Indialumni e.V.
Facebook Instagram Linkedin
Indialumni e.V.
Menu
Facebook Instagram Linkedin
Indialumni e.V.
Menu
Facebook Instagram Linkedin

ANNUAL MEETINGS

  • IndiAlumni ConFest 2020

    IndiAlumni Confest 2020 online

    Our 9th edition of our annual meeting was a true roller coaster due to the external restrictions and uncertainties experienced through the pandemic. With our first solely online event, we successfully reconnected digitally in 2020 read more. 

  • IndiAlumni ConFest 2019 in Dresden

    With more than 70 participants, organizers and volunteers, ConFest’19 in Dresden was bubbling with energy and enthusiasm. A special highlight: Sayanti Sengupta got selected as the new and first Indian president of our association.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual meeting in Hamburg 2018

    Digitalisation is a global trend and challenge as well. Therefore the 6th annual DAAD Alumni meeting in Hamburg has dealt with the subject. Lectures and workshops gave a glance into the future of German-Indian relationship in the digital age.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual meeting in Hannover 2017

    The annual meeting of the DAAD IndAlumni form 12th until 24th of May in Hannover offered a rich program with compelling talks and engaging workshops. The peculiarity: Besides the regular German participants – the annual meeting also gathered former or current Indian DAAD scholarship holders currently based in Germany.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual Meeting in Cologne 2016

    This year's annual meeting of the IndiAlumni association took place in Cologne from 22nd until 24th of April 2016. Thanks to the many participants there was a lively exchange with versatile discussions and interesting seminars. Various workshops helped to design  the future of the association.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual Meeting in Göttingen 2015

    The annual meeting 2015 took place from 17th to 19th April within the Georg-August Universität Göttingen. For some of the 71 DAAD Alumnis, this annual meeting was the fourth in a row. But as always, new faces and new topics have been enriching our big annual get-together.. read more

  • Indialumni Annual Meeting Munich 2014

    The third edition took place from 9th to 11th May at the EinWeltHaus München e.V. in 2014. Our annual meetings started in a new format: our founded association DAAD IndiAlumni Netzwerk. In Munich the high energy to continue the association in various forms started rolling.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual Meeting in Berlin 2013

    The second annual meeting, taking place from 22nd to 24th of March, was a repetition from the setting itself: same place (BSEL premise), same organisers, but with a strong drive: Engagement was the anchoring topic for the weekend to bring out more directed alumni work for the future.. read more

  • IndiAlumni Annual Meeting in Berlin 2012

    2012 was the beginning of our annual meetings for alumni who went with the DAAD “A New Passage to India” scholarship to the subcontinent. They met for the first time for such a big reunion to exchange the many impressions and experiences they made in India.. read more

Previous
Next

Authors: Ivan Murillo, Editor: Katleen Schneider

Our ConFest´ 20 and the celebration of Diwali (9th Edition)

2020 has been a very special and unconventional year. It has given us the opportunity to see life from other angles and ask ourselves about what really matters. Health, life, family, friends, well-being, welfare, a clean and fair environment for all, self-awareness, community living? Everyone knows their own answer! Most importantly, despite social distancing, our ties as a Network have grown closer, jey!

2020 put our DAAD Indi Alumni Network to the test: ConFest’20 planning had to be modified many times and then using technology on our side to make that illusion of meeting again was the challenge. The result? Outstanding! Thanks to all of you our dear members, participants of the ConFest’20 and allies such as the DAAD and other important people and organizations, this dream came true and we realized that we are resilient, diverse and have a great capacity to adapt and continue sailing together towards the port we want to reach!

