host, Vancouver, BC.

As the first NetIP conference to be held on the west coast in over 10 years, this year’s event, “unique.by.nature”, promises to be the most memorable.  Would you expect any less from a conference held near the home of Starbucks, Nordstorm, Amazon (Seattle), Microsoft and Nintendo (Redmond), and T-Mobile (Bellevue)?  The conference agenda is also set to include the topics of: sustainability (a Seattle favorite), the future of technology, healthcare, entrepreneurship, and much, much more.   This year, our Conference Chairs are also adding a new type of session–the “Interactive Skill Building Workshop”–with the promise that attendees leave the session with a new life skill.

This conference pledges to be Unique by Nature – due to the organization (NetIP), the host city (Seattle), and the mix of people that’ll make this conference NetIP’s best ever.  This is an EXCLUSIVE CONFERENCE, so attendance will be limited to the first 500 which sign up (last year’s conference hosted over 1000 attendees).  Stay tuned for more conference details at  www.netipconference.org, and drop us a line at conferenceinfo@netip.org.

See you August 20th,

NetIP Conference Team
conferenceinfo@netip.org
www.netipconference.org

The Network of Indian Professionals North America launched its radio show in 2009 under the leadership of then VP External Affairs, Sundip Arora (2010 President, NetIP NA).  It was marketed as a series of teleconferences and webinars to increase the value of NetIP’s paid membership.  The idea behind the series, originally called “Chit-Chaat, all spices considered”, was to have guest speakers that were experts or prominent figures in the South Asian Community.  Arora’s team member, Brand Strategist, Pooja Dhawan, stepped in to refine the concept and its impact.  The series was re-named Prime Time with NetIP and the name struck a cord.

The first guest was relationship expert Jasbina Ahluwalia of Intersections matchmaking. Callers dialled in to learn effective ways to balance Professional, Social and Personal Demands with questions and answers with Ms. Ahluwalia. The teleconference received a positive response and along with requests for more teleconferences, the idea for a real radio show took root. In Q2 of 2009, HumDesi Radio, a division of World Band media (WBM) contacted NetIP for a possible alliance. Through strategic planning and foresight, NetIP and WBM began Q2 with a partnership (Click here for our press release).

The show debuted with Super Model Saira Mohan (the podcast can be heard here ) and we were off to a running start.  During this regular show, leading business, financial, arts and media professionals discuss issues such as surviving the financial turmoil by leveraging South Asian roots, the political voice of South Asian, the face of the 21st century Indian American professional, struggling for the American dream, immigration, economics. and much more.  As of the publication of this article, the show gets over 6000 listeners on the internet alone.  Every show brings NetIP’s social networks to life with questions, comments, status updates and more. There is a huge marketing component to the show. NetIP has over 21,000 Facebook users and more than 1200 Twitter followers.  We market the show aggressively on all our social platforms.

A wide range of South Asians honor us with their presence on the radio.  Some of our previous guests have been Saira Mohan, economist Ravi Batra, NYT bestselling author Ramit Sethi, Maulik Pancholy, Comedian Vidhur Kapur, eBay’s founder of worldofgood.com Robert Chatwani, GM of eBay’s world of good Seema Shah.  We spoke to Simran Sethi on Feb 17th, lauded as one of the top ten eco heros of the planet, an environmental specialist and Green Movement spokesperson on Oprah.com (Click here for our press release).

This March we have two great Primetime shows for you!  We are talking to Naresh Vissa from CNN Radio on March 17th 7pm EST (click here for related Facebook event) and Fox Business News Reporter Shibani Joshi on March 31st 7pm EST (click here for related Facebook event). Join in the conversation, listen in live at www.HumDesiRadio.com.

Our media partner HumDesi radio is always coming up with innovative ways to increase their listenership with our help. They offer free HD radios in their broadcast cities for your car and much more. Their newest business opportunity is a strategy to launch in more cities. We are excited as this means our show Prime Time will get an even greater visibility. Click below for details

Hum Desi Radio is a division of World Band Media, North America’s first Ethnic Digital Radio Network.

Listen live on HD Radio on
New York – 98.7 FM (HD2)
Washington DC – 103.5 FM (HD2)
Chicago – 101.1 FM (HD2)
Los Angeles – 105.9 FM (HD2)
Or anywhere in the world via the internet, humdesiradio.com
Please join us for a live broadcast, call toll free 1-877-DESI-321 Ext 370 to ask questions during the show.

Email us at primetime@netip.org, Tweet us on www.twitter.com/netipna

www.NetIP.org

Edited by Latha Nehru, VP of External Affairs, NetIP NA

Kamana Sharma has done outstanding work for the Greater DC area

through the Community Service Pillar.  Philanthropic events

produced by NetSAP DC have increased in frequency, attendance has

tripled, and more underprivileged individuals and groups are

benefiting from NetSAP DC’s community work.  Kamana approached the

NetSAP DC board in January wanting to create a monthly community

service event based on President Obama’s call to action on

www.serviceusa.org.  Kamana believed that NetSAP DC members should

participate in President Obama’s call to action as a community of

South Asian American professionals and has achieved this goal through

each month’s Second Saturday of Service. Each month’s service event

assists a local organization, so NetSAP DC members are not only

promoting the importance of service in the South Asian community but are also

positively impacting the local Washington DC community.

 

Farida Hasanali, NetIP Houston

Farida Hasanali has been the beacon of enthusiasm and innovation on the Houston

board.  The comfort and warmth that people see in her has helped NetIP

Houston keep its member base loyal.  Her exemplary leadership

exhibited in organizing NetIP Houston’s International Women’s Day

event demonstrates her commitment and passion for the chapter.  Farida

decided to host the event at her home and was responsible for all the

logistics such as invitations and program details.  The home setting

and the women-only criteria provided the perfect environment for the

event. This event was a prime example of how Farida’s outgoing and friendly

personality has made everyone with whom she interacts an instant friend and

supporter of NetIP.

as NetIP’s March Event of the Month.  The festivities took place at

Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA.  The team was able to secure event

sponsorship with The Northwest chapter of  Ekal Vidyalaya to raise

awareness of the struggles facing impoverished villagers in remote

areas of India.

 

 

March 2009 Event of the Month – Holi, NetIP Seattle

 

Despite overcast conditions and light rain, over 200 people joined the festivities!

The music, chaat, colors, and water balloons fueled non-stop dancing and Holi

fun throughout the afternoon. The atmosphere was lively with Bollywood music

played by DJ Nihar Desai.

 Please click here to see this story featured in India New England.