December 14, 2007: Dr. Bala along with the Chief Guest and the other guests formally inaugurated the festival by lighting the holy lamps. The inauguration function was followed by key-note speeches by Dr. Thomas Anderson and Mr. Shailesh Rao. Dr. Y.V.Reddy. Mr Y.V.Reddy who flew to Chennai to be part of Lattitude 13 05 and gave students some insights on the Indian and global economy . He also spoke about future trends in economy and mentioned that after taking into consideration of various factors, the GDP in the current year was expected to be around 8.5%, while inflation will be maintained below 5%. The external sector continued to be stable and strong. The fiscal situation is likely to be on track. The financial market, by and large, particularly money market will remain reasonably stable. He also added that as a result of fundamentals which have been laid over the years, the country is more stable. Despite a number of challenges, political ups and downs and other negative factors, India continue to manage economy well, he pointed out.
After Mr Reddy’s speech, Mr. Shailesh Rao (Google India Head) addressed the students of Great Lakes. Mr. Rao said that the current youth demographic provided a “unique opportunity” for India today. “There is no other country with the scale of opportunities for growth and such a unique youth demographic,” he said. “How today’s youth will get trained and educated could determine the next 50 years of progress for the country.”Mr. Rao pointed to several areas of concern that had to be overcome if this opportunity could be realised. “We have to inspire more of a culture of risk-taking and innovation and to fill the gap in people management. I would encourage entrepreneurs to take more risks, be adaptive, cross-train and think in an integrated way.”

Thomas Anderson, Associate Dean, Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, also addressed the students. He said that the education model had to encourage students to take more initiative. “A concern is that the current instructional model of education puts the student in a passive position as a… receiver of knowledge,” he said.

Mr. Anderson stressed that there was a need to start early in the education process, in primary schools, to encourage students to take more responsibility. He added that introducing a global perspective in education through associations between universities from different countries was also needed.

Earlier Dr. Bala said that the idea behind such a festival is to provide a common platform for eminent scholars from various walks of life to interact and exchange ideas and for the students to keep themselves abreast with the experts’ views on current trends. He also acknowledged the contributions of Mr.Darsh Wasan –VP, IIT Chicago – Illinois who inaugurated Great Lakes’ EMBA program, Dr. Paul Prabhaker from Stuart Business School – IIT who has been constant source of strong support, the college administration team and several others towards the creation and building of Great Lakes Inst. of Management.

December 15, 2007:

This was the day when L’ Attitude 13°5′ was graced by none other then Narayana Murthy , chief mentor, Infosys Technologies.
Mr. Murthy, also inaugurated a new Centre for Excellence for Infrastructure created by MARG CONSTRUCTION at GREAT LAKES. The centre is the product of a partnership between MARG Constructions Limited, which has committed Rs. 3 crore to the centre, and Great Lakes Institute of Management, where it will be located. It will conduct in-depth studies into infrastructure in India and abroad and use them to develop business models for growth and development. While addressing students Mr. Murthy said that though there were signs of tremendous positivity, “for us to make it an inclusive growth story, to bring the benefits of globalisation to the worst off sections, we have to get into low-tech manufacturing and services to create job opportunities for the illiterate and semi-literate… In order to make sure that they can enjoy the fruits of liberalisation and globalisation, we have to focus on infrastructure.”

The need of the day and the first stage to a better infrastructure, he said, was to bring about a change in the mindset. “Unless we are open-minded and learn from other countries and cultures which have performed better than us, unless we are willing to engage in discussions with those who have created infrastructure better than we have done, unless we are willing to admit our mistakes and… open our minds to learn, I am not very sure that we will make the kind of progress that we want.”

Along with customer care and an invigorating workplace, it was openness to ideas, benchmarking with the global best and adapting best practices from across the world that made the IT industry what it was today, he said. His speech ended with a thunderous applause and a standing ovation by all Great Lakers and everyone present.

L’Attitude 13 05 also brought a gamut of events from all spheres of management which includes one game exclusively for corporate, to challenge acumen and test ones nerves. These included That’s the Way: The Corporate Battle; Pentathlon: The B-Plan Contest; Tourada: The Finance Game; Nabataean: A Unique Strategy Game; Pankration: The Marketing Mania; Funambulism: Soft Skills Galore; Athlos: The Moth of All Contests. The winners of these games were awarded handsome prizes to the tune of Rs30, 000 each! The events were followed up by a quiz which saw a huge turnout with some teams coming from Bangalore.

Following are the winners of various competitions which were held

Pankration (Marketing): 1st – LootStreet.com – IIM A, 2nd – Emeralds – Alliance Business School
Tourada (Finance) : 1st – LootStreet.com – IIM A, 2nd – 3 Students – SIBM, Pune
Funambulism (HR): 1st – Innova – ISB, Hyderabad, 2nd – Bogus Brothers – IIM A
Nabataean (Strategy): 1st – Realty – ISB, Hyderabad, 2nd – Conquisators – IIM C
Thats The Way (Product Relaunch): 1st – Reshoot – Frost n Sullivan, 2nd – Innovators – NMIMS
Pentathlon (B-Plan): 1st – Rural Managers – IRMA, Gujarat, 2nd – Parivartan, IMT Ghaziabad

The winners of the Quiz conducted by Giri Pick Brain Balasubramanium were TCS and they won 30000, 2nd place was Sun Micro Systems and they won 15000 and 3rd place was CitiBank and they won 10000.

Great Lakes’s b-festival L’Attitude 13 05 is a reflection of the spirit of Great Lakes and previous editions of L’Attitude have witnessed active participation from top management schools and corporate all over the country. This year the fest surely scaled new peaks in terms of its size and grandeur.