I arrived in Delhi June 1st to help with Innovate Delhi Entrepreneurship Academy.

It’s a three week program to teach key skills to budding entrepreneurs. We have about 120 students from across India; many are still in undergrad, some have recently graduated, and several have just quit their jobs. They’re all awesome and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them so far. Many are already working on their own startups or NGOs.

The program is run by Sharique Hasan (my old professor) and his PhD student Rem Koning. I’ve been following / advising the program since they first started noodling on the idea and it’s great to see it finally come to fruition.

My role in the program is pretty varied. I’m giving lectures, mentoring individuals and teams, and pitching in wherever I can. So far I’ve given two main talks.

Last Wednesday I gave a talk on my own entrepreneurial journey and the story of Meetings.io. The talk was a blast to give - I had the stage for two hours and the Q&A would have gone on indefinitely if I didn’t have to run to dinner.

Then, last Saturday, I gave a talk on learning to code. There’s a balance of technical and non-technical kids in the program and many of the technical kids haven’t built web apps before. The talk was optional but the turnout was great. I’ll probably post the slides in public at some point. I then created a Facebook group for the students to share their progress, ask for help, and point to great resources; the group is up to 85 members and highly active.

Beyond the talks and the mentoring, I’m thoroughly enjoying the program. The students are all extremely eager to learn, have great startup ideas, and are quick to help each other out. They’ve been self-organizing discussion sessions after hours and seem to be having a great time.

One non-educational highlight from the week was the epic Game of Thrones viewing session yesterday evening. The show is just as big here as in the US.

It’s been a great first week and I’m looking forward to the remaining time here in Delhi!