PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -3

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Day-3 started on usual note of waking up in panic mode because of lack of sleep and the time crunch. Proof reading of  submitted assignment is always a bad idea, and we did a grave mistake of doing it while heading towards the canteen. We wanted a shock and we got that, assignment was with awfully bad formatting and grammatical mistake. The work was so bad that we thought if the assignment lands in professor's hand he will surely throw it away. But then what's done id done and as there was no chances of reverting the mistakes we came at peace.

Post sumptuous breakfast, we were herded back to the class which started with a short note from seniors on House Cup score and later a surprise quiz. Damn! Fortunately, right answers to right questions were given and most importantly was not sent to any prof for review again. We were not in position to risk our wonderful creations going second time in same day to prof and eventually gaining his wrath.

I wouldn't call the next 3 hour session with Prof. B Mahadevan as a lecture but a healthy discussion for sure. He started with value of case approach and why solutions are not important for any case. Also, how important questions are for any case discussion as students may get lost in myriads of options and end up with nothing.

Case was on ITC e-Chaupal (HBR) past, present and future.The entire discussion showed how multiple people approaches a single problem in multiple ways. Each one coming with their own biases and trying to reason out on 'their' amicable solutions. The discussion ended with an inspiring lecture (yes lecture) by Prof. Mahadevan, who talked about the importance of material approach and the actual goal which everyone seeks. He talked about interesting anecdotes and tales of his real-life entrepreneurial venture. The never-ending pursuit of happiness of humankind while their ignorance towards it at the same time. As usual it was left on discretion of the listener to take the idea in their own way for their own good. This was followed with the a short note from Prof. NM Aggarwal and the result which everyone was contributing and waiting for since past 1 week. Who is the winner for house cup? And the result was announced as 'Best Buddies' are the winner!!! A totally unexpected result but pleasant nonetheless and as a standard practice it was welcomed by a loud and sudden noise of cheering. Yippie! Its an amazing moment and feeling to be a part of wining team. the house cup will be presented to us during our first b-school 'informal' event due next month 'Pahel 2012'.

We were greeted with another 0.5 kg of case study which was waiting outside for us. Great! As if previous 3 kg's where not enough. Class representative election and later with lunch 3 day marathon ended. After few photo sessions around the campus, we packed our bags and vacated the hostel so as to come back to campus again on 15th June, the day when the grinding will actually begin. It will be interesting to see how the course will be manged with multiple things running around.

Last but not the least, a commendable show by the senior batch students. Our batch gave a tough time to them but guess this is the tradition. They never lost the patience and greeted with a smiling face, at least a quality which I need to learn if not master completely.The energy and enthusiasm level was really contagious and helped us to get transitioned smoothly into complex structure of PGSEM program.

Nonetheless, the departing thoughts were quite disoriented, hope to retain sanity in the insane schedule. And here were we who came here to get oriented. Welcome to the world of Bin-ness.

P.S.  : - I love my post scripts and disclaimers so they always come in my posts somehow. Most of my posts are back-dated and are posted on later dates. That's the reason, I lose the sense of tense some time and sometimes post contains hyper link with of  future dated content of some other URL.

P.P.S. : -  If you were waiting for any shocker for day-3, then by now you should have got that, there were none. I love to keep people guessing on matter which is never there. :P

PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -2

Spoiler Alert : If you are aspiring for the PGSEM course at IIM Bangalore read further at your own risk. Reading any further may kill the joy of exploring thing on your own in next or years to come.

Continuing from the PGSEM Orientation & Inauguration Day -1

For a guy who followed the routine of sleeping as early as 10 PM everyday and waking up as early as 5:30 AM for past 8 months, all rules of biological clock gone topsy-turvy after being awake as late as 2:30 AM previous (shall I say same day) day. Day-2 started with utter panic with ringing mobile and seeing time was 7 AM already. Thanks to group member, got wake-up call in-time for the event starting at 8 AM. Day-2 was dedicated to the CSITM activities with few paper presentation by people in academia and guest lectures by eminent personalities on theme of 'Benefiting Masses Profitably' lined up for whole day.

It was an interesting theme that talked about dearth of opportunities available in the area of  people empowerment while maintaining a regular cash flow. Thankfully the assignment done yesterday, helped to get some head-start on the theme and because of which sessions didn't meet its usual fate as it always happens with me.

Day started with welcome address by Dean Academics and short note from Prof. NM Aggrawal followed with guest lecture by Mr. Jasjit Singh (EVP Datawind) who talked how they are trying to transform the lifestyle of common man and talked about vision behind 'Aakash Tablet'. Difficulty faced by them and what they are doing to counter the problem. As a whole the theme started unfolding how the masses can be benefited using the technological advances. This was followed by short note from Mr. Anand Sudarshan, (CEO Manipal Education), who talked how he his organization has revolutionize the learning experience of masses by use of technology and online education using tools like edunxt. And how technologies are bringing bigger dreams to the people for whom higher and quality education was a impossible thing to think. We also had a quick lecture by Prof. Sourav Mukherji (OB & HR) talking about various aspect of mass empowerment and difficulties behind the resources not reaching to the masses. Which was later followed by paper presentations on people from academia talking on same theme utilizing services like USSD,Mobile technologies for rural and agricultural empowerment.

Post lunch session began with the lecture by Mr. Vir Kashyap (COO Babajobs.com). It was really inspiring seeing the idea his company is working on to fetch better job opportunities for blue collared groups by utilizing the spread of the mobile's network available in the country. He actually showed how he is trying to solve the last mile problem, not in telecom sense but in connecting all class of people on single platform. It is seriously an excellent example of entrepreneurship venture which is working for people and still generating pro.

Next discussion was scheduled with Mr. Ganesh Rengaswamy, (Partner - Lok Capital) - who talked how he decide on the funding a venture and how their organization is working for ladies in the villages and generating job opportunities for them. Which was followed by lecture from Mrs Gunjan Krishna (IAS officer & Head of eMission - Karnataka Govt). She talked about the initiatives taken by the Govt. and the problem faced. She also talked about the need of hour and the requirement of more entrepreneurship ventures in the field of social upliftment of society. And why some initiatives dies after big fanfare. Too much of information load called for the tea break  which was followed by lecture by Mr Bhavish Sood (Research Director - Gartner). All in all, everyone gave a new perspective and showed why technology is not completely evil and can be utilized for people from poor class as well while maintaining the profits. This was more than what we could have taken for the day, thankfully the day ended immediately with vote of thanks by Mr. Rajesh Pandit (Chief Manger, CSITM).

Now it was the fun time with sports activities lined up. Group did miserably in cricket, satisfactory in Basketball and TT and came first in Badminton. Post-dinner activities information were passed to us and were asked to assemble back in the meeting place for treasure hunt and closing plan. By the time the treasure hunt got over it was almost 11:30 PM. We were tired because of last 2 days activities and lack of sleep but a shocker was given with the assignment and case paper planned for discussion next day by Prof B Mahadevan. What which was expected to be a simple case took almost 2 hours. As it was almost 2 AM and did not had enough energy to discuss any further all discussions were called off and formatting the answers for case questions were started. Being sleep deprived has its own funny quotient, which was released immediately when one of the group member asked for 3 'bullet' points for assignment question. This was duly given as Dhichkaon.. Dhichkaon..and Dhichkaon.. by yours truly. Somehow the assignment was completed, and discussed for some time whether to send the assignment or not in current format as we really did a lousy job.  The day finally ended at 3:30 AM with thought, if this is how coming days are scheduled we are screwed for next 2.5 years. Little did I know at that time that another shocker awaits next day..

To be continued..