IAIP – Volunteer Day, 2013, Mumbai

IAIP had its second Volunteer Day on July 27^th 2013 in Mumbai wherein active volunteers (as well as few prospective) from across the country joined for half a day session. The event started with brief address by Jayesh Gandhi, CFA, President IAIP, and Sunil Singhania, CFA, Member of Board of Governors, CFA Institute, both of whom talked on volunteerism and shared their experiences. This was followed by presentations by (1) Namit Arora, CFA, Vice President, IAIP who set a long term vision for IAIP, (2) Rohit Rebello, CFA, Vice President, IAIP, who asked the volunteers to choose from 7 different committees (3) Vidhu Shekhar, CFA, Consultant to CFA Institute in India who highlighted the 3 B’s of CFA Institue, (4) Joanna Kwok, APAC, CFA Institute, who presented on volunteerism and structure at CFA Institute, (5) Angela Chu, APAC, CFA Institute, who ran through the society resource centre & portal, and (6) Biharilal Deora, CFA, Secretary, IAIP who familiarized volunteers about various committees & activities. Anil Ghelani, CFA, Director PCE, IAIP moderated the sessions.

Volunteering was coined as a noun in the mid 16^th century by M Fr Voluntaire as one who offers himself for military service. The more recent usage coincides with community services. It is considered an altruistic activity and intended to promote good or improve human quality of life. Applied to the financial services activity, primarily CFA Institute and its roughly 140 societies world wide, it has numerous expressions but mainly offering services without asking for anything in return, giving back to the society etc all leading to best practices for the good of the society in general. As speakers of the day mentioned offering ones’ time and effort brings back unexpected ancillary benefits. These include networking opportunities with various people in the industry, professional enrichment, respect, projects outside of our day job etc. It offers an opportunity to take on leadership roles by taking a particular project and fulfilling the same. Most of leaders in the industry took on such roles before taking on leadership roles in commercial organizations. Like elsewhere IAIP is run with the help of self-motivated and passionate people all of whom are honorary volunteers. How about you?

Contributed by: Chetan Shah, CFA, IAIP Volunteer

Photographs: IAIP