On November 14th and 15th we met digitally not only to learn new things, exchange experiences, meet old friends and new faces, have fun, but also to celebrate Diwali, the festival of light, such a meaningful weekend! With a very rich agenda, we had the opportunity to reflect and rethink our role towards climate change and a sustainable lifestyle but also to contribute to re-shape our society and make this a more resilient planet for all. For this we had collaborations from Dr. Madhusudan Reddy Nandineni, Counselor of Science & Technology  from the Embassy of India, as well as outstanding experts who through Workshops shared their experiences on topics such as: Sustainable nutrition; Vegetarianism and Veganism by Lilli Sester and Alessa fromExtinction Rebellion Heidelberg; Planning and construction processes for a democratic and sustainable society by Eva Rechsteiner and Franziska Meier,  members of Collegium Academicum; and What can YOU do against the climate crisis? Heinrich Rauh and Mechthild Becker, Indi Alumni. Interactive energizers, dance, music, networking, games and eating together delicious Indian food made us remember wonderful memories of our experiences in India and Germany and build new memories together.

After our General Assembly and at the conclusion of our ConFest’20, we are convinced that feelings of togetherness also happen online, as one of you said. This 9th edition´s outcomes are remarkable. The ConFest’20 contributed significantly to the promotion of engagement in the German-Indian context and to foster continued exchange between India, Germany and the world as it states in the Network’s purpose. Support to ideas, projects and making stronger this flame of togetherness as a community was worth it. This is the impulse to keep going! We look forward to meeting you in person next year in Heidelberg for our ConFest´21!

Previous
Next

Authors: Sayanti Sengupta and Katleen Schneider, Editor: Susanne Ebner

The ConFest’19 in Dresden from 24th until 26th of May started off with a Quick Speed Dating session where participants had the chance to meet a new face every two minutes and answer questions that made them get to know one another. It was a nice way to warm up, get on our feet, come out of our shells and get in the mood for the events to follow!

The organized workshops covered a broad range of interdisciplinary themes and topics ranging  from job opportunities in Germany to theatre, anti-discrimination, SDGs and a lot more! Participants were engaged through interactive discussions and lots of hands-on activities which challenged and stimulated their thinking and essentially left them with interesting takeaways.

The ‘Open Space’ was the newest addition to our ConFest, with literally the aim to create an open space – a space where everyone can share, connect, get involved and present their research work, ideas or experiences in the Indo-German context. While some participants preferred putting up their own presentations and sharing it with colleagues, others chose to hop from one stall to another and take in all the different experiences that each stall had to offer.

The Confession Box was one of the most popular parts of the Open Space, where secrets were spilled, apologies were exchanged and where we heard lovely stories about experiences of Indo-German friendships growing in the most unlikely of places. A similar open space element was ‘Life Hacks from your time in India/Germany.’ This was particularly interesting to get to know different tips and techniques that our IndiAlumni members used while being on exchange.

The ConFest day part ended on a high note with a power packed performance from the Sanksriti Dance Group in Dresden, with a specially curated choreography bringing in flavours and songs from several regions of India. It was a celebration of happiness, friendship and hope and left us all with the motivation to build bridges and keep being involved in Indo-German relations.

During our annual general assembly we had an exciting election for three new positions. Sayanti Sengupta (Bonn, soon Berlin) got selected as the new and first Indian president of our association. Our newly elected vice-president is also female and a long time member: Katleen Schneider. Jasmin Minzapost (Berlin) has been reelected as our loyal treasurer.

Another highlight was the premier of our very first exclusive IndiAlumni party during night time. DJs from both countries made everybody sweat to the final dance step. We enjoyed a masala of Indianized dance songs, electronic music and full power participation. IndiAlumni went to another level on the dance floor. We couldn’t have asked for a better end to ConFest’19!

Previous
Next

Authors: Meggi Becker und Louise Wright, Editor: Susanne Ebner

Nothing beats our annual conference – to refresh old contacts, make new ones and exchange views on Indo-German topics in a great atmosphere. At this year’s conference in the beautiful port city of Hamburg, there was a focus topic for the first time: From April 20-22, 2018, the IndiAlumni world revolved around the highly topical topic of digitization.

Although this annual conference focused on digitisation, in alumni work, nothing beats personal exchange. Thanks to the support of the DAAD this was again possible in 2018. The thematic part of the meeting started with the optional joint augmented reality tour through the UNESCO World Heritage Speicherstadt followed by an informal get-together at the St. Pauli Landungsbrücken.

