A session of 5 different speeches from various guest speakers was the start of our preparatory seminar and gave the whole team a first insight of how to deal, behave, negotiate, etc. in India or as Mr. Jakob B. Heller used to say “How to ride the Indian Elephant”. Mr. Heller from OSEC Business Network Switzerland served us with very interesting facts such as that the average age in India is 26 years, 370 persons life on one squarekilometer, 42% of the population live under poverty line (less than 1 Dollar per Day) and India’s GDP Growth Rate was at 6.9% by the end of the year 2011. Fabio Speciale, Director India at BaselArea Economic Promotion informed us about the challenges of Indian Companies trying to expand into the Swiss market, especially to Basel. He pointed out that a process of transformation from low-prices to high-quality is currently taking place in India at the moment.
Urs Schöttli, Far East Correspondent and our third guest speaker asked us to open our eyes while being in India. We should get away from eurocentrism towards a more global view including the value system of each country. Furthermore he mentioned the lack of sophisticated infrastructure in India, mainly in the rural areas. This brought us to the next topic of the day which was presented by Edward Schwarz, General Manager at Holcim Foundation. He introduced us to the aims of Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. He said that it seeks to globally interlink knowledge and to promote a mindset that views sustainability not only in terms of immense technical challenges, but also incorporates architectural excellence and leads to a higher quality of life. Finally Prof. Dr. Brigitte Sprenger gave us an insight into Blogging. All in all a very interesting first day which made us keen on learning more about the fascinating country India, where regarding to all our speakers the unexpected has to be expected.
Jana Weis, Chantal Ulmer, Marcel Bachmann
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