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Spread across 30 cities and towns in India, this third E Week India had participation from over 3,50,000 people across the country, almost doubling that of last year. During the week more than 3000 entrepreneurship events and activities were hosted showcasing the energy and drive amongst students and professionals from across the country. Over 1,00,000 people took the E Week India 2009 nation-wide aPledgea to support entrepreneurship in India.

Students participated in an array of entrepreneurial activities, from green business plans, awareness marathons and rallies to talks and panel discussions on innovation based entrepreneurship, as well as, village yatras, where voluntary student scouts compiled information on local and grass root level livelihood means, all with the aim to support green and alternative business opportunities.

In addition to the student activities, E Week India also saw corporate and association partners actively support E Week awareness campaigns and efforts. E Week India 2009 Hosts included IBM, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Proto.in, Indian Angel Networks, New Ventures India, Chennai Open Coffee Club, Venturewoods, WATBlog and Mumbai Angels.

This yearas E-Week India National Championship Awards were bagged by seven colleges: ISBR Business School - Bangalore; Sri Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain College a Bangalore, for whom this is the second consecutive year as Champion; Bengal College of Engineering & Technology a Durgapur; IPS Academy a Indore; Muffakham Jah College of Engineering & Technology a Hyderabad; Institute of Engineering & Management - Kolkata and Heritage Institute of Technology - Kolkata

In addition, Bangaloreas Mount Carmel College and Jyoti Nivas College were among the nine institutes that were declared Runners Up nationwide, while IFIM Business School and MS Ramaiah Inst of Technology made it to the E Week Honor Roll along with seven other institutes. The Nilima Rovshen Creativity and Innovation Award was awarded to Atharva College of Engineering a Mumbai, while the Most Effective Public Awareness Campaign Awards was bagged by IPS Academy a Indore.

Delivering the keynote address, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon said, aThe global economic crisis has created a challenging environment for business. This is a defining time for young entrepreneurs as they address opportunities that are strongly linked to global challenges of ensuring sustainability in all fields a be it transportation, networks, healthcare, food or energy dependency for the future. I congratulate E Week India, which is empowering young minds with the entrepreneurial spirit to solve the greatest problems of today.a Other chief guests at the Awards Ceremony included Chetan Maini, Deputy Chairman and CTO, Reva Electric Car Company and Mohanjit Jolly, Executive Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
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The four day fest is expected to have an attendance of around 7,000 people. The theme for Euphoria this year 00:00, PAUSE:PLAY symbolizing aTo break free from norms and conventions and live life on one's own termsa. The event kicks off with Naseeruddin Shah's troupe's play 'All Thieves' on 6th followed by performances from India's pop and rock artists on 7th. The four days will witness competitions ranging from a corporate quiz to music and dance events to a short film competition with participantion from corporates and students from postgraduate and undergraduate institutes.
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The highlight of the event is research presentations on Consumer, Branding and Service trends by IMT Dubai students under the guidance of Professor Mohan Agrawal. Corporate speakers like Mr Gautam Sen Gupta, Managing Partner/ Director, Market Vision Research & Consulting Services, Dubai; Mr Dhiraj Joshi, Associate Director - Business Performance Services, KPMG, UAE and Mr Manish Kotwala, Director, Cedar Management Consulting International, Dubai; will critique these presentations.
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While delivering the inaugural address, Dr AM Sherry, Director, IMT-CDL said, "The conference is designed to discuss how to manage turbulences in an organization in rise of global economic slowdown and to look for opportunities for organizational growth amidst global meltdown."

While talking about the underlying causes of economic meltdown, Prof. Aumann said, "Over leveraging by companies in financial sectors, high correlation amongst players, 'Negative Bubble' and excessive media reporting of the financial crisis led to the global economic meltdown." Prof. Aumann also suggested the remedies to cover the global economic meltdown. He recommended that government should regulate key aspects of financial system, and the firms should avoid over leveraging.

