Dear Alumni, It gives me great pleasure writing to you as we close the year that was and gear up to enter 2013. The year has been a most interesting for the Local chapter as we grew from our progressive year that was 2011 and sustained the ongoing process of growth in 2012, we have seen massive changes that have affected most of the stakeholders involved with AIESEC in a positive manner. However the challenge of reconnecting with people of our past still remained a challenge I am yet to overcome in my year, before I hand over the baton of leadership to my successor. The changes my team and I have brought to this local chapter have enabled me to finally bring to you our first newsletter tailored for alumni. For me, as a local committee president it hasn’t always been easy to overcome challenges and move past them that made me realize that leadership is not a mantle or just a tag, the year made me realize that leadership exists in all of us and that it is a way of life. And a way of life needs to be backed by a value system that is immovable. I have learned over my time in AIESEC that respect and humility are one of the most important values to hold onto as a human being. And from that I believe in respecting our elders {not to make you feel old } but you as alumni have had considerable experience, experience that if I had privilege of hearing I might have reacted differently to the challenges of leadership faced by me. I am just 1 leader in the LC with at least 50 others and 100 members aspiring to become leaders, the organization is bigger than anyone man is what I believe in and want to ensure more people in the organization learn from your experiences and are enabled to find newer ones for themselves. The newsletter is help us reconnect with you, and also be able to make AIESEC more relevant to YOU in your daily life which is why we have taken up this initiative, there are several sections that shall cater to the same in the coming editions. I am currently on an Internship in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania as part of an AIESEC India initiatives where 7 Local Committee Presidents have taken up internships in various parts of Africa and Europe in order to help membership of AIESEC India realize why it is important to get out of comfort zones and grow as a beautiful individual, I’ve only been here for a week and yet have learned so much about myself. The power of my experience and skill base is enabling me to help the youth of Tanzania understand the importance of entrepreneurship and more importantly on how to do something about contributing to their growing economy, in the time I had for self-reflection I came across a thought “ You learn far more from negative leadership than positive leadership because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore you learn how to do it.” I hope that we are able to learn from the numerous experiences you’ve had, to actually impact the world that we live in and the people who are going to that from the helms of leadership are the members of this Local Chapter and Organization. Thank you for your time, I look forward to interacting you all soon and hearing from you please do write to me if you have any special requests or general feedback at abhishek.kalsur@aiesec.net I shall share the same with my successor and ensure consistency of communication. Wishing you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2013. Regards, Abhishek Kalsur, President, AIESEC in Bangalore, Member, National Steering Team, AIESEC India.