Archive for January, 2007

I’m flying to the SAAN Conference in Ann Arbor tomorrow (technically later today…12 hours to be precise). I’m very excited about the conference. There’ll be a lot of great speakers that I’m looking really forward to meeting, especially Moushumi Khan who we’re profiling later today. Sumaya’s speaking too. Her mother and brother are flying out to see her speak. Aww…

I’ll be without internet for close to 3 days. This is not good.

I just got this press release in my email. Thought I’d share. He’s out of our age range

Press Release: Kraft Foods Names Sanjay Khosla as President, Kraft International Commercial - AP Monday January 22, 5:05 pm ET

NORTHFIELD, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT - News) announced today that Sanjay Khosla has been named President, Kraft International Commercial, effective immediately. Khosla joins Kraft from New Zealand-based Fonterra Co-operative Group, where he had been Managing Director of its consumer and foodservice business, Fonterra Brands, since 2004. He succeeds Hugh Roberts, who, as previously announced, is retiring after a distinguished 31-year career with Kraft.

In welcoming Khosla to the company, Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft CEO, said, “Sanjay will be a dynamic leader of our international business. During his career, he has gained extensive global experience and deep insights in consumer marketing. Sanjay has an impressive track record of growing businesses and will build on Hugh’s many successes to help us write the next chapter in Kraft’s growth.”

“I’m thrilled to join the Kraft team,” said Khosla. “This is an exciting time for both the company and the industry. And I look forward to working with my new colleagues in taking full advantage of the many opportunities before us in our International business.”

Before joining Fonterra, Khosla had a 27-year career with Unilever in India, London and Europe, culminating in his roles as Senior Vice President Global Beverages, and Chairman of the Unilever beverages category board. Khosla graduated with honors in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. In 1998, he completed the Harvard University Advanced Management Program.

One of the big things we pride ourselves on at The CulturalConnect is finding talent for our various magazines. When we first started out in August 2005 (click here for debut issue!), Sumaya and I would search the corners of the country for all the amazingly talented people we profiled. As we created more magazines, we took on a staff and found ourselves managing them to scour for talent. And as we grew even larger, Sumaya, Kaiser, and I decided that I would focus solely on business strategy and development…no more profiling But occasionally, I still get the opportunity to profile people.

But today I came across a project started by a young South Asian called gCensus. gCensus is meant to take population characteristics from U.S. Census data across geographic data in Google Earth, so we can visualize a wide variety of data over detailed maps. It’s going to be free and accessible to the public and a great way to look at information such as population density, age, and race. The example below is a gCensus map of the population per block in Berkeley, CA.

gCensus is a project by a young Bangladeshi-American grad student at Stanford, Imran Haque. When I did some investigating on Mr. Haque, I realized he focuses his research in Computational Biology. gCensus is merely a side project! There’s a lot of great things to be coming from this young grad student, especially from gCensus. It’s at its fledgling stages, so once it starts gaining some momentum, we’ll be trying to get Mr. Haque for The DesiConnect.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - A Mexican director delivered the globe-spanning best drama Golden Globe winner. A U.S. director crafted the foreign-language champ. Another American won a key acting prize playing an African dictator. And a Brit received an acting honor for playing a Kazakh man. [Read More]

It’s always wonderful when we see cultural diversity in entertainment. My special congrats goes out to America Ferrera for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for “Ugly Betty.”

One of our past profilees, Annetta Seecharran, made the news yesterday for her work on Martin Luther King Day.

Immigrant Teens on Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy
WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY January 15, 2007 — Martin Luther King Day celebrates an established American hero. But Dr. King and the civil rights movement can be a hazy concept for recent immigrant families that make up the majority in many parts of the city.

Annetta Seecharran is the head of South Asian Youth Action in Elmhurst, Queens. She works with teenagers who have roots in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and the Caribbean.

SEECHARRAN: We certainly educate our young people here about Dr King and his work and how the work that we’re doing today links back to the civil rights movement. I don’t think there is enough public education in general about Dr King within other communities of color.

South Asian teens gathered for a leadership class say they learn about Dr. King in school, but there’s a gap between the civil rights legacy and the issues they face today. Noor is a high-school sophomore born and raised in Elmhurst. Her family came from Bangladesh.

NOOR: Like, it has been a while since someone actually done this in our time, or someone South Asian like us, that we can relate to has done this. So I’m not sure there’s actual connection but we do respect him

Other teens say the civil rights movement paved the way for their own rights in America. They all agree on one thing with midterms and Regents exams coming up… it’s a relief to have the day off from school.

Welcome!

We’ve had a lot of demand for this blog recently, and the 3 of us decided we should have one and start posting. Kaiser most graciously set it for up us using Wordpress, and now we’re here.

We’re not going to bore you with our mundane stories throughout the week, but hopefully we can provide some insight of why The CultualConnect exists and why we work tirelessly everyday to get issues out to you.

There is a lot to be said not just by Sumaya, Kaiser, and myself, so I encourage you to respond to our posts.

I hope your New Year has started wonderfully, and I look forward from hearing from all of you!

Raymond Rouf
Business Director