AKKA World Kannada Conference 2006
The AKKA World Kannada Conference 2006 was hosted by Kaveri Kannada Association of Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia during September 1-3, 2006 (the fourth annual conference). Held under the banner of Association of Kannada Kootas of America, this conference was the biggest of all three conferences hosted earlier. The total budget of this conference was over a USD$1,000,000. Over 4000 Kannadigas from all around the world attended the conference. The three day extravaganza featured over 500 artists from Karnataka, US, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland. Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka Mr. Yediyurappa, Home Minister of Karnataka Mr. M.P. Prakash, Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art Of Living, Sri Veerendra Haggade of Dharmasthala and the representatives of the Maryland government and Mayor of Baltimore were among the dignitaries that inaugurated the conference on the first day. Earlier that day, on September 1, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar held a workshop on meditation and yoga that was attended by over 200 people. Also, the business forum that featured businesses from all sizes and sectors discussed various ways to network and extending and exploring business opportunities between Karnataka and US.
History
Registered in Florida as a non-profit organization, Association of Kannada Kutas of America (AKKA) - Tax ID Number 59-3527607 - is dedicated to promoting cultural, artistic, business and social relations among the Kannada speaking communities within the United States. Indeed, AKKA, in association with the various state based associations – called Kootas, has fostered life long bonds between members residing in the United States and their counterparts in India, particularly in the State of Karnataka. In furtherance of these objectives, AKKA and the concerned Kannada association hold an International Conference in a different major US city every two years. To date, the cities of Houston (2000), Detroit (2002), Orlando (2004) and Washington DC (2006) have hosted conferences attracting several thousand people from across the US as well as a significant number from India and other countries. The 2006 Conference was hosted Kaveri, the Kannada association serving the areas of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia
The Conference offers a wide range of activities including literary & cultural programs, a business forum, a women's forum, youth -oriented activities and continuing medical education. In turn, this many faceted programs provide new opportunities for community members to rediscover their culture & heritage, promote social & business relations and promote global harmony. Conference also provides a unique opportunity for the youth to network and exchange ideas on contemporary issues such as education and career development.
Road to the conference 2006
A team of Kaveri members, after attending AKKA WKC 2002 at Houston started dreaming about hosting a conference at Kaveri. For the first time the idea of hosting a confernece was raised at the general body meeting of 2000 when Mr. Ravi Harapanahalli was the President of Kaveri. Mr. Harpanhalli suggested that Kaveri should host 2002 conference itself. However, the general body felt that it was too early and expressed doubt that a conference of that magnitude could indeed be hosted in DC area. GB then appointed Mr. Rajshekar Doddanna to head a one man WKC exporatory committee. With no decisions till 2003, the then Kaveri president Mr. Sanjay Rao reopened the discussion by forming an email group and involving all former Presidents. Mr. Ravi Dankanikote (Kaveri President 2002) was the first one to express interest to head the conference committee. Though quite a few presidents of Kaveri expressed interest in hosting the conference nothing concrete came out of the email discussion. In August 2004, Mr. Suresh Ramachandran hosted a party at his house to initiate the dialog. With the third conference in Florida fast nearing in August 2004, Kaveri presidents stated realizing that they have to act now if they have to ever host a conference. A rumor mill (started with a clarification sought by Gayathri Jagannath, Kaveri President 1994) that a radio station in New York has announced that Kaveri is hosting 2006 conference triggered a series of questions and an urgency to act. The very first meeting of AKKA WKC 2006 was thus held in Montgomery County executive building in November 2004. A week before the meeting a group of friends met at Mr. Vijayeendra Nanjangud's house and expressed confidence in the leadership of Mr. Ravi Dankanikote. In a well attended meeting mostly by the former presidents of Kaveri, expressed what and how they can contribute and also a one liner on how much donations they can raise and whether they are interested in leading the conference. Though there were some skeptisisims initially on how Kaveri can raise nearly one million dollars required for the conference, it was indeed the words of Mr. Siddalingaiah that brought a new momentum when he said there will be such people who always have negative attitude but he has hosted similar conferences in the past in this area and gave the confidence to the group that the conference can definitely be hosted if all the Kaveri members stand united to the cause. One after another got up and expressed their view point on what kind of confernece they would like to see nobody really said that they will lead the confernece till Mr. Suresh Ramachandran, President 1999, said he would be interested if the community has faith in his leadership. Mr. Ravi Dankanikote, Kaveri President 2002, who spoke in the end said he will go after corporations and can easily raise a donation of about $150,000 and he would like to lead the conference along with Mr. Suresh Ramachandran. This very productive meeting concluded by agreeing that if a conference is hosted then Mr. Ravi Dankanikote and Mr. Suresh Ramachandran will be the conveners. A formal general body meeting was convened in November 2004. However, the meeting was attened only by 48 members. According to the rules of Kaveri, the chorum for general body meeting is 50 members. Just when the secretary of Kaveri was about to cancel the meeting, Ms. Uma Babu another member showed up putting the count to 49. Ms. Pallavi Vasanth then filled up the 50th slot by becoming a member on the spot. Thus convened general body, passed a resolution that under the leadership of Mr. Ravi Dankanikote and Suresh Ramachandran Kaveri will host the 4th World Kannada conference. However, some leaders wanted clarificaitons on what the role of Kaveri and AKKA would be in the conference. General body asked the appointed conveners to prepare a memorandam of understanding before officially kick starting the conference. This started the process of MOU with intense negotiations by Mr. Ravi Dankanikote and Sanjay Rao from the convention side and Mr. Kudur Murali, Mr. Amarnath Gowda, Mr. Ramesh Gowda, Mr. Dayashankar Adappa and Vasanthi Gowda from the AKKA side and Mr. Ravi Dankanikote and Mr. Mysore Nataraja from the Kaveri side. Iterations after iterations MOU process stretched for almost six months before all parties agreed on a final document. This final document was presented to AKKA office bearers through a conference call and to Kaveri seniors (Kaveri Krishnamurthy, Rajshekar Doddanna, Mysore Nataraj, Harish Hiremath, Ravi Harapanahalli, Suresh Ramachandra, Rama Rao, Ravi Dankanikote and Sanjay Rao) at Woodlands restaurant in Gaithersburg. There were still some contentious points in the MOU regarding the seed money by AKKA and Kaveri that were resolved in the final version. MOU was emailed to all Kaveri volunteers and a special meeting was held to ratify the agreement at Potomac convention center. This meeting was probably the biggest convention meeting held at Kaveri. It was agreed that a monthly townhall meeting will be held on every second Sunday at montgomery executive center and anybody interested to know what is happening behind the scene was welcome to attend that meeting. A conflict resolution committee with Mr. Kudur Murali, Mr. Ravi Dankanikote, Mr. Suresh Ramachandra, Mr. V Seetharamaiah and Mr. Dayashankar Adappa (senior members from both Kaveri and AKKA) was formed to resolve any disputes at all they arose in the future between AKKA and Kaveri.