Dr. Madhu Singh from the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning opened up the official part of the meeting. He emphasized the necessity of contextualization, systematization and evaluation of digitization processes in educational context. The second keynote was given by Dr. Satish Gowda of the Law Institute of the University of Bangalore. He made a plea for the use of digitisation to minimise human rights violations.

On Sunday, the annual general meeting of the DAAD IndiAlumni Netzwerk e.V. took place. At the TUHH campus the board presented the work and goals of the association: To create and promote connections between India and Germany, to bring academics from different disciplines together, to encourage knowledge transfer and to inform about developments in both countries.

Summary of the meeting.

 

Previous
Next

Authors: Meggi Becker, Felix Theuerl and Theresa Bärwolff, Editor: Susanne Ebner

The sixth annual meeting of the DAAD IndiAlumni Netzwerk e.V. took place in Hannover from 12th until 14th of May 2017. For the first time – besides the regular German participants – the annual meeting also gathered former or current Indian DAAD scholarship holders currently based in Germany. This offered the opportunity for an even more intensified exchange and intercultural dialogue.

On Saturday morning the participants gathered at Leibniz Universität Hildesheim, Campus Herrenhausen and were welcomed by an enthusiastic organisation committee: Ronda, Annika and Rüdiger who highlighted the relevance of Indo-German exchange and friendship. Christina Hollmann from the DAAD working for the Alumniportal-Deutschland.org also welcomed the participants and stressed the importance to foster academic exchange.

Participants and organisers both were very happy to welcome the Vice-Consular of Hamburg, Ram Deswal. He referred to the diversity of India and how one could not claim to fully know India. According to him Hindi is a bonding element across India’s diversity. Rajnish Tiwari, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management of Hamburg University of Technology, delivered a capturing talk on frugal innovation, the art of finding a smart and as simple as possible solution to a specific problem in the market while ensuring high quality.

Dirk Weichgrebe working at the Institute of Water Quality and Waste Management at Leibniz University presented his findings about waste management. He discussed the various problems encountered in India while processing waste. Christian Wagner, head of the research group “Asia”, at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) highlighted environment, healths well as violence against women as some major conflicts in India.

Summary of the meeting.

Previous
Next

Authors: Stefan Frisch, Juditha Wójcik und Antje Wessels, Editor: Susanne Ebner

The meeting started with a warm welcome by the International Office of the University represented by Sarah-Marleen Dannenberg and the presentation of the Centre for Modern Indian Studies CMIS-UC at the University of Cologne represented by Antje Wessels. After the welcoming words, the organisers Antje, Juditha and Stefan from the ranks of the association and Heidemarie Albertin from the DAAD introduced themselves. Furthermore, the participants were asked to spontaneously record tips for German outgoings and Indian incomings as well as their most impressive experience from their time in India.

After a short coffee break Srita Heide gave a keynote speech with the title “Indian Talents”. She described her experiences as head of a talent management agency that supports German companies in setting up joint ventures in India. Dr. Balasubramanian Ramani presented his work as speaker of the Indian Academic Society of the Leibniz University Hannover. He informed about current German-Indian projects, about direct investments in India and the networking of the association with important actors in Germany and India. This lecture was also accompanied by lively participation on the part of the audience.

At lunch in the refectory of the University of Cologne the participants exchanged information about the lectures and further experiences from their stay in India, so that the participants were able to attend the workshops and seminars scheduled for the afternoon.

The following workshops were offered, which were conceived and designed by members of the DAAD IndiAlumni Netzwerk e. V.: Indian club members – Why, why,

why?; IndiAlumni e.V. Activities & Homepage and “Buddy Program”.

Summary of the meeting.