Commenting on the unexpectedness of the financial crisis, Mr. Kamal Nath said, "Yes, the global economic slowdown has caught us unguarded. No one had thought that we will be discussing this subject today. United States and European economies are badly hit; however India economy is on course."

Self governance and corporate governance are required to tackle the problem of recession. Explaining this, Swami Parthasarthy commented, "There is a scarcity of quality manpower in India. The Indian education system is improper. As a result, only 5% students take enrolment for higher education and 69% opt out at undergraduate level."

Dr Farhad Rad Serecht, Director, IMT Dubai spoke on the topic of 'The real nature of the crisis & policy implications.' Dr Serecht said, "There is need of regulatory framework, tight control on finance, state participation, more balanced distribution of income and effective supervision at the managerial level."

Other speakers at the conference included Prof BB Bhattacharya, Vice-Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Dr Subir Gokarn, Chief Economist, Standard & Poor's, Aisa-Pacific; Mr Ankit Faida, World-Renowned Cyber Security Expert and Mr Anand Rajaganesan, Director, Human Resource, Organizational Effectiveness Vertical, HCL Technologies.
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The event kick started with MarQue - The Marketing Workshop which was taken up by Dr Ranjan Chaudhuri, a NITIE faculty in Marketing. Dr T Prasad, an HR faculty at NITIE gave the students an insight about the Human Resource Management and entrepreneurship skills. FinNomenal a The Finance Workshop was conducted by Prof M Venkateshwarulu, a faculty at NITIE. OpsCure - The Operations Workshop was conducted by Mr Vamsi Krishna Karry, Logistics Manager- Modern Retail at Procter & Gamble and a NITIE alumnus. Dr Shirish Sangle talked about the benefits of building a career in Environmental Management. The pre-lunch session was concluded by a session by Prof. PK Biswas on IT and Systems Management.

The post-lunch session saw the battle of brains for Quest-Chenier, a Business Quiz competition. The highlight of the event was Midas Touch: Last Minute Preparations, the live GD workshop conducted by Dr Nikhil Mehta for the MBA aspirants. He went on to simulate two live GDas amongst the participants of B-Cube and gave them feedback on what to do and what not to in a B-School entrance GD. The event concluded with Studentsa Corner, a question/answer session where the floor was thrown open to all aspirants for all their queries and it was addressed by the IMPACT members themselves.
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Absolute Pharma Intellect (API) - a National level quiz will be hosted by a quizmaster Mr Amit Pandeya and Souvik Basu. Teams from TCS, CITI Financial, Elder Pharmaceuticals, UICT NITIE, NIPER, Pfizer, Merck, Wockdhart, Cipla, and Torrent have participated in the previous editions of Isthmus. This year API will be organized on the February 21 at Praveen Gandhi Pavillion, Irla Road, Vile parle (w), Mumbai with cash prizes worth Rs 25,000 to be given.

SPTM offers various courses such as MBA (Pharm Tech), M.Pharm. (Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacy, Quality Assurance) B.Pharm., Masters in Science (Applied Pharmacteutical Microbiology) Masters in Science (Applied Pharmaceutical Analysis ). The school also provides an integrated course of B.Pharm and MBA.

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RANNEETI (The Business Plan) is a team based competition where participating teams have to enter a business venture plan related to the theme of aInnovative Business Ideas in Emerging Economiesa. The top five teams will be invited, where they will present their plans before a panel of judges and an audience comprising corporate, community and government leaders. The teams adjudged first and second will win cash prizes totaling Rs. 20,000. DFS will also guide and facilitate the initial communication with any interested investors, for the winning teams.

ARTHDRONA (Skill of Articulation) is a Paper Presentation Competition on the topics:
1) When You're in a Pit, the First Thing to do is to Stop Digging.
2) Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid: Illusion or Reality?
3) Government Bailouts: The Ultimate Panacea for Resolving Crisis
The contest is open to all students of full time & part time management courses. The Winners will receive a prize money of Rs 10,000 and Runners-Up of Rs 5,000.

