Graduation Day 2012 In Pictures

PGSEMer speaks at Mobile World India 2012

Mobile World India 2012 is an event covering all aspects of mobile content development and brings together thought leaders and experts from different aspects of the mobile ecosystem. Our own PGSEMer from 2009 batch Krishna Kumar Balaraman was one of the speakers in the event which was held on Jan 21, 2012. http://www.siliconindia.com/events-speakers/mobile-world-india-Bangalore-MobileWorldIndia2012.html


Congratulations Krishna! Wishing you many more successes..

Krishna Balaraman

Technical Manager, Alcatel-Lucent

Krishna is currently involved in developing network management solutions for optical networks which is used by major telcos around the world. He has Nineteen years of experience in key leadership roles of product development and management in the domains of Wireless, Telecom, Datacom, Mobile Handset, Optical Networks, and Data Center IT Infrastructure. He has extensive cross-functional experience with P&L responsibilities for independent business unit and new product introduction. He has experience in the complete product development value chain from the program inception to customer delivery. He has played leadership roles as a senior member of management and country leadership councils for organisational development, scaling and transformation. Krishna holds a Engineering degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Madras , a Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights from National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and an MBA (PGSEM 2012) from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Entrepreneurs Boot-camp: 4Startups Series

NSRCEL of IIMB organized a one day Boot-camp for all those interested in Entrepreneurship on 8th January in the campus Auditorium. The workshop was conducted by Ms. Saras Saraswathy - Professor in Darden School of Business and one of the most famous scholars in the area of new venture research . For those students of PGSEM who have read her thesis on Effectuation, to hear Prof Saraswathy in person and know more about her research was truly a fascinating experience.

The whole boot-camp was organized into four broad sessions. The first session started with Prof Saraswathy introducing the participants to the idea of Effectuation in such an interactive manner that the whole audience was in raptures for her skill in witty facilitation. The second session was an interview of Mr R. Sundarrajan, entrepreneur and CEO of Just-Books. Post lunch was a panel discussion on VC funding chaired by Mr. Rahul Chowdhri of Helion Venuture Partners. The final session was for Q&A and synthesis. The audience registered themselves into various groups - Greenhorns (still thinking of ideas), Red & Orange badges (those with ideas and thinking of starting off), Lavender (those who have made the great leap). This division was a great idea.. simply because many people were seen all through the day identifying those with differing colors and walking up to them to talking to them.. networking made easy.

'Do the doable' is one of the fundamentals of Effectuation. And this new theory challenges the idea of 'Causation' to spell-out the makings of a successful entrepreneurial venture. The theory tries to explain the 'Entrepreneurial Mindset' by 4 simple principles -

·       Bird in Hand Principle – Start with your means. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. Start taking action, based on what you have readily available: who you are, what you know, and who you know.

·         Affordable Loss Principle – Set affordable loss Evaluate opportunities based on whether the downside is acceptable, rather than on the attractiveness of the predicted upside.

·         Lemonade Principle – Leverage contingencies Embrace surprises that arise from uncertain situations, remaining flexible rather than tethered to existing goals.

·         Crazy-Quilt Principle – Form partnerships with people and organizations willing to make a real commitment to jointly creating the future—product, firm, market—with you. Don’t worry so much about competitive analyses and strategic planning.

The story of Just-Books is a classic example of how the theory of Effectuation plays out in reality. Mr. Sundarrajan had never heard of the theory till date, but acknowledged at one point in the interview that how incredible it was that his venture so closely tracked the principles of Effectuation! And what an incredible story Just-Books itself is in the humble works of its founder. For those of us who have heard our professors talk about ideas like 'ready-fire-aim' or 'thought-action-together' it felt like the ideas had jumped out of book and onto the stage!

Professor Saraswathy has herself been an entrepreneur of five ventures. She expertly drew parallels between the story of Just-Books with those like Kirloskar, Starbucks and Sears. Those in the audience pitched forth their own ventures in areas as diverse as catering, garment design and ERP software and tried to imbibe where they stood on the ladder and what the theories could say on what lay ahead.

The VC panel discussion threw light on insightful things like - go for VC funding as late as possible, go for VC funding only when the 2nd VC interested in your venture calls you, different categories of VC, typical funding percentages, E-commerce VC, pro's and con's of being on the VC radar, importance of a well rounded team backing your venture, what the VC typically look in the entrepreneur and so on..