Previous
Next

Authors: Jan Hansen, Juditha Wójcik and Olga Uchlina | Editor: Katleen Schneider

Our 4th edition of the big annual meetings started as usual with a meet and greet on Friday at a local restaurant. New and old faces were being welcomed while to many Indian sympathizers some feelings of nostalgia returned. The annual meeting in Göttingen was highly packed with keynote speakers like Dr. Tiwari of the German-Indian Round Table, who gave a controversial keynote about “The revival of the giant? Indian perspectives for a indo-german collaboration” (Original: “Der wiedererwachte Riese? Indische Perspektiven für die deutsch-indische Zusammenarbeit”). His introduction in the economic perspectives and opportunities under the new political governance with Narendra Modi resulted in lively discussions among the participants.

Another part of the weekend were traditionally workshops from our invitees and through our members itself. In Göttingen the following topics have been elaborated with our guest speakers:

  • ECONOMY: “Frugal innovation as driver for cooperation: new perspectives for indo-german collaboration?” by Dr. Rajnish Tiwari, TU Hamburg-Harbug and GIRT Hamburg
  • SOCIAL: “ ‘The rape capital of the world?’: The image of India in Germany and Europe” by Susanne Ebner, DAAD IndiAlumni Netwerk e.V.
  • HEALTH CARE “poverty reduction measures for health care: current projects in Bihar” by Prof. Sebastian Vollmer, Universität Göttingen)
  • SOCIAL:“development of a fundraising strategy for an orphanage NGO in Delhi” by Thomas von Hake, Udayan Care Berlin

After our traditional Samosa and Chai break, our INDIALUMNI members offered diverse topics related to further developing our association or deepening insights about Indo-German relations:

  • EDUCATION: Reflexion about intercultural trainings by Alessandro Rossi and Neele Meyer
  • NETWORK: development of an IndiAlumni Homepage by Michael Kraus and Kristin Frauenhoffer
  • ECONOMY: Role play “The Indian market – chances and risks for German organisations by Olga Velgosha and Viktor Ruff
  • SOCIAL: Buddy Programm by Sofia Trojanowska and Judiwth Wójcik

Another highlight was the screening of an Indian documentary film “The Salt Stories” by Lalit Vachani from Centre of Modern Indian Studies, Universität Göttingen. The documentary was about the political and social heritage of Gandhi with regard to globalisation and modernisation of India as well as the strengthening of hindu-nationalist movements. It provided a lot of insights of rural areas and private housing situations. This was especially enriching our participants who have experienced urban space in India.

Summary of the meeting.

Previous
Next

Author: Neele Meyer, Johannes Wöbker und Jana Köhler | Editor: Katleen Schneider

“Dear DAAD IndiAlumni, thanks for your numerous participation at our third big DAAD IndiAlumni Network meeting in Munich. We were truly impressed by the engaging exchange, the diverse discussions and the fantastic results of our group works. We hope that the meet-up gave you splendid possibilities to meet old friends and make new contacts with like-minded people towards India. We were truly happy that this year a lot of new faces joined the meeting with lots of enthusiasm and interest. We hope that you could get some insights about our current activities of our network and maybe some further perspectives for future collaborations.”

The motto of the third edition of our annual meetings was “Rückblick und Perspektiven” (eng. review + perspectives), as our association has just been founded two weeks prior to the meeting. This entailed a lot of updates like our mission and goals as well as the newly formed statute. Next to our honorable guest Prof. Dr. Jürgen Lehman, Chairman of the BayIND Directoriums, who presented about Indo-German perspectives, the first half of the day was used to introduce running projects of our members like the “Hand in Hand” Project, the Speed Dating Event organized by Imke Poland and Susanne Ebner or a science exchange presented by Neele Meyer.

