New Delhi, India 
(June 29 & June 30, 2019)
- Introduction:-
The Google Local Guides program have created a plethora of opportunities worldwide. It has supported the concept of communities from its inception. The unofficial Local Guides communities few years ago paved the
way of bringing Local Guides contributors from a particular geographical region close to each other. Communities grew upon the cities, the districts, the states and even on a nationwide scale!
The India Local Guides community in the year 2019 considered to break all barriers and throw this bond on a challenging yet larger scope - when they planned to unite the whole continent of Asia through a Google Local Guides intercontinental meetup, and hence the idea of Asia1 Summit: Let’s Unite Asia was born. Asia undoubtedly has the largest quantity of active Local Guides contributors, and a heavy percentage of content of Google Maps are uploaded on daily basis by the Asian community.
As already mentioned, Asia One was a dream project, and one must know the brains behind such an ambitious concept before going through the outcome.
- Brains behind Asia ONE:-
The Google Local Guides program is wonderfully popular across the nation of India, just like its neighboring and nearby Asian nations such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan or Malaysia. India have numerous Local Guides communities which are active and who regularly host meetups as well as events in the locations through north to the south, across west to the east of the nation. The inspiration behind Asia One in larger portion was the mammoth Google Local Guides Connect Live (earlier, Local Guides Summit) that is hosted annually in presence of selected top 150-200 Local Guides from all over the world at the Google HQ, San Fransisco, the United States of America.
The idea of organizing a similar large scale summit by the Local Guides, for the Local Guides, struck @deepakjhic (Deepak Kumar), the creator of India Local Guides community. Deepak is a long-time Local Guides contributor who hails from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and works as a software engineer at Sonipat, Haryana. All set to represent India at the Connect Live 2019, Deepak was influenced by @ShafiulB (Shafiul Bashar), a top local guide contributor from the neighboring nation Bangladesh in planning to organize this event.
If Deepak was the heart behind such a brilliant initiative of bringing a whole continent together at a same place, @AmbrishVarshney (Ambrish Varshney) was the brain behind the notion of it. Leader of one of the most active and happening Local Guides communities in India, the Delhi Local Guides Chapter, Ambrish made the dream come true with his excellent organization skills. From planning to team building to public handling to financial executions - Ambrish and Deepak in team were the pillars behind the successful hosting of Asia One Summit.
- Venue:-
Venue is a crucial factor on the path of success of an event, as a pleasant location can set the mood for the people implicitly itself! The Local Guides Asia One Summit got camped last Saturday at the Imperfecto RuinPub, Logix Mall Noida, Delhi N.C.R. (National Capital Region) without which the true essence of this event could not have been retrieved among with attendees from all over the nation.
- Attendees:-
Here we come to the most awaited statistic regarding Asia One. This dream intercontinental Local Guides meetup received a wonderful response, as the official count of attendees stood at 85! Local Guides attended this event hosted around the Delhi N.C.R. coming from all corners of the country of India. While Ishant Gautam represented Himachal Pradesh, Baljinder Singh traveled from Chandigarh, Virendra Nautiyal came from Uttarakhand along with Shiv Pandey. Rahul Kumar from Rajasthan traveled 230 kilometers on bus one way just like any other Local Guides meetup he attends at Delhi, Ashique Mirza from Bengal made a stop at the event in the mid of his solo India trip. Salmaan Nawaz, the Connect Live 2018 attendee from Bangalore came all the way for the summit. Bunny Ayush, one of the favorite photography experts in the team represented Madhya Pradesh. Shruti, Sumeet, Shreeya and team represented Mumbai, Maharashtra while Sophie attended all the way from Nagaland. Vicky Krish was present there from Tamil Nadu. Local Guides from Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala, Haryana, Bihar got united at Asia One Summit and came to know each other!
- Support from outside India:-
Although there were no representation of any other nation apart from the hosts physically at the inaugural version of the Asia One Summit this time due to various reasons, mainly visa issues, Local Guides from the other Asian nations were always ready to help, guide and support the initiative.
The first mention goes to Connect Moderator @StephenAbraham from Malaysia, who has an Indian connection too, for his unconditional support to Asia1. We thank @MahabubMunna from Bangladesh for his expert guidance and sharing his experiences as the leader of Bangladesh Local Guides community. Thanks to Shafiul Bashar as one of the initiators of this initiative, also thanks to @ShahMdSultan for being with us throughout despite he could not attend due to visa related problem. We appreciate @KashifMisidia from Pakistan for being virtually present at the summit through video conference. We thank @AnuradhaP from Sri Lanka for showing interest to visit India for this event.
Last, but not the least, it was the Googlers team led by @TraciC who sent a very special video message that boosted our confidence ahead of the large challenge easily! Thank you so much for this video:
As the host nation of the first edition of Asia One Summit, we hope there would be participation of Local Guides from the Asian nations in large numbers, at whichever country that will host the next edition.
- Events on Day 1:-
1. Registration and Entry of Attendees at the Venue → On sharp 10:30 a.m., the gates of the venue crashed open, triggering the entrance of Local Guides inside. Here are some images from the entrance:
2. Welcome Speech & Break the Ice Episode → Soon, the proceedings of the day began as per schedule, but before we moved on, Local Guide @Explore_Keshav (Keshav Agarwal) initiated breaking of ice among the attendees with his brilliant anchoring.
3. Speech by Clownselor Sheetal Aggarwal → Medical clown Sheetal introduced the attendees with the concept of medical clowning and inspired the attendees to smile more in everyday life.
4. Video Messages by Local Guides for Asia One Summit → A number of wishes recorded by the Google Local Guides for the Asia One Summit were projected on the large screen before moving on to the next speech.
5. Speech on the New Features on Google Maps & Google Local Guides → I was invited to speak about the latest features incorporated in both Google Maps and Google Local Guides program over the last one year.
6. Cake Cutting ceremony to celebrate Asia One Summit → It was time to begin the celebration after series of speeches, and the specially designed Asia One themed cake (logo designed by Praveen D’Souza) was delivered by Nandita Creations, along with numerous cutely designed creamy cupcakes of two flavors. Attendees from all over the nation ambushed it from all sides with sharp knives to cut it open!
7. Lunch → Any event is incomplete without food, and when the intensity was skyrocketing at the Asia One Summit, variety of food items came in like shower. In the snacks section, you could find your choices easily irrespective of preference of being vegetarian or non-vegetarian, as Chilly Potato, Spring Roll, Macaroni, Chicken Wings and boneless Chicken Kabab were sacrificed to boost the energy of the audience after a long first half of the whole-day event.
This followed with the grand buffet lunch session incorporating various foods such as Dal Makhani, Shahi Paneer, Rice, Tandoori Roti, Butter Chicken, Kheer and sweetmeat. Last but not the least, there were sweets for every attendee sponsored by Singhal Sweets!
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