To me, however, the comment that took the cake was this observation by a VIP - in America, if you hold a seminar on Entrepreneurship these days, the biggest point of discussion is law/lawyers. While in India, the debate hinges around funding. And its easier getting progressively easier in our world to overcome financial bottlenecks than legal issues everywhere and anywhere!

Are you ready to ride the next big wave?

Harish Hande, MD SELCO at Eximius 2011 - IIMB's Entrepreneurship Summit

It was a fitting finale to Day 1 of Eximius 2011 @ IIM Bangalore. I am referring to the keynote lecture by Harish Hande, MD Selco Solar. His thrust on helping asset generation for the rural poor rather than just selling to them struck me as crucial.

Starting on a humorous note with ‎"At IIT Kharagpur I ragged Saurav (Prof Saurav Mukherjee), Arvind Kejriwal ragged me and now he is ragging the country ... " Harish Hande, Magsaysay Award winner went on to highlight the areas SELCO works on and how his journey started.

He focused on the importance of market linkages, technology and financial products for the rural or urban poor. "I told him straight on his face that the concept was exploitative. You take money from the poorest at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) and pass it on to the wealthy top of the pyramid without enabling any asset creation at the BOP", Harish Hande referring to his conversation with Prof C K Prahalad on Fortune at the BOP.

A recording of the talk here:  http://www.justin.tv/eximi​us2011/b/292491928

Harish Hande of SELCO India: Shedding Light on India's Underserved Markets - India Knowledge@Wharton - From knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

How SELCO is spawning off entrepreneurs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=Pjn1X96_oa0

Yale case study on SELCO: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/SOMcasestudy#g/c/2C521A547D69B421

Eximius 2011 starts in less than 15 hours!!!

Eximius 2011, The The Entrepreneurship Summit of IIM Bangalore starts in less than 15 hours!!

Participate in contests ranging from B-plans, Workshops, Pitching to VC to Panel discussions that will bring out the entrepreneur in you!! with prizes worth Rs. 15 lakhs to be won!

EXIMIUS is an open summit and registration for all the events is free.

Visit us @ http://eximius-iimb.com/index.php

FB Page http://www.facebook.com/Eximius2011

Pehel 2011 - The Experience

The PGSEM batch of 2011 had their 3-day Orientation way back in May 2011 – 3 days of fun. As it came to a close, we were all planning to squeeze in as much rest and fun in the next 3 weeks before the classes began as possible. But the parting note from our seniors changed all that. We were to organize Pehel 2011 in the first 3 weeks of classes starting and the 3 weeks of our free time could be utilized very well for planning the event. Of course.

Pehel is the first event that a new batch of PGSEM organizes in IIMB. It’s a fresher’s event with a difference – the freshers organize it for the seniors and not the other way round. The seniors certainly provide a lot of guidance to the greenhorns but the logistics are completely left to the new batch.  Starting from the fund raising to the execution. It is hands-on business education!

So we started with a flurry of mails in early June to try and get the details of the event in place, starting with how to raise funds, given that external funding isn’t allowed. And when the mails got too chaotic, we realized why organizations have a certain hierarchical and team structure in place. We got our own core committee in place to co-ordinate specific items of the event and streamline communication/logistics.

Taking a cue from our senior batch, we also decided to go the t-shirt route to raise capital for the event. After getting many quotes we finalized on Amit Sharma’s Go Untucked as our vendor, finding the cost versus quality comparison to be good in their case. Meanwhile a few students from the class were busy designing Pehel logos and we finally went with Shalini and Vineeth’s Warli design since it symbolized our roots to be Indian and yet our vision to be forward looking in the use of a traditional art form to design a modern logo. One item checked off the list.

Meetings at Café Terra meanwhile were becoming more focussed as we got down from a high level plan to chalking out minute details and assigning co-ordinator roles for each. Ideas were collected for the events that could be performed and talent scouted in the class. Sometime in the middle of all this, the classes began, putting an additional demand on our time that was already split between work and running around for Pehel. Panic set in as the mid-term dates were announced in the first class itself and we realized we had very little time for Pehel.

After confirming the director’s availability and making sure the Director’s Merit List for our senior batch was going to be out, we set 9th of July as the date for Pehel 2011. The concrete date added more of a boost to the flurry as we got busy checking off item after item from our list of Pehel to-do’s. Days went by in a daze as we ordered for our t-shirts, finalized the event list, racked our brains for a good children’s event, designed and ordered posters/invites, distributed invites to the professors on weekdays, got customized gifts for the guests of honour, figured out audience gifts, rushed for children’s gifts, had music jams on Saturday evenings in the classroom, planned a skit in the last 2 days before the event and practiced on campus till 10:30 in the night.  It was like a hurricane sweeping through our schedules and getting everything done.

