René Seifert – Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

It was a good and exciting year. Now it's time for change, both on the calendar and in the transfer of power in Washington D.C. shortly after. Before logging-off to a NYE-bash of my friend and Bangalore's partyguru-in-chief Viren Khanna, a few impressions of the last weeks which I spend with my good friend and business partner Dirk Schornstein in India and Dubai.

Here we are on the Tiger's Rock of Mudumailai National Park after a morning hike through the South Indian jungle. 

The whole picture-set including the TIE-conference in Bangalore, Toy Train-ride, Ooty and Mysore is here on this Flickr-set. Also at Dirk's last day we went to the Vatsalya-Orphanage. As rather by accident we found some fun in taking videos, I also taped the girls singing for us belatedly "We wish you a merry Christmas".

For our second trip we deviated from booked Goa to Dubai. It's stunning to see what dedication and focus in the right regulatory environment (fueled by a lot of cheap money in the last years) can put together. You just have to look from Russian Beach back to the Skyline including Burj Dubai on the right – the worlds highest building with 707 meters. 

Dubai is in many ways over-the-top where a fairy tale of 1001 Arabian Nights blends with a Disneyfication, as The Seifertinger ("Dabei in Dubai") explains about Ski Dubai in the Mall of Emirates. 

All the pictures of this trip are on this Flickr-set, one of my favourites, voilà.

During our desert-safari, standing on the dunes, the brain having suffered from drought the whole day, my alter ego "Howard Seifendale" is expressing his most inner thoughts to the outside world :-)

Also the same individual has the immediate urge to do some "Räkling" in the Lobby of Raffles Dubai. 

Back in Bangalore, it was in contrast Prof. Schornsteininger releasing his studies on "Homosexualiät in Indien".

Bear with me, we are almost through. One of my favourites is the interview with Srinivas, a friend of mine in Bangalore who helps me in a lot of things in daily life, where he confesses to like "working honestly", yet proves quite shy discussing the issue of "chicks" with me.

So much for 2008. Wish you all the best for 2009, a year whose economic conditions don't appear that bright, but with perseverance and optimism I am confident we will prevail.