The other half of the day was a mixture of workshops and group work for the development of our IndiAlumni network. These included

  • ECONOMY: Indo-German economic forum by Christian Klemenz and Stefan Frisch
  • SOCIAL: Foreign Women and Indian Men by Susanne Ständer
  • SCIENCE EXCHANGE: Filmworkshop – India in the perspective of German film makers by Himadri Ketu
  • ENVIRONMENT/SUSTAINABILITY: Atomic plant – blessing or curse for emerging countries? by Sidharth Nair
  • INDIALUMNI: development of a logo by Inga Samtlebe
  • INDIALUMNI: strengthening internal communication by Jan Hansen
  • INDIALUMNI: local buddy program by Sofia Trojanowska and Selina Faßl

For further insights of the weekend, you can have a look at our throughout summary of Annual Meeting for 2014. 

Previous
Next

Authors: Ingo Dullweber and Theresa Vollmer | Editor: Katleen Schneider

Another year, another round of a follow-up meeting for German students who went with a DAAD scholarship to India for study or internship purposes. Again Miram Condé, a DAAD representative, initiated the call for organizing a weekend with further networking in cooperation with students from Berlin School of Economics and Law (BSEL) and FU Berlin. The main organisers namely Jana Köhler, Naveen Kalarickal, Daniel Klaperski, Theresa Vollmer and Ingo Dullweber were supported by the volunteers on site: Anastasia Brandt, Thomas Sommereisen, Bente Krützfeld. Theresia Fleischer, Amit Datta, Franziska Roggenbuck and Krisitna Hillinger. This year’s overarching theme was ‘engagement’ with the aim to activate highly interested people to establish long term projects and an anticipated registered association.

The 90 participants got introduced to the ‘future workshop’ (Zukunftswerkstatt) in order to elaborate on possible development of our India Alumni group. Next to topics related to how to be engaged as an alumni group, Ingo Dullweber presented his project “Hand in Hand”, where participants could equally join to support the social cause.

One of our alumna, Susanne Ebner, M.A. in cultural science, presented the findings of her master thesis “Aadhaar: Die Unique-ID in Indien: Biometrie für Milliarden? Kulturwissenschafltiche Perspektiven auf ein Jahrhundertprojekt”. Christian Klemenz, another Alumna from Bamberg, gave his insights of “How to utilize the Indian experience – Case Study on St. ERHARD GmbH”, where he talked about his experience in founding a startup company while motivating the participants to use their chances and talents likewise.

The output of this meeting was very fruitful resulting in working teams for establishing a more structured network and a follow-up meeting which was solely dedicated to the founding of our association.

 

Previous
Next

Author: Indo Dullweber / Editor: Katleen Schneider

Upon request of Miriam Condé, a DAAD representative, a group of India alumni of the Berlin School of Economics and Law (BSEL) with the support of Prof. Dr. Gert Bruche organised the very first India Alumni meeting in Berlin from 2nd to 4th of March in  2012.

The initial main organisers were Theresia Fleischer, Naveen Kalarickal, Daniel Klaperski, Bernhard Wallner, Prof. Gert Bruche and Ingo Dullweber. A special thanks goes to Miachel Kraus and Jana Köhler next to other India Alumni of the BSEL supporting the set-up of the weekend. While organising it for the first time, we got connected with Robert Lenk, who supported us as he was experienced with Alumni Meetings for the Region of Subsahara.

The meet-up  took place from 2nd to 4th March within the facilities of the BSEL, who kindly supported us with free access during the weekend. The meet-up was enriched with group work, where the founding of a network was already one topic among others. Besides that interesting impulses came across the different presentations in relation to India through our invitees. The speakers were namely: Dr. H.S Shiva Prakash (author), Prof. Dr. Gert Bruche (academic director of masters program at BSEL), Dr. Andreas Waldraff (head of German Indian Round Table), Anja Gollor und Mirko Merkel (both qualified Communication Designer from University of Potsdam).

Although it was the first meeting, the limited capacity of 110 seats were fully booked. The general feedback of the participants was throughout positive. Also during our evening’s program, everybody used the time for exchange and networking, which was the beginning of our long lasting relationship to other IndiAlumni associates. It was the start for further regional meetings, which developed more and more over the years. 2012 was the first milestone of shaping a new association which in the coming years became reality through the founding of an e.V. (eingetragener Verein = registered association).