My Journey at the Young India Fellowship (YIF)
Twinkle Malhan, Class of 2018, looks back at her year of 'fond learnings, new aspirations and ongoing self-discovery,' at the Young India Fellowship.
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Right after my undergraduation, I had been selected to be a Flying Officer with the Indian Air Force. This was during the third week at the YIF, when I was thoroughly enjoying the introductory sessions with the administration, get togethers with fellows and developing Foundations of Leadership with Professor Dwight Jaggard. My mind was constantly in a tussle about making a choice – a world of honour and pride at the Indian Air Force and a world of freedom and opportunities at the YIF. When I think about it in retrospect, I feel lucky to have had experiences that made this choice easy for me. YIF was where I truly belonged.
The engaging courses at YIF taught me that books are only the starting point of a good education, the erudite faculty taught me how to be humble despite being immensely knowledgeable, and most importantly, the accepting peer group taught me, in theory, and in spirit, the value of unity in diversity.
Filled with the drive to make the most of my time here at Ashoka University, I participated in the Hult Prize@Ashoka with Neeraj Adhithya, Atitya Ragul and Gangatharam M. The Hult Prize is an entrepreneurship competition run by Clinton Global Initiative. We were delighted when we won Hult Prize@Ashoka and even more thrilled when we got to fly to Singapore for the Hult Prize Global Regionals.
They say that once you taste thrill, you are left wanting more. Something similar happened to me after the Hult Prize. I wanted to try myself at every contest that came by. The CDO and the CfE kept sharing various such contests with us and I knew I wanted to engage with them all!
With this zeal, I participated in the HEC Business Game, a business case competition organised by HEC, Paris. I, along with Mahima Kataria, was one of the 15 finalists to be invited to the HEC Campus to participate in their on-campus finals. While I could not fly to Paris, the experience of making it to the finals will always remain special.
The very same month, I, along with Amit Dalmia and Mansi Aggarwal, was selected as finalists for the Net Impact Food Solutions Challenge Accelerator in California. We received feedback from IXL Center on our proposed solution and were recently announced as the second place Food Solutions Winners and won $1000 to take forward our idea.
My most recent engagement was the CEO for One Month opportunity at the Adecco Group. I was fortunate to have been selected as one of the six out of 19,000 applicants to have been invited to Adecco’s India headquarters in Bengaluru for a two-day boot camp. We were tested on various parameters such as creativity, business acumen and execution: what they call “the CEO attitude.”
Today, as I leave the Ashoka University campus along with the 270 fellows who graduated with me, I look back at a year of fond learnings, new aspirations and ongoing self-discovery.
