Writing from the Digital India Pavilion at Pragati Maidan

Hello all,
I am writing from the NeGD conference room, temporarily setup in the DI pavilion at Pragati Maidan. It has been completely different experience for me since last 10 days. There are many reasons why a blog post is so much required in my autobiography blog.

In the panel discussion

The India International Trade Fair (IITF) is one of the biggest shows that happens in Asia. I heard about this many times, but this is first time to experience. But interesting fact is that this 36th edition of IITF will be the last in Pragati Maidan since there would be massive renovation from next year.

DigiSevak, the project where I have been working since joining NeGD was launched by Hon'ble Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on 18th November. This was long due as we have been waiting for a launch for quite some months now.  I hope the project will take a leap now as NeGD will communicate to other ministries and departments.

Minister launching DigiSevak

First time in life, I moderated a Panel Discussion. Panellists consists of partner from KPMG, celebrated IAS officer like Dr. Dinesh Arora, representatives from Ministry of Railways and Ministry of External Affairs,  along with Dy Director from Digital Empowerment Foundation. It was broadcasted live on DI handle of Facebook, accumulating 8,393 views until now. It was a good opportunity given to me by Sunil Sir, amidst slight hesitations by other members of my team. However, the session went well and everyone (including the hesitators) appreciated fully. Well, when I see the video, I can find hundreds of mistakes, but, considering my first attempt, I was feeling happy. The big take ways- I can't do away with my hard kharkhua accent, I need to complete all my words and lastly, bringing separate sentences in between a sentence should be avoided.

In summary, it has been a great experience so far. Sometimes, I do think these type of work has little to do with public policy and whatsoever. But, reality demands these kinds of experience. Overall, I am satisfied with the kind of experience I got in my current role in NeGD in last 11 months. Let's see how the future looks from this point.