The purpose of going to a conference is to speak, learn, and to meet some interesting people. If the venue is pleasant, that is a decided plus. In the case of the Horasis conference that I recently attended for the first time, all three goals were met in spades. The conference was held in the lovely Spanish port city of Malaga, my first visit there. It provided an opportunity to connect with interesting business and thought leaders from Spain, all the rest of Europe as well as from India. And the panel discussion format of the meeting gave one the opportunity to gain insights into a staggering number of topics with a bunch of different perspectives on each. My own panel on Make in India, was populated with industry leaders from India, as well as academic leaders from Europe. Unlike the other presenters who represented the manufacturing sector, I was the only representative from healthcare, and so in the course of my presentation I focused on Make In India from the perspective of how India has allowed a physician with no management training or business background whatsoever to create a healthcare entity that delivers services to not only herself but to the entire globe. India’s near-magical ability to stimulate and support unusual entrepreneurship is what I see as the real spark behind Make in India.
My comments drew kind compliments from my fellow panelist Prof Margarita Mayo of the University of Madrid who has recently written a book on Leadership, titled Yours Truly, and who was generous enough to say that I exemplified one of the traits she has analyzed, namely humility (as I write this it strikes me that it seems contradictory that I am mentioning this at all).
A visit to the vintage automobile museum and a walking tour of the Old Town made the conference even more memorable. And for me the piece de resistance was the visit to the Picasso birthplace and museum which, apart from many of his creations, has a unique video exhibit of the artist at work, seen from the perspective of his canvas. Interestingly the museum also had a Warhol pop art exhibit, providing a counterpoint to the more ‘traditional’ Picasso works.
The grand finale of the trip to Southern Spain came a day later when I joined my wife in Cordoba and visited the Grand Mesquite, probably the most unique spiritual-architectural experience one can have. Essentially it is a cathedral and a mosque within the same complex, living and breathing in the same space, each spectacularly beautiful and faithful to its style, yet coexisting peacefully in a manner that one can only wish humans today could do.