PRAHELIKA (Quiz Competition)
The quiz will be a three phase event. Six teams will be chosen for the finals. Participation is open for B-schools, Under Graduate Colleges and Corporates. Prelims will be an online elimination round. The Winners will receive a prize money of Rs 10,000 and Runners-Up of Rs 5,000.
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It was about half an hour after noon when a short auto ride
from the local train station brought me to the Somaiya Vidyavihar campus which
apart from the KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research houses
eleven other educational institutes. A tall arch at the beginning of a well
maintained road signifies the start of the campus. There is a line of trees
through this road and the sight which greeted me when I reached the campus was
that of many groups of students enjoying a break of sorts with people eating
lunch, chattering gaily or playing sports. I confirmed from a few students while
walking along this road that the business school was straight ahead and reached
the MBA college in about five minutes. A couple of students met me at the
college building and proceeded to show me around the campus.


Presently there is construction work in progress at the
business school with facilities being prepared for new programs which would
focus on supply chain management and human resources. The current first year
students in the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) course constitute
the first batch of students to enjoy campus residential facilities. The other
sought after management program at KJ Somaiya is Masters in Management Studies
(MMS) and while 95 percent of the students in this course are from Mumbai, MMS
students do not as of now have the option of on-campus residential facilities.
aOnly a handful of MMS students end up interacting with PGDM students.
Residential facilities would definitely help improve interactions. Committees
and events are the main means of interaction with PGDM people for MMS
students,a says Jinesh Vasa, first year student (MMS).


As far as campus life, culture and lingo are concerned,
Nikit Tekriwal a first year PGDM student says simply, aThere is no campus lingo
as such and in that sense we are quite cultured. The camaraderie between
students has become much better because of the new hostel facility. Campus life
is in a sense just about starting over here.a An example of how the new
residential facility is bringing about interactions between students is an
informal group called aCircle of Trusta which has come up in the hostels. The
group so far consists of ten odd people with common interests who meet, devise
strategies to crack exams and brainstorm over how they can best leverage their
core competencies. Members of the group identify others who they believe would
fit in and informal interviews are conducted as part of the screening process.


MMS students are active in another interesting initiative
called aThe parallel MBAa. Students often do not ask questions in an
uninhibited manner in class presentations as they do not wish to adversely
affect the marks that their classmates score. In order to get around this
roadblock and also to better understand issues relating to coursework, students
conduct informal sessions in which they freely discuss presentations made in
class, topics concerning the economy in general and other issues. aThere are
some topics which a few students will inevitably know really well and these
sessions greatly help others to become abreast of things. We have reaped the benefits
of these interactions in case study events and group discussions,a adds Jinesh
Vasa.



Classes at the business school usually commence at nine or
ten in the morning and get over by four in the evening. Assignments, as a PGDM
student puts it, are amanageablea. Another student quips, aMBA studies over
here are definitely less intensive than what we experienced in graduation. In
the free time available, we catch up on movies which we couldnat see during our
undergraduate studiesa. aThe best part about studying here for me is that Saturdays
and Sundays are usually holidays and, for my section, Thursdays and Fridays are days when we
have just the one class. Guest lectures are at times held on Friday and the schedule of course varies from section to sectiona, adds a first year PGDM student. Isnat
it strange for students at a business school to have so much free time? aOver
here we get to do what we wish and not what atheya want us to,a simply says a
first year MMS student. Students also explain that such a schedule also allows
them to participate in events organized at other B-schools.

Discussions about life at KJ Somaiya business school took
place over lunch taken from the college canteen. I was advised to not visit the
hostel mess where Monday lunch would be nothing worth writing home about. Only
vegetarian food is available on campus but as students explained, aThere are
plenty of non-vegetarian food joints located nearby. Also, we do have ways and
means of working around the problem of having only vegetarian food on campus.
Obviously these cannot be mentioned in print!a

There is a giant chess set present just
outside the academic building of the b-school. Students in their free time
often enjoy a game of chess here and savour the experience of playing chess in
this unique way. Two students were engaged in one such chess match when I left
the KJ Somaiya campus at about four in the evening.

