“‘WOW, so this is Hubli”, I thought to myself as I looked out the window in the KLE bus. The streets of Hubli were so busy and filled with vehicle horns. The sight was different but beautiful. No one seemed to be following any traffic laws, but it all seemed to work out. It was mind-blowing.

We were welcomed into the hostel, with breakfast waiting for us. The chai tasted like heaven, I wondered how it was made. The fruits also tasted so different, but better in a way. At this point, I had already forgotten my bad experience at the airport in Bengaluru. The people welcoming us were so kind and considerate. After I finished eating, I rushed to my new room and edited my first vlog in India.

The first day of class quickly rolled around, and I didn’t know what to expect.  I met the members of my project group, Swathi, Vinuta, Priyanka, and Tom. I liked that the group was very diverse, containing at least one student from each other institutions in the program. My group and I will be working on the ‘Multimodal books for Visually Impaired People’ project. As days passed, I definitely saw my group go through some of the stages of team growth such as forming and storming. There was a huge huge gap of cultural differences and miscommunication. At a certain point, I started to become worried and frustrated about us not doing the project correctly due to the language barrier and fully understanding each other. Fortunately, the Rupee challenge was introduced, which helped us create a great bond between each other and increase team confidence.

For The Rupee Challenge, each group was given 500 rupees and challenged to engage in any business that would create profit. Only the 500 rupees were allowed to be invested in the startup of the business, and by the end of the challenge, each group was required to return the 500 rupees. We had two days for this challenge, and the remainder of the net income would be donated to charity. RIght after class, my group and I started thinking of ideas that we can pursue. I thought of a raffle, where we would sell raffle tickets for three different gifts that would buy from the 500. That led to the idea of an auction, which led to more ideas. Our final idea was to sell Indian gift boxes, provide the service of applying Mehndi (henna), and also to buy and resell jewelry.

The project truly helped my group members and I connect on a deeper level and get to know each other better. The collaboration among the group grew the trust and bond that should be within a group. At the end of the challenge, we ended up raising a net income of 4600 rupees. I am so proud of my group, and I cannot wait to see more achievement that we are going to accomplish.

Below is a vlog I posted on my YouTube channel of all the fun Hubli had to offer so far. Enjoy watching!