25th year of Rotasia
Rotasia, the South Asian Rotaract convention, is on its silver jubilee year and was hosted by RI districts 3191 and 3192 from Feb 29 to Mar 3 in Bengaluru. Over 1,400 Rotaractors from across South Asia attended the conference in which RI director Anirudha Roychowdhury was the chief guest.
A live streaming of address by John Hewko, RI general secretary, followed the inaugural session. Over the next two days, celebrities and achievers formed panellists and speakers. Notable among them were former Indian cricket pacer Javagal Srinath, Indian ambassador and advisor to PM Deepak Vohra, member of parliament Tejaswi Surya and film artist Prakash Belawadi.
Dr Priya Abraham, director of the ICMR – National Institute of Virology, Pune, was recognised at the event for spearheading the country’s battle against Covid. From handling the logistics of sending the testing kits to various labs to keeping a close watch on all emerging variants, she and her team enabled India to make huge strides in curbing the spread of the virus.
A special panel on startups had Aisswarya D K S Hegde, Sujit Kumar of Udaan and Shesh Rao Paplikar from BHIVE Group sharing their views on startups. This Rotasia conference featured the first ever ‘Opportunity Pavilion’ were 20 startup companies by Rotaractors in India and Sri Lanka pitched their concepts to potential investors. This was followed by mentoring workshops for budding entrepreneurs before the final round that determined the winners.
The Mr and Miss Rotasia pageant was choreographed by two former Miss India finalists and judged by professionals from the fashion industry.
The conference team was headed by PDRRs B K Harshavardhan and Hemanth Bekal, along with counsellor PDG Nagendra Prasad, advisor PDRR Srimatesh, DRRs Arun Teja and Kiran S H S. DGs Udaykumar Bhaskara (RID 3191) and Srinivas Murthy (RID 3292) supported the event.
