Hello! My name is Aayushi Gupta and I am from Uttarakhand, India. I am currently pursuing MBA from Sri Sri University, Odisha. I feel very fortunate to have worked with the AusInd Bridge Foundation as a digital intern. Working with the AusInd Bridge Foundation was my first ever internship experience and I without a doubt say that this was a truly rewarding and remarkable experience for me. I got to learn so much from the mentors and feel prepared for the opportunities that will come ahead of me. Not only have I gained deep insights about my state, these two months have helped me in doing market research, finding investment and collaborative opportunities and being more professional. This internship experience has provided us with a chance to interact with great leaders, to hear their story and their views. I am forever grateful for the mentors for giving us the opportunity of being a part of the inaugural batch and for being a constant source of motivation.
State of Work
Under the two months digital internship experience with AusInd Bridge Foundation which is a part of the South Asian Community Link Group (SACLG), we were given a chance to choose a state of India to work on and the state I chose was Uttarakhand, my home state. Uttarakhand is located in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain range. It has almost all agro-geo climatic zones, which provide commercial opportunities for floriculture and horticulture. The state is home to more than 175 species of rare medicinal, aromatic & herbal plants. While doing the research, I found that Uttarakhand has a literacy rate (78.80%) higher than the national average and because of the presence of institutes of international repute, the State has abundant availability of quality human resources. Uttarakhand has also been consistently ranked amongst the top states in India by DPIIT in its assessment for Ease of Doing Business and ranked no. 1 amongst hill states in India. It also offers tremendous opportunities in tourism, owing to its pristine natural beauty and presence of many spiritual tourism destinations. Thus, we see, Uttarakhand holds a lot of potential areas to collaborate with Australia. Certain areas like horticulture, tourism and agro-industries can grow multifolds if the two countries go hand in hand.