My March Musings
As we all know, March is Women’s History Month. To commemorate this and celebrate in the way I know best, I reached out to different companies with proposals for Oho Cake’s Corporate Cakes for Women’s Day. I was delighted to see so many people celebrating the essence of womanhood and recognizing the contributions of women in society.
Women and Oho Cake
Speaking of celebrations, in Oho Cake we reflected on the role of women this March. When we started Offering Happiness, our four co-founders were all male, and we had three other amazing founding team members who were female. Our entrepreneurial journey would have never kicked off if these talented women hadn’t joined our team. They were the creative energy behind all our gifts and made us dream big. In our six-year journey, we have had times when our team was all male, but at Oho Cake, we now have more than 13 female team members.
Photo exhibition and more of women’s awesomeness
In March, I also attended a photo exhibition, ‘इतिहासको हराएका पाना: The Tyranny of Exclusion,’ curated and organized by Mega Maskey and her friends. The exhibition commemorated Nepali female political leaders and showcased around 90 exhibits, from the portraits of the most courageous Yogmaya Neupane to amazing leaders like Ranju Darshana and Sunita Dangol. I was inspired by the women leaders and their contribution to the development of Nepalese society and political development.
I also used this month mostly about setting up visions and dreams for me. I had a series of events and incidents that made me think of dreaming big and setting visions. I am briefly going to mention some of them below.
Learning from the Davos Summit
I heard the raw and insightful experiences of Pratik Kunwar, a shaper, and Pradip Pariyar, a Young Global Leader, who went to the Davos Summit. They were surrounded by heads of state, finance ministers, foreign ministers, billionaires, entrepreneurs, and more. Hearing about their experiences and being in their company made me feel fortunate and grateful for the little things that helped me surround myself with such people.
My Delhi Visit — Trade Show
Another exciting event was my visit to AAHAR, the International Food and Hospitality Fair, organized by the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO). I decided to go there to learn and get ideas for taking Oho Cake to greater heights. Although we didn’t book hotels, one of the business owners of the biggest sweets shop chain booked our hotel in Karol Bagh, a busy street where there were all traders, business people, and employees of the food and hospitality industries. I decided to stay there because I felt I was meant to experience and learn from the simplicity of how people do business. Talking with traders and business owners, I was inspired by their stories and learned so much about the cake business in just two days—more than I had learned in the last two years. I explored machines, technology, and raw materials that we use in the cake industry, and I realized what we need to work on to scale and grow.
SHAPE South Asia 2023
Finally, saving the most exciting news for the last, the World Economic Forum announced in March that Kathmandu Hub would be hosting SHAPE South Asia 2023 in Kathmandu. Our hub has been working hard to curate the best experiences and sessions for Shapers in May, and we are looking forward to hosting Shapers from all around the world in Nepal.
I cannot wait to see what April has in store for me!