So, the PaGaLGuY.com B-school Backpacker has made his fourth stop! (His first three stops were GIM, Goa, SJMSoM, IIT Bombay and Symbiosis Infotech Campus, Pune.) If you wish to invite him to your campus please feel free to shoot a mail to editor pagalguy com.
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Apart from eight offline and five online games testing skills and aptitude in various disciplines of management, Chrysalis 2009 also has Exquizite 2009, the annual Corporate B school quiz hosted by Mr. Derek O Brien on February 28, 2009 at 4.30 pm. Around 700 participants have participated in the quiz over the last two years.

For more information, visit: www.libachrysalis.com
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The highlight of the event was aSpirulina- the Cooking Gamea, cooking up the best possible snack with limited resources. The flagship event of Drishtia09 was the Business Quiz which was won by the team from IBS (ICFAI Business School) Hyderabad & MET, Nashik. Some of the best business ideas were brought out by SIIB and NITIE in aDreamcatcher - The B-Plan Contesta. Other competitions at the event included aWhiplash - The Supply Chain Case Studya, aTelengiscope - The Visual Case Studya, Blochsphere, Minesweeper and Mad-Ad Show. The event concluded with the valedictory function in which prizes were distributed to the winning teams followed by a DJ night.
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Prof AK Puri, Director General of the Institute, announced that under the initiative, student volunteers of the Institute will adopt these street children and volunteer time and effort to provide education, hygiene and health care sessions. The Institute will tie up with government agencies and coordinate with doctors to provide the children free health care. The Institute will organize skill building workshops to enhance their employability.

Ms Radhika Shrivastava Vice President of the Institute, called upon all like-minded people to come forward and contribute a fraction of their effort and attention to the deprived sections of society.

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In his talk Mr Gopalakrishnan said "There are tremendous opportunities in the current crisis. The unusual nature of this downturn is its global nature with major developed countries like US and Japan being affected. The recovery will start but the question is how long will it take and it may happen sometime in 2010. The window we need to look at is two to four years. As a student of management, this is an opportunity to learn and grow stronger. The students are living through a case study and are witnessing something on the scale of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the current crisis has historical significance. India is still growing at 7% and we are affected. We should look at what we need to do to prepare ourselves to come out of this downturn. The worst-case scenario is that there would be a change in the world financial order."

He drew an analogy with the Grand Prix where drivers are speeding at 200 miles per hour and accidents are bound to happen. The question is how do the drivers react and recover. He also spoke about Climate Change and what businesses and companies need to do; creating services that allow companies to figure out how to manage how to reduce the impact on the environment.

