On the first of June, 2010, I landed on the doorsteps of the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE), in Kerala, India. This was my naive exploration into the field of saving the world. Thankfully, for the world, better sense knocked my face off that self-indulgent thought pretty much, immediately.

A friend connected me with Paul Kronenberg, Co-Founder of the IISE, along with Sabriye Tenberken. At 10pm one night in April, 2010, I had my first conversation with Paul. It carried on for almost two hours, with me pretty much silent and listening with awe. This was because of the enthusiasm that radiated from Paul 13 years after starting with the first project. Thought to self was if he was so excited about this project, then he is definitely on the right track, and I wanted in on that track.

The defining moment in this call was when he asked me what I considered to be the most beautiful treasure in the world? This had me putting myself in to the shoes of a Miss. India candidate, and since 'world peace' and 'compassion' were done to death, I was particularly inventive in coming with ' A smile on a child's face?'. Yes, there was a question mark in my statement. Having known him for a year now, I can imagine the face he would have made, which is, FYI, holding the phone away from his face and staring at it in bemusement. "Yesss..", he said,"but the most beautiful gift in my opinion, is the ability to dream."

Good sense was trickling in now, along with a very good feeling about this place. Dreams, a treasured ability, but also one that people consign to childhood - not to be taken seriously. My reality had taught me differently. My dreams were the only thing that kept me sane for a long while. During a tough adolescence, when all ego derived from owning material luxury was not available, my dreams were my sanctuary, as a place to escape the teasing from my peers. When a teacher would catch me dreaming and scold me for not paying attention, and classmates would snicker, I would proceed to get into further trouble standing there silently with a defensive, proud look on my face. All that I meant to convey to the teacher was that my dreams were my only wealth, and as long as I had a living cell in my brain, no one, with any tactics could take them away from me.

But the dreams did become less frequent and kind of subdued in the race for survival. Then the line between survival and having superbly manicured nails began to thin out as corporate behavioral standards began to be drilled into me. It seemed that I was defined by what I projected outwardly. If I wanted to survive and be successful in the corporate world, I had to constantly outdo everyone else and myself. After 11 years, it was not actually anything spiritual or altruistic that drove me out of the corporate world. It was the fear that my dreams were fading out. The colors were not so vibrant and feelings were more superficial. It was clear that I needed to get out before they died out completely.

Imagine then, being offered - the Dream Factory. More than that, being able to share it with people like Sahr Yillia from Sierra Leone, or Nyima Wangdu from Tibet. Meeting people from all over the world who along with Martin Luther King, would never tire of saying "I have a dream", nor would they let anything deter them from making their dreams become reality.

Let me share some of these dreams with you. Sahr Yillia, from Sierra Leone, lost his family to the civil war. Most of them were killed in front of him. He became blind in shock. The bullet that shot through him didn't help either. He walked around with this wound for months till he found a donor who could give money for his operation. The dreams he used to escape to was often of seeing a complete family, that children were reunited with their parents, and that all children unlike his reality were cared for. Wouldn't you like to know his current reality? Well, after he graduated from IISE, he established the Child Rescue Mission in Sierra Leone. He runs a school for 40 war orphans and has separately reunited 20 children with their families who they lost during the war.