Seeing 2020
You can become a thought leader by intentionally writing on key issues.
I woke up in the New Year to find that I was one of hundred people listed by YourStory as an “Emerging Voice of India”. The top 100 Emerging Voices of 2019 includes entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders, activists, healthcare workers, journalists, authors, and bloggers from across India and the world, who have contributed high-quality, insightful and engaging content for Your Story readers. Your Story further states that, “among these experts, we have found that every year, there is always a crop of emerging thought leaders whose thoughts and opinions resonated with our readers and are worth watching out for.” They compiled the list by carefully selecting those that garnered the highest engagement from their readers, using measures such as the number of page views, time spent per user, likes, comments, and shares.
I am thrilled to be part of this list as I have made a conscious choice to write about issues that matter to me. However, this was not always the case. Just a decade ago, I was part of the aviation industry and was not allowed to speak on behalf of my company, official statements were only the purview of the company spokesperson. So I started a blog to capture my travels and experiences around the world called, “Elsa’s View of the World”. I believed that through my ramblings, I could introduce different experiences, cities and countries to my friends who were not so lucky to travel and through me they could experience the beautiful wide world.
Somewhere along the way, I attended a writing course and instead of making me confident, I actually lost my confidence in writing. I felt I was not good enough and my thoughts didn’t matter. I stopped writing completely.
In 2012, I cofounded Safecity, a platform to crowdmap sexual violence in public spaces. I suddenly found myself in a position where I was constantly asked to state my views on women’s rights, safety of women and my work at Safecity which was quite unique as a civic tech initiative.
Then in 2015, I was selected to join the Aspen New Voices Fellowship which aimed to highlight voices from the Global South and give them a platform to amplify their work and the issues they work on…
