CHICAGO: One of the most premiere service organizations of Indian Americans, Indo American Community Services (IACS) added one more feather in its growing caps of achievements by successfully organizing its second in row South Asian Women’s Conference here last week.
The event held at Oakbrook Marriott in Oakbrook (southwest suburb of Chicago) on Sunday September 8 featured two highly successful businesswomen executives – Sona Chawla and Dr. Masum Momaya – and a recently elected Congresswoman Robin Kelly, all scaling new heights in their respective fields thru professional skill and dint of hard work and commitment.
The event facilitated an exclusive networking experience designed to help women from all walks of life create professional connections, generate ideas, and develop successful new strategies for advancement in their careers as well as in their personal and social lives. The success that a similar conference last year had achieved induced a larger attendance this time with a larger number of businesswomen, entrepreneurs and professionals from Metro Chicago coming to attend this meet.
Srinivas Katragada, president of IACS said that the forum sought to explore a range of topics relevant to professional women developing leadership techniques and overcoming career obstacles. It was also designed to help women with tools and technique for achieving a true work life balance. The Conference attendees had an opportunity to informally network with each other at a post-conference dinner
Dr Masum Momaya has a highly distinguished educational background being a graduate of the Cora Fellows Program in Public Affairs and holding a doctorate in Human Development and Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University and an honors BA in Public Policy from Stanford University
Curator at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and Dr Momaya was one of the featured speakers of the evening. She urged South Asian women professionals to be proud of their heritage and to embrace it wholeheartedly.
Momaya is part of a team that is helping the Smithsonian with an ambitious initiative chronicling the history of Indian immigrants in the United States. The multi million dollar exhibition that she is in charge of is titled Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation. It is slated for a launch in Washington DC from December 2013-March 2015 and then would be traveling across the country for five years thereafter.
She reminded attendees of the numerous economic and social contributions made by Indian Americans ever since the first immigrant from the subcontinent arrived in America back in 1790.
Before coming to Washington DC, she has been Curator at the International Museum of Women in San Francisco and was Researcher and Writer for the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. She has 20 years of experience working for women’s rights, human rights and social justice. Her more than 100 publications, podcasts and exhibitions have been translated into a dozen languages.
Sona Chawla , born in Delhi but raised in Calcutta India, with degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science and Masters in Management under her belt, is the President of E-commerce at Walgreen in Deerfield, Illinois, She said that the determination and proper prioritizing of goals helped her fine tuning between her personal life and career without impacting either adversely.
Before joining Walgreen, Sona was vice president of global online business at Dell, Inc. She also worked at Wells Fargo’s Internet Services Group as executive vice president of online sales, service and marketing.
She recounted how she successfully overcame many of the challenges that she initially encountered as an immigrant in the United States. Chawla used her personal story as an inspiring example of how perseverance, determination and a willingness to learn can help individuals achieve their dreams no matter what obstacles might come their way.
Congresswoman Robin Kelly, representing Illinois’ 2nd District echoed similar sentiments during a panel discussion at the conference. Kelly urged those present not to get discouraged by failure and adversity, but to instead learn from them.
She presented the crowd with a personal example about her failure in a statewide race and how she had not let that incident discourage her from running for elections a second time and being elected as a Congresswoman.
Robin Kelly presented IACS recognition Plaques to Sona Chawla and Dr Masum Momya. Earlier, Srinivas Katragadda IACS President and IACS activist Vidya Kadayale welcomed the guests and speakers while Saily Joshi introduced featured speakers along with Sri Vidya. Addresses by the featured speakers got followed with lively question- answer sessions that sought some of the ticklish problems faced by Indian American women in their careers and personal life.
IACS founded in 2010 by a group of accomplished technology executives, entrepreneurs and professionals of Indian origin, works to nurture and foster the development of the South Asian community in the Greater Chicago area through job fairs, women’s empowerment forums, student internships and professional networking opportunities. The group’s flagship event is the IACS Diversity Job Fair, an annual event that matches hundreds of qualified job candidates in the Chicago area with some of the region’s top employers.
Ramesh Soparawala
India Post News Service
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