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Invest India

Domestic Investor's Desk→ July/August → December 2023

TLDR;

• I chose to skip big college choices to join Invest India, while just out of high school - as one of their youngest ever employees.
• Worked with the Atmanirbhar Niveshak Mitra or the Domestic Investors' Desk which facilitated domestic companies with other parts of Invest India and liasoned with MSMEs to the biggest companies of India - helping them expand
• Was at Invest India during the G20, where Invest India was one of the key stakeholders in India's presidency - I was with the team that organized various events.
• Attended various conferences, met numerous premier government officials, CXOs
• Facilitated tech development, market research and analysis, operational expansion, and event organization.

A bit of my story at Invest India

Summer of 2023. While having a couple of college options on hand, my intention was to take a gap year, and spent my time working. But prior to the summer, much earlier, my eyes were set on working with a body of the government I was always fascinated by - Invest India.

I'd known about their operations via LooCafe's work, as an SMB looking to expand - Invest India was a key mover for companies. Startup India, itself, is a department under Invest India.

That pretty much was a 'wow' moment for me. Invest India is extremely unique as an agency. It's commerce focus, investment promotion agency behaviour is like a consultancy, with diplomacy, does international business, domestic business, governance, policy, interdepartmental research, works on fund release, fund growth, Indian representation - quite a bit. Interdisciplinary, agentic, open to folks outside a conventional path and with recruitment taste for 'sparkly' people. I was told that Invest India would be a pretty good fit for me by a mentor, he said 'Invest India is really a place for you, smart well-dressed folks with pretty nice talking skills and well-educated' - flattery, and embarrassment for me to write this on, but that's how I'd describe invest India to anyone who I think should work there.

I just had to work there, I applied, wrote some emails and asked for some help, and they made an exception with the experiences I've had before; and I didn't let them down eventually. So there I was, no university decision made, onto a gap year per-se, and really excited with the Invest India opportunity on hand. I had to join the office, be there in person at the Vigyan Bhavan in the heart's heart of the country - the centres of governance circled around Rajpath. My aunt & uncle lived in Gurgaon, a city part of the NCR, and hour and half of metro ride away from Vigyan Bhavan. I stayed with them for the time I was there at Invest India, and transitioned from side-project, flexible, agentic, a working-child-teenager (perception of my parents as I went to the office, T-Hub and school in Hyderabad) to a full-time migrant employee. I moved out of my home, to work, not study. Sweet, exactly what I wanted, especially in Delhi - the throbbing heart of the country filled with opportunities, always and even does today more the Bangalore for the absolute scale of things Delhi has on its plate.

My work started at Invest India pretty comfortably, my manager Dr. Astha was the kindest, and my team members were wonderful, the friends I met there were so much more experienced than me, from fine institutions and of course, at a minimum of 3–4 years older than me, in final years of University. The office was extremely lively, we had the G20 going on, it was summertime, so interns from the best universities around Delhi were around, but surprisingly, nobody an intern not from Delhi, especially considering how unique and opportunistic invest India is for people who want to work in such a setting that Invest India is.

I worked on various projects while I was at Invest India, and overall a pretty solid experience, perhaps it wasn't as challenging, just often, it was a lot to do, and rigorous. I was lucky enough though to have a couple of projects that were quite creative, web redevelopment, outreach and organization of events, interdepartmental communication among others.