TWTW — Week 1, September 2018
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
Getting selected to the WIT Learning program
The end of last week, I received a mail from Rethink that the names of selected candidates for the Cohort 1 of the WIT Learning Program have been published. While clicking on the link I honestly didn’t expect to see my name in the list. But there it was, and my joy an excitement knew no bounds.

The much-awaited first task — Introduce Yourself
After knowing that I got selected to the program, I honestly couldn't wait to know what the first action would be. So much was my curiosity that I used to check my emails in between college classes. And as usual, I was checking my emails on Wednesday at 11:00 AM (it's odd how I remember the time :-O).

So the first activity is to shoot a video introducing myself and to post it on youtube. Although it was nothing I had expected, I thought shooting a video will be as easy as a breeze. Oh, how wrong I was! I realised I am not a camera/video person. But the biggest realisation was that I was afraid to speak my dreams out loud. I somehow managed to film the video and post it on youtube. Although I believe I could have made it a tonne times better, it was solely due to this activity that I can now confidently speak about my future plans and dreams. Here’s my Introduction video.
SHEROES Summit 2018 — Trivandrum
“You never know whom you’re inspiring.”
As though this week wasn't awesome enough, I got to attend the Trivandrum edition of the SHEROES Summit 2018. I had shared this opportunity with my college mates and some of them were interested as well, so we went to the summit together.
The summit was held at the Founders Hall inside the UST Global Campus. It was such a beautiful building with beautiful lakes and greenery. I got to meet Arya Murali and two of my WIT Cohort 1 peers Archana N and Rohini Madhav.
The event was hosted by Shreya Krishnan, VP, Marketing and Communications, Anviti Insurance Brokers and is also Mrs India Universe- World 2017.
The Summit started with a yoga session using meditation bowls by Jenil Dholakia, a renowned yoga instructor. It was a new experience for me as I hadn't practised yoga using sounds before.
Then we had an introductory session by Sairee Chahal, founder and CEO of SHEROES. She made a great talk on entrepreneurship and inspiring people.
Then we had a talk on Women and Investment by Mithali Mukherjee, a former journalist at CNBC and founder of MoneyMile. Normally I would have imagined a topic like finance to be boring, but her style of presentation made it far from boring. We got a lot of tips on investing money wisely.
After the tea break, we had a session on slam poetry by Navaldeep Singh. I have to admit, I enjoyed his witty stories more than his poetry.
Next was the keynote session by Alicia Castillo Holley, a Silicon Valley angel investor and founder and CEO of Wealthing Institute. A woman with so much life experiences! The story of how she found her way in an industry filled with 80% White and 20% Indian population, most of them being men, is beyond amazing.

After lunch, we had a musical session by percussionist Tarit Pal, who, thanks to the non-arrival of his drumset turned a cardboard box, a suitcase and even his own face into musical instruments.
Next, we had a panel discussion on humanity with 6 prominent women from different fields.
The final performance of the day was a musical session by Sonam Kalra, founder of TheSufiProject. Here ideas about how Sufism means all religions are one and the same was really intriguing.
At the end of the summit, we danced our hearts out. It really is something refreshing to forget all your inhibitions and insecurities and letting go.

Building my own website and my first TWTW
The second task as part of the WIT Learning program had 3 parts:

As I write this post, I have just finished setting up my first very own website, again thanks to the WIT Learning Program. It’s a work in progress and I believe by the time this end of this program, I’ll have a lot more things to add to my website.
Also, this is my first ‘The Week That Was’, also it's my first post on Medium and I hope I can continue this even after the completion of the program.
Key takeaways after this week
Confidence- I realised why I struggled while making the introduction video was because part of me wasn't confident enough that I could achieve what I dream of. I can surely say that I have grown more confident after the first task.
Figuring out things on my own- Before this day, I didn't know how video editing or Google Sites worked. Thanks to the WIT Learning Program, I had the opportunity to put up my first Youtube video and also build my own website.
Networking- At the SHEROES summit, I got to meet people I've never met before and connect with them. It taught me the importance of networking and its perks.
On the whole, this week was engaging and eventful, giving me so many topics to write about in this post. I expect the coming weeks to be even more engaging and am really looking forward.