aWe must be mindful of the fact that the youth need to be equipped to take up jobs and become productive, failing which it can lead to undesirable consequences. In the past, we had a shortage of computer science graduates and the others were going abroad. We recognized this and we introduced a 3.5 month training to mould engineers into software engineers. We need to invest in training, education and leverage technology to create wealth and jobs. Computer technology is 60 years old. The first 30 years were about figuring what a computer is, the models for computing. Computers were meant for nerds, geeks then. In 1981, personal computing has moved to the mainstream, as a productivity tool. There is a pervasive computing environment today and it is impacting every aspect of our life but there is some way to go in terms of integrating these technologies. An example is the GPS in Cars, which is available in other countries. This shows how sensors are interacting with humans. Today, we can think about a small device in our hands and it can store libraries of information in the range of terabytes of data. We haven't fully figured out how to use it and I feel the innovation would continue for the next 30 years. We also have biotechnology & Nanotechnology which have lot of potential for innovation and it is intersected by IT. The important traits for success would be the ability to learn, curiosity, authenticity, discipline, passion, problem solving ability, bias for action and measurement. Attitude plays a huge role in shaping these behaviors. We should be able to earn the trust of the people around you.a said Mr Gopalakrishnan. It is important to combine talent with discipline and passion. He concluded his talk by referring to a poem by Bessie Anderson Stanley about the measures of success.
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The Post Graduate Programs will start in July 2009 at City Business School in Gurgaon. Classes will start for one year full time programs in aHR leadershipa and aBusiness leadershipa. Whereas admission to HR leadership program is open to fresh graduates and working professionals, the Business leadership program requires a work experience of at least five years.
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Dr Narinder Kumar, ex-chairman and senior faculty at the statistics department, Panjab University, explained the importance and application of SPSS software in banking and insurance sector, survey companies, government sector, marketing research, forecasting and other areas. The students and faculty members were trained to access data from any other source, perform data management, carry out statistical analysis and present results in a variety of reports and graphs for effective decision-making.
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The quiz-master for WIZBIZ 2009 is Mr Avinash Mudaliar. He is the
founder of RV Quiz Corp., a quizzing club and is currently the creative
and content head of Times Internet Group. Participating firms at
WIZBIZ 2009 include Bajaj Allianz, Synapse, Savoir and more. WIZBIZ
2008 had total prizes worth Rs. 80,000, and this year there are prizes
to be won by the participants as well as the audience members.
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Mr Schueler emphasized that business is first about people & relationships and then products. He also drew a contrast between the German and Indian way of doing business and outlined the two core values that Germans upheld a reliability and efficiency. Answering a query on the threat from China, Mr. Schueler pointed out that Germany is known for its ingenuity and it is this skill that helps in differentiating them from the rest of the pack. He also said that Hoffman being a zero-debt company was well placed to tackle the liquidity crisis engulfing the world in these times. On a different note, he stressed on the fact that it was absolutely necessary for future managers to give family a high priority and delegate work accordingly so as to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
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The program works through groups of four mentors (current students) each, with every group having 25 - 30 mentees. The mentees can benefit from the mentors advice on any personal or individual queries. This year 1200 participants registered for the Mentorship program and there were 120 mentors from diverse backgrounds including engineering, medicine, life sciences, commerce, economics and humanities. Also, The mentors conducted telephonic and online mock interviews for the mentees.

A portal, www.mentor.iimklive.com, has been set up for the mentorship program. It has an active forum with specific threads which provide information on topics like academics, GD/PI experiences of the previous batches and various other discussions topics. The candidates also get a fair idea about the life and various other activities on campus.
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The conference began with presentations given by the IMT Marketing students on Gen-X consumer in the Gulf, branding trends and service industry trends. The research presentations summarized the patterns, insights and survey findings to reveal that the Gulf region is not as badly affected by the difficult market conditions as feared.

A panel of speakers from the Gulf business consulting firms such as KPMG, Cedar consulting and Market Vision Research & Consulting Services observed that the Gulf region has always been a strong consumer market and will continue to be so. They however, asked for several corrections and adjustments in the marketing strategy such as experience branding, intangible marketing and additional perseverance, creativity and consumer orientation in keeping the Gulf brands relevant. Mr Gautam Sen Gupta, Managing Partner/ Director, Market Vision Research & Consulting Services, Mr Hiram Joshi, Associate Director - Business Performance Services, KPMG, UAE and Mr Manish Kotwala, Director, Cedar Management Consulting International, Dubai critiqued these presentations and offered their own perspectives in Gen-X, brandings and service trends in the Gulf.
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The placement process at IIM Ahmedabad, which in boom time used to finish in 3 days, entered its sixth day today (March 2). The institute has put a complete media gag on the students. aWe will release a statement only after the placement process is completely over,a said student member of placement cell Vivek Jain.

However according to a source in the school, 200 to 210 of the total 250 odd students had received job offers on Day 5 and another 20-25 were expected to get placed on Day 6. aThe best scenario expected right now is that the remaining 10-15 students would be all placed on Day 7,a the source informed.

The gold-class finance jobs in investment banking and private equity sectors have practically dried up this year. Any i-banking jobs have largely been through pre-placement offers (PPOs) to students who interned with the firm in 2008 summer.

The most valued recruiters at IIM Ahmedabad until now have been Bain and Co, AT Kearney, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and others. Vacated by the recession-hit top investment banks and private equity firms, the premier 'Day 0' and 'Day Half' placement slots this year also saw recruitment by FMCG majors Hindustan Unilever and Procter and Gamble.

