My application

• I am a young guy(17) living in India, who would really like go to steemfest. 2. This picture of me when I was a kid. I was born in a very small village and life seemed perfect to me until we moved to a small town. Before then, I didn't realize that electricity and running water were available for more than 1 hour a day! I then realized that life at my home village was very tough. Life at the small town also seemed perfect until we moved to a big town for my high school studies. There I realized that there is competition everywhere and I'd have to study hard to survive. My father worked hard to pay my tuition fee. I was on the path that's followed by every normal big city Indian kid. school(from age 5 to 14) > Coaching for admission into a nice college (14-17) > Then join a college (17-22). All of private school college institutes charge big $ from parents. I was shocked to hear from my Canadian friend that a lot of people in Canada and the US go to public schools instead of private ones. That was hard for to believe for me because here hardly anyone goes to public school. Here, nobody wants to go to public schools because the conditions there are inhuman and education is beyond poor. Most of the schools have unskillful teachers and for the most part children go there for food, not for the education. Unfortunately, most families who send there children there cannot afford a daily meal. The national Indian government provides food in public schools. I was lucky that I got admitted in a private school and obtained some education which now feels worthless Because now I feel there is no practical application of the stuff I studied . Enough on that I would like to thank @aggroed , @theprophet0 and @steemfest for giving me a chance to express myself. You can find my story here

The challenges I feel that needs to be addressed to the world?

I'm very concerned with the issues that are facing my home country - poverty, hunger, quality education, health, and gender equality. These are challenges that also exist in world. My country suffers from all of them on a large scale. India is among the poorest countries in the world. The average salary in various professions are -

Job	salary/day
Daily wage laborers	2-3$/day
Support staff	5-8$/day
Govt. bank employees	15-18$/day
Undergrads	11-15$/day
Medicine	11-15$/day

And of course not to mention that a vast number of youth remains unemployed. These are the problems that can't be easily be corrected. The system is corrupt, politicians take money in their pockets. The poor are becoming more poor and rich are becoming more rich.steemit can help youth to achieve their goal and earn some $ so that they don't remain under poverty.

A vision statement?

'Quality Education', I think a lot of my country's problems stem from lack of quality education. I think with proper education our communities can work together to help solve the problems of poverty, hunger, clean water, health & gender equality. I feel that education should be free and accessible to all. Currently in my country, people send their children to private schools. Millions of dollars are spent by parents on private school education because the public schools in India are in a very, very, poor state. With technology we can change that - we can make communities that can provide free education to students at a low cost, so everyone can learn. When my brother was a kid he was curious to know everything: why grass is green, sky is blue, etc but after sending him to private school he no longer asks these type of curious questions. What happens at school? We moved to a city for his education by spending lots of $ in private school, just to make him lose his curiosity and sense of wonderment. They just teach him to score better grades that's it. This is not enough! The system has to change and technology has the power to do that. National and local governments may fail, but technology I believe can improve things for the better. There are many examples available online that illustrate how easy it is to receive high quality education with the help of technology. I have gone through the traditional path of private school in India and I don't want my brother to follow the same path. You can find more on what I am trying to say here

Mission statement?

I want to make steemit reachable to masses. There are more internet users in INDIA than the whole combined population of US. We just have to start a fire and it will spread very quickly and that will help both the platform and people. I see there are already many Indians on the platform. I have invited many here but most of my friends still haven't joined the platform. I tried to invite them all but they are in many ways slow to adapt and change, for the most part they tend to follow the same route school>Coaching>college>job. I think my visit to steemfest will open their eyes and then they will approach to me. Nobody replies to me now.

Specific goals?

The main goal is to meet those awesome people that helped me here. I want to thank them for their efforts and help. I want to meet and talk with them in person and not just not virtually. I also want to explore, hangout, engage and support the community by attending the steemfest.

Budget?

Budget mainly include transport, Food, Hotel.

Hotel-

• It's the cheapest hotel of all of them it costs about 98$.
• So a full 6 day of hotel will cost 581$

Transport

So I currently living at Chandigarh in north India the plane ticket round-trip is about 900$ . From Chandigarh to Lisbon.