 BIM students win cup
The student team of Bharathidasan Institute of Management (BIM) won the first place in the Microsoft IT Business Plan category as part of the Imagine Cup 2005 competition held in Yokohama, Japan.
ProGreen - as the team has named itself - comprises students donning different roles as part of their venture, with Santhosh Ramdoss as CEO, Deepak Kumar Bhatter as the CFO, Anand Venkataraman as the head of operations and Anita Parthasarathy being the chief training officer.
"We believe in imparting strong ethical training and instilling an equally strong sense of social orientation in our students. We firmly believe that a good B-school should not merely focus on developing excellent managers or successful leaders but should also mould them into responsible Indian citizens who will redefine the future of management. The Indian industry is now on the threshold of emerging into a major economic force. Hence, future management professionals should also strive towards bridging the digital divide as also the economic divide in our country," says Prof M Sankaran, director, BIM.
"Out of 130 participant teams from 90 countries, our students won with an IT-enabled cooperative to help large firms tap talent and boost economies in rural Indian communities. Even if they hadn't won, the nature of their project does BIM proud," he said.
In this Microsoft-sponsored global technology competition designed to show students the real-world opportunities that are available through technology, over 16,000 students from 92 different countries participated. The award was given on at Yokohama, Japan by Morris Sim, senior director, Academic and Developer Community Group, Microsoft. The award included the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2005 and a cash prize of $ 8,000.
An earlier Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition conducted by the University of Washington in Seattle in February 2005 was won by the ProGreen Team which, included Sarvanan, Santosh Ramdoss, Deepak Bhatter and Anitha Parthasarathy. This competition saw a participation of 170 teams from universities across the globe. The BIM team won the event amidst intense competition from other international teams including University of Washington Business School, Bryan Young University, Daniel J Evans School of Public Affairs, and IIT Bombay.
This event was sponsored by the University of Washington, the UW Business School, Howard and Lynn Behar, the Initiative for Global Development, a Seattle-based alliance of business and civic leaders, and Delta Airlines. The BIM team won the grand first prize of $ 5,000.
"BIM graduates are successful, not just in the metros but even in the suburban areas of India. With project initiatives like this, the students can realise a vision - the growth of the Indian community as a whole, and be further motivated to work towards the upliftment of society through successful business models," says Pamela Ramalingam, global head - Engg. & Quality (Group Tech. Ops) Standard Chartered Bank, and president, BIM Alumni Association.
"The BIM alumni feel it is our duty and responsibility to encourage and guide the BIM students in this direction. By felicitating the victorious team and acknowledging their efforts, we, the alumni, aim to motivate them to reach greater heights, recognising their potential for making a difference," she added.
Details of the two competitions:
Imagine Cup 2005: The IT Business Plan competition challenges students to present ideas for bridging the digital divide in the form of a business plan. The Indian team's proposal: grow a number of rural micro cooperatives and, drawing on that affordable labour source, provide outsourced data-entry and conversion services to large business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. ProGreen will interact with the large BPOs and the rural workers in an enabling, or sub-contracting role. It will provide a worksite, with connectivity, and skills-training for cooperative members.
"India has seen robust economic growth in the past decade, but the social and economic impact of such growth has been largely restricted to the urban areas," says Anand Venkataraman, a final year MBA student of BIM, for team ProGreen. "Our team members have had the benefit of working for large corporations in urban pockets like Bangalore as well as understanding the rural landscape. The real point of inspiration was when we saw educated, talented rural youth struggling to make a living!"
On paper at least, the project looks like a win-win: The large BPO firms will see several benefits - from reduced wages and a reliable source of manpower, to less attrition and an opportunity to adopt socially responsive practices. And cooperative members will benefit from average projected earnings of about $ 1,100 each per year - more than most rural dwellers make today. Many will also become information leaders in their communities, thus helping to bridge the digital divide. And with economic empowerment come other social benefits, such as improvement in health and nutrition and in sanitation and hygiene, and a stemming of the migration of rural dwellers to the urban areas.
GSEC Competition: This team had won the first place with their ProGreen entrepreneurship venture - a company that manufactures and exports low-cost, bio-degradable leaf cups and plates. These cups and plates are made from the areca tree natively grown in India. The stake-holders of ProGreen are also its producers i.e. cultivators of the trees and products which are mostly available and located in the rural, poor sections (areas) of India. ProGreen would help these farmers buy machinery, train them on production, and procure the finished goods. Profits are shared with these stake-holders creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the company and its producers.
With respect to both projects the teams aren't planning to leave the project on paper. They intend to use the prize money they have won as seed money to kickstart the plan within a year.
Bharathidasan Institute of Management: BIM was born in 1984 in active partnership with BHEL, Trichy, and the Bharathidasan University. It is the largest business school in Tamil Nadu with an annual intake of 120 students. Offering specialisations like Human Resource Management, Systems, Finance, Marketing and Operations, BIM, is ranked today as an A+ (levell) Business School. With 100 per cent placements, a personal growth lab and superior technological back-up, this B-school has carved a niche for itself among the top business schools in our country.
K.Kumar, director, DeloWe Touche Tohmatsu, Ramesh Ramani, VP,, Tata AIG, Eugene Thomas, country manager, HP Compaq, Vairavel, GM IT & E.Business, Ford, T R Ramachandran, business manager, CitiBank Cards, and Dr Partha Krishnamurthy, proftssor, University of Houston, are some of its distinguished alumni.
Companies like ICICl, Kotak Group, lng Vysysa, CitiBank, Mindtree, Eveready, Ashok Leyland, TVS, Tata Motors, KavinCare, Wipro, VB, Dabur, HLL, lnfosys, TCS, Ramco, HCL find BIM a fertile ground to harvest employees from.
For further details, please contact:
Divya B. at 9884470964
or divya@adroitpublicrelations.com
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