Top consult McKinsey & Co, which until last year recruited over 50 graduates from the top b-schools will offer jobs to barely 35 Indian MBAs this year. aWe've made three offers each in IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta, and another three between IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow besides about 20 PPOs in IIM A, B and C. We may recruit 3-4 more from SP Jain, XLRI Jamshedpur, IIM Kozhikode and Jamnalal Bajaj Mumbai depending on quality of talent,a said a source in McKinsey.

Others such as Bain and Co and BCG too have recruited considerably lesser numbers from the IIMs.

An IIM Bangalore alumnus said, aA lot of junior MBAs laid off from the investment banking and finance sector last year managed to find jobs in top consulting majors by the end of 2008. In effect, they ate into the jobs that potentially would have been available to this year's graduating MBA classes.a

Instead of the usual practice of IIMs dictating company presence on campus in strictly formed slots, both IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore are having to let companies recruit from campus as they come in ('a rolling process' in b-school speak) in later slots of the placement process.

IIM Bangalore is equally tight-lipped about the ongoing placements which started on February 28 and are in Slot 2 as of writing this report.

The institute too expects a long drawn out placement season spilling over to the next week. According to a source, the institute will not charge a participation fee to recruiting companies coming in from Slot 3 (a participation fee of about Rs 75,000-1.5 lakh is charged by IIMs to every company that wishes to hire students from their campuses. A separate recruitment fee is charged to the company for every student that joins the company).

aWe will release an update after the placement process is entirely over, which we're expecting to be sometime next week,a said Mathew Abraham, IIMB's student spokesperson.

IIM Calcutta on the other hand has split the placements process to two phases, citing final examinations as the reason. The only IIM to communicate with the media until now, it placed 151 students in phase 1 and another 56 through PPOs. Phase 2 is scheduled to begin today (March 2).

aA total of 49 companies have visited IIM-C in the four days of Phase I while 25 companies came for recruitment during lateral process,a said the institute's press statement.

aAs many as 89 offers were made in Slot 0. These included 50 Slot 0 PPOs and 39 Slot 0 final placement offers. Companies making the highest number of Slot 0 offers (PPOs and finals) were McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Frost and Sullivan, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley. Firms such as Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, ITC and Nokia too were among the highly preferred companies in Slot 0,a the statement said.

IIM Calcutta claimed that there was no fall in conpensation amounts in phase 1.

aAs with every other business school in the world, IIM Calcutta too faced an unprecedented challenge in placing its students this year. A noticeable change as compared to last time is the number of offers made (or accepted) per company. Many international firms affected by the downturn had reduced the number of offers made, while in quite a few instances, students rejected lucrative international offers to opt for more secure jobs in other firms in the same sector. The expectations this time were not high, after seeing the placements in other leading colleges across the country,a the statement said.

aThough not as glamorous as last year in terms of the number of offers, this year definitely has its high points in terms of the quality of jobs offered,a said the institute statement.

Elsewhere, next-in-line b-schools such as Delhi's Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), b-schools under the Symbiosis banner, b-schools at the Indian Institutes of Technology have all moved to a rolling process of placements extended over 2-3 months under the pressure of the economic crisis. Last year, these schools had placed their entire batch over 2-4 days.

IIFT Delhi has placed about 110 students and is looking to place the remaining 40 over the next two months. Students at the institute are also contacting companies independently besides appearing for on-campus interviews arranged by the placement committees. According to a source at the institute, the average salary until now has gone down to around Rs 7.5 lakhs as opposed to last year's Rs 10.1 lakh.

Prof Munish Bhargav, Placement Advisor at IIFT, is expecting State Trading Corporations and government agencies to come for recruitment as well.

B-schools with smaller batch sizes are probably having it the easiest, relatively speaking. IIT Bombay's Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSoM) has according to sources already placed about 60 of its 72 students and expects 100 pc placements in another 2-3 weeks.

(With inputs from Madhav Kumar)