The D-Day dawned and we distributed the t-shirts that had been ordered. We were almost giddy to wear what has almost become the 2011 batch identity now and conduct the event. Even as we finished the last bits of tech runs in the auditorium, parents and seniors started to pour in excitedly on the IIMB campus and the show was on. An impromptu musical performance thrown in for good measure and Pehel 2011 was a great success with the mad-ads performance by the Mad Med Men, a skit by the stars of our class, kids jumping around on stage to the tune of Barbie Girl (a fashion show of sorts I must say), some audience prizes and a nice closing note with the batch singing KK’s Pal after the musical performance. The dinner and high tea, sponsored by the PGSEM office were great support and I am certain everyone was floored by the beautiful MDC Dining Hall that hosted us all. 

As is the case with most such events, it was overwhelming only once it was over – the magnitude of what we had really put up on stage. It was a wonderful culmination of about a month’s worth of effort. Every minute of it looks well-spent in hindsight. And our MBA has officially begun.

Participatory Workshop - Deadline extended!

Hi All,

The deadlines for submitting abstracts for the participatory workshop on Indian Software Industry - Moving up the Value Chain and Managing Non-Linear Growth is extended to 30 March 2011

It is a wonderful opportunity to present your research to distinguished persons in academia and industry! Also consider this an opportunity to attend the panel discussions and talks on the above mentioned themes by industry experts and renowned IIMB professors.

For more information, visit:

http://www.iimb.ernet.in/centres/software-mgt/upcoming-events

or

http://iimbpgsem.blogspot.com/2011/02/indian-it-industry-moving-up-value.html

Indian IT Industry – Moving up the Value Chain and Managing Non-linear Growth

The Centre for Software and Information Technology Management (CSITM) at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) invites you to a participatory workshop with industry practitioners and academicians on managing non-linear growth and moving up the value chain in the IT industry. This is the first such conference of its kind being organized by CSITM and the IIMB Post Graduate Programme in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM), and will provide a forum for exchange of thoughts and generation of new ideas on the opportunities and challenges in achieving the growth and value objectives.

The day-long conference is being designed to highlight industry and the academician’s perspectives through panel discussions. The workshop will enable dialogue between various stakeholders of the IT industry, academicians and researchers of the Indian IT industry.

Date: May 28, 2011

Agenda

08:00 - 09:00 Registration
09:00 - 10:30 Panel Discussion between industry leaders and thought leaders from academia
10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 13:00 Research Paper presentations
13:00 - 14:00 Break
14:00 - 15:30 Workshop – Part I : Coffee table discussions moderated by thought leaders
15:30 - 16:00 Break
16:00 - 17:00 Workshop – Part II : Presentation by workshop participants
17:00 - 17:30 Prize Distribution and Valedictory function

More Details

Brochure can be downloaded @ http://www.iimb.ernet.in/sites/default/files/u166/CSITM_WORKSHOP_BROCHURE.pdf

Event home @ http://www.iimb.ernet.in/node/2435

Its time to relax & enjoy!

Unmaad was an experience! Here comes the next for those who are inclined more towards traditional culturals.

Yamini 2011, a nocturnal cultural program organized by IIMB & SPICMACAY from January 25, 6PM to January 26, 6AM.

More information about Yamini and schedule @ http://www.iimb-yamini.com/index.html

Download the passes @ http://www.iimb-yamini.com/images/pass.jpg

Unmaad 2011 Day 2!

Bandh in Bangalore. What? No way!, its celebration time at IIMB.

In spite of the bandh today in Karnataka, it doesn't seemed to have even a single effect on day 2 of Unmaad 2011. Even though, we had our mid term exams, most of us managed to view the events and contest in many!

JAM, quizzes, dramatics and the list continues for the events that happened today. Is the cultural fest only about competitions? NO, we had our second workshop today which was on film making. There are other workshops like those on photography and artistic photography. Also there is a magic show and mentalist show by Nakul Shenoy tomorrow. We even had book reading session on 'Field'. The crowd puller among the competitions was BSOR - B School of Rock which saw fierce competition enjoyable to the audience and participants...

And to spice this all up, we had the pronite Indian Ocean & TAAQ!!!

Missing the fun??? 

Don't worry you have one more chance, see you tomorrow @ IIMB!

Unmaad 2011

 

See you all @ IIMB campus for Unmaad 2011!!