Panels of mentors coached teams all day
Today began with some of the MIT team members visiting a Brahmin temple early in the morning, then stopping by the riverside. At the Kumbhathon venue at the Nashik Engineering Cluster (NEC), innovators and mentors were doing yoga together. It was a beautiful morning, and a peaceful start to what was to be an intense and productive day.
The Kumbhathon coordinators gathered in the morning to assess the work from the prior day and determine how best to guide the teams today. They decided to resume the pattern of mentoring multiple teams simultaneously. Two delegates from each of about five teams met together, and there were three waves of teams. This time, there were several goals:
Share a summary description of their project.
Look for synergies among teams – such as in terms of input, process, and output.
Uncover challenges and discuss possible solutions.
Get innovators to be more comfortable with the innovation process.
Walk through the value proposition worksheets for one team, so that the others could understand how it works and develop their own.
Prioritize next steps.
The mentors listened for clarity in the messages, looked for common questions among several teams, and made suggestions and recommendations. They also discussed priorities and decision-making with the teams. It’s important that the innovators make their own decisions about the various comments that they receive, while backing up those decisions with thoughtful analysis.
Throughout the day, several decisions were made regarding priorities. Some new connections were made between teams, while at least two teams who seem to be in the same space (Annadan and Food Logistics) declared their businesses separate. Several map programs are planning to coordinate.
The All Shops Online team visited 2 more local school to share their message to add a digital layer to Nashik City. The students in the school will becoe ambassadors for the Kumbhathon, sharing the message with their families and comunities and having the next great ideas to reinvent their communities.
