IPF in India: Part 1

Natasha is currently in India as part of a Virgin trade mission to celebrate the launch of Virgin Atlantic’s new direct route from Mumbai to London. Natasha is one of five young Virgin Media Pioneers on the trip. 

First of all, I want to say another massive thank you to everyone who voted for me to go to India and for all of the amazing support from our contributors and readers! This entry is going to be more of a ‘this is what I did’ blog. Tomorrow I am going to visit an NGO working in one of the slums here in Mumbai, and I will be writing about the work that they do and the impact it has on the children they work with. Yesterday in Delhi, I heard that 50% of the world’s under 25 population lives in India, which I found quite shocking! Apparently India would need to build one University every week for 10 years in order to train and educate all these young people. Just driving around I have seen the extreme divide between the very rich and very poor. It is difficult to reconcile this while being put up in 5* hotels and seeing the sheer number of homeless people, especially the street children.

We flew out on Wednesday night, as part of a group of around 50 entrepreneurs, journalists, members of the UKTI and Virgin staff. We arrived in Delhi, early thursday morning and drove to our hotel. Very tired from lack of sleep, the biggest thing I could think about on the drive was the sheer amount of honking…it never seemed to end! I even saw a sign that said ‘for the love of god, please stop honking’… that was exactly how I felt!

After a lovely reception (above) to the gorgeous Taj Mahal hotel in New Delhi, we changed quickly into business attire and headed off to the residence of Julian Evan, the British High Commissioner for a working lunch. We met other young entrepreneurs, watched a Q&A session that Richard gave for CNBC, and learned more about how India and the UK connect their two markets.

After our working lunch we went with Adrian Mutton and had a brief tour of some of the New Delhi sites:

We then had the opportunity to look around the offices of Sannam S4,and speak to the executive directors. Sannam is a really fantastic company which helps facilitate international organizations looking to move into the Indian market. As we were leaving we were told that Sannam will be offering all Pioneers one year of free consulting to help us move our businesses or projects into the Indian market. We are extremely grateful, and very much looking forward to working with the amazing team there, and can’t wait to start featuring India on the IPF soon!

After our meeting, I was hoping to get half an hour rest at the hotel. Unfortunately, our driver took us to the Taj Palm Hotel and not the Taj Mahal Hotel. We walked in and after walking around we were in the wrong hotel, we had a 20 minute drive back to our actual hotel, a quick change, a quick upload of an IPF article (couldn’t leave you all without your daily update!) and attended an amazing cocktail party by the pool. The colours, the dancers, the food… everything was spectacular. We had the opportunity to meet some more incredible Indian entrepreneurs and hear more about their businesses. Richard Branson made a great entrance to the party with a troop of Bhangra drummers and dancers, as well as the always glam Virgin Atlantic hostesses.

Dinner was then served, and I was seated next to Richard. During the dinner, the other Pioneers and I played the (famous?) dinner game of ’30 seconds – pitch me!’. In particular I talked about the growth of the IPF, my vision behind it, and how I want to create an engaging, open, non-partisan platform to bring together young people from all over the world to talk about the politics and current affairs issues that are important to them in an accessible way, especially through sharing the stories that people should hear about, opening minds and educating, about my amazing writers, and the way in which I can see it progressing in the future, especially in terms of films, photo spreads, podcasts and conferences (watch this space!)

After an unexpectedly late night, we had a horridly early start, and were downstairs and ready to head to the airport at 5.30am. Yuck. I was sad that I didn’t get to experience much of Delhi, apart from driving through it, but I was very excited (despite the time) to head to Mumbai.

Five (very tired) Pioneers arrive in Mumbai

We arrived in Mumbai to a wave of humidity, and an hour later we got to the beautiful Oberoi hotel. After taking the afternoon to rest, I spent an hour picking the brain of Richard Branson about social enterprises, and hearing his advice for my fellow Pioneers. This experience has been an invaluable learning curve, and I’m really excited to bring all my new knowledge back to London to make the IPF bigger and better!

I spent this evening at the glittering launch party of Virgin Atlantic’s new route to Mumbai. I had the opportunity to meet more amazing people, but most importantly, we all had an amazing time! Virgin is a brand that has a lot of fun, and that was clear throughout! I had a great time!

 So far I have met some amazing people, and there is the possibility of a lot of exciting new connections and collaborations to take the IPF to the next level! I can’t wait to share with you the rest of the trip, particularly my experiences in the slum tomorrow and the education training that the NGO provides. I haven’t had much opportunity to experience Mumbai outside of looking out of the car window, so I can’t wait to explore more, meet some young people and share some stories with you.

That’s all for now! Goodnight!

Natasha