Confluence to be held between 24th & 27th November, will play host to speakers such as – A.M. Naik (MD & CEO, Larsen & Toubro), Arun Shourie (Member of Parliament), Bob Hoekstra (CEO, Philips Innovation Campus), Chandrababu Naidu (Former Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh), Deepak Parekh (Chairman, HDFC), Dr. J.J. Irani (Director, Tata Sons), Heinz-Joachim Neuburger (EVP & CFO, Siemens Worldwide), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Chairman, Aditya Birla Group), Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission), Mukesh Ambani (Chairman & MD, Reliance Industries), Subir Raha (Chairman & MD, ONGC), Sunil Mittal (Chairman & MD, Bharti Enterprises), Suresh Prabhu (Member of Parliament) and Vijay Mallya (Chairman, UB Group).

The qualifier rounds have been opened to 60 Indian business schools and more than 5,000 students have participated in the qualifier rounds. The qualifier events in Confluence, have seen participants from international business schools like Harvard Business School, Rotterdam School of Management, Tuck, Haas, Stern, National University of Singapore, Brisbane Graduate School of Business, China Europe International Business School and Asian Institute of Technology. Around 1,000 students are expected on the IIMA campus during the event.

The competitive events for Confluence have been kicked off with MasterPlan, LiveStock and Mousetrap. MasterPlan is the largest business plan contest organized in India with total prize amounting to US$ 11,000. The participants are required to present business plans involving investment up to US$ 5 bn. MasterPlan saw 345 submissions from 42 domestic and 17 international business schools including Harvard and Cornell. The top three finalists will then have the opportunity to present their ideas in IIMA to Mukesh Ambani who will decide the final winners

LiveStock allows students to invest real money and make real returns on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The total kitty available to each of the 60 participating teams is Rs. 30,000 out of which Rs. 25,000 has been provided by IIMA Confluence with no stop loss restriction. Mousetrap is a week long multifunctional online management game conducted as a qualifier and is developed by students themselves.

During the regular Confluence days, amongst other events the finals for four case contests shall be conducted. These cases, which will be subsequently used for class room teaching, seek to generate solutions for specific issues being faced by organizations, and have been written by Confluence team members under the guidance of organizations like McKinsey & Company and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.

Confluence 2005 will culminate with a mega business quiz hosted by Harsha Bhogle. The top three teams during Confluence will walk away with overall Awards of Excellence. The Tata Group has been the principal partner for Confluence for six years now. The Tata Group along with other partners like Reliance Industries, ONGC, McKinsey & Company, Ernst & Young, Cognizant and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation are closely involved in the design and implementation of the events during Confluence. The Confluence Advisory Committee in 2005 is being chaired by Deepak Parekh (Chairman, HDFC).