ICC’s Leaders Conference 2009 Opens New Avenues
By Praveena Lakshmanan
Last updated: June 25, 2009
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STAFFORD: India Culture Center (ICC), Houston along with the Consulate General of India, Houston and other Indo-American organizations in Greater Houston hosted the Leaders Conference 2009 on Saturday, June 20 at the Techniplex Conference Center at Comfort Suites, Stafford.
The theme of this year’s event was “ Leadership and Contemporary Challenges – An Indo American Perspective”. ICC has organized such successful events in the past and this year’s event too was not only well received, but also brought into light some interesting aspects of leadership through the vibrant panel discussions by prominent Indo-American leaders in the public sector.
This year’s panel included Neeta Sane – Trustee, Houston Community College, Ken Mathew- Pro Tem Mayor, City of Stafford, R.K. Sandill – Judge Harris County, Tom Abraham – Councilman, City of Sugarland, Randhir Sahni – Councilman, City of Piney Point Village, Robin Elackatt- Councilman, City of Missouri City. The guest speaker for the program was Annise Parker, Controller, City of Houston and the Chief Guest was Consul N K Ghai.
Each of the panelists shared their experience and challenges as leaders in serving the community at large. The Q & A session helped undersand how all the organizations could best work together. The conference addressed and identified areas such as improving communication between leaders in the government and the community, improving political awareness in the Indo-American community among others.
It also touched upon ways and means to increase voter registration, specific areas in which the community needs help from the leaders, things organizations could do by working together keeping community interests in the forefront. The conference also helped identify objectives for the next year’s event.
ICC President Keshu Patel in his opening remarks pointed out that the last year’s leaders program helped seed leadership program for the youth called the Youth Leadership Development Program (YLDP). He informed, the first batch of YLDP will be graduating on August 15 during the India Fest 2009.
He added that the YLDP has become very popular and successful program to build leadership among youth in the areas of entrepreneurship, charity, politics and culture. ICC along with the support of many other organizations is the custodian of YLDP, he emphasized.
The event was emceed by Atul Vir and moderated by Mini Timmaraju. The event was attended by selected audience that included youth, leaders and heads of various Indo- American organizations. In conclusion, the program was not only effective in terms of understanding leadership challenges and its solutions, but the audience took back learnings from the experiences of the panelists an resource of informatiion that they could work on in their personal and professional careers.
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