The next serious task for the conveners was to form committees and explore ways to raise donations. Conveners invited former conveners and office bearers from Detroit and Florida to share their experience with a select group consisting of two conveners, Sanjay Rao, Nagashankar Chandrashekar, Ravi Harapanahalli, Swamy Narayana, Sudhish Parthsarathy and Vijayeendra.
Formation of Committees
During those meetings, it was decided that the search for facility should begin immidietly and appointed Mr. Nagashanar Chandrashekar as the facility coordinator. In a meeting at Rio center in Germantown, the first steering committee was formed that included two Conveners, Sanjay Rao and Nagashankar. Steering committee asked Mr. Sanjay Rao to chart out different committees and coordinators. Also, steering committee also decided to appoint Mr. Harish Hiremath for the finance committee and Mr. Ravi Harapanhalli for the registration committee and Sanjay Rao for publicity commmittee. Selecting other coordinators were the most difficult task and finally a consensus was reached on all coordinators selection. At an another meeting steering committee that included Ravi Harapanahalli and Rajshekar Doddanna also, asked Sanjay Rao to take charge as Secretary instead of Publicity committee chair. Also, Kaveri Krishnamurthy was pulled in at this time to head Risk Mitigaiton committee. Fund raising committee was one the first fully functional committee. Initially it included two conveners, Sanjay Rao, Rajshekar, Kaveri Krishnamurthy, Ben Chickkaswamy and Barthy Setty. Started around mid 2005, this committee met every Tuesday at Setty Constructions office to strategize fund raising and to update each other on progress made in contacting propective donors. Around this time "Core Committee" to include all coordinators of formed committees was formed. Core committee was meeting every Sunday to discuss progress in their field. The initial steering committee was also expanded to include additional members who had started playing key role like Ravi Harapanhalli, Rajshekar, Krishnamurthy and Barthy Setty and later on Shailaja Rau and Rohini Suresh. Steering committee was meeting every Friday at Barthy Setty's house.
Search for Facility
Nagashankar Chandrashekar immidietly swung into action looking for a suitable facility in the DC metropolitan area. His initial task was to short list available facilities and schedule visits. Shortlisted facilities included Washington DC and Baltimore convention centers, Woodley Park Mariott and other places. Nagashankar toured facility after facility and whenever required asked Rajshekar and Sanjay Rao to accompany him but no facility would meet all his requirements. Tens of quotations were requested from propective vendors. In one of the conference calls with Bangali Association that was attended by Sanjay, Vijayeendra and Nagashankar, Bengali association office bearers suggested that Balitmore convention center is the only one that would meet all the requirements. They also suggested that their food facility should not be taken as it cannot be afforded rather they suggested an alternative plan to rent out Billiards center that is adjoining to the conference center. Nagashankar and others toured Baltimore convention center and got all their quotations. The next couple of days were spent intense negotiations with the conventions center authorities and their contractors that included food vendor Aramark. Aramark was very admant in their stand that any food service should go through them. In fact, Aramark insisted that they can cook any ethnic food. Just when all doors were getting closed, the facility at Germantown, Maryland was suggested as an alternative. However, that facility had numerous drawbacks with logistics as everything was outdoor. The community was divided with some people happy with this facility as it would just open up innumerable opportunities for creative thinking and others were unhappy that it was not in line with earlier conferennes. However, that was the best that could be achieved at that time given that time was running out. Around this time, at a souvenir committee meeting attended by Ravi Harapanhalli, Srivatsa Joshi and Sanjay Rao at Nataraj's house the discussion of facility figured prominently with all the participants suggesting that something should be done quickly and see if all stones are turned one more time. When the entire process was getting peeled from the beginning the missing Billiards center rental that was suggested by Bengali conferecne people was spotted as the unturned stone. Ravi Harapanhalli immidietly swung into action by going to Baltimore convention center along with Thyagaraj and making a quick survey of the surrounding areas and presented his findings in the November core committee meeting. Core committee gave Ravi Harapanhalli 15 days time to get quotations with all finer prints. Thus the entire momentum from Germantown soccerplex facility turned towards Baltimore Convetnion Center again. Nagashankar and Ravi Harapanhalli were two most important people that negotiated with the hotel, tent, Billiards center, Convention center and worked out all logistics.