With Mr. Deep Kalra, CEO of Makemytrip.com, as the Chief Guest on the occasion, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow celebrated its 31st Annual Convocation on March 20, 2017. The Convocation saw 590 students being awarded their Post Graduate Diplomas.
Delivering the Convocation address, Mr. Kalra said ‘one should set one’s goals for self-development and not let financial metric define success.’ He emphasized the need to leverage one’s strengths and combine the same with hard work. What follows is magic. Sharing his experiences, he said that career and life is not a race, it’s not a sprint and not even a marathon. It’s a journey.
Mr Kalra urged students to be fearless in the corporate world. He reiterated how fearless people are creating value and changing lives with the power in their palms. Mr. Kalra highlighted the importance of humility and called it a virtue that must not be lost. A person sans humility stops hearing and stops taking advice. Finally, he urged the outgoing batch to be calm in crisis and be prepared to learn from failures.
In all, 590 students of IIM Lucknow received their diplomas. 405 students from the 31st batch of Post Graduate Programme in Management, 18 students from the 12th batch of Post Graduate Programme in Agri-business Management, 5 students from the Fellow Programme in Management (FPM), along with 80 students from the 10th batch of Post Graduate Programme in Management for Working Executives (WMP), 63 students from the 9th batch of International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX) batches and 19 students from the 1st batch of Post Graduate Programme in Sustainable Management (PGPSM), from the Noida campus received the diplomas. The institute has been nurturing talent since 1984 and with this outgoing batch of 2017, IIM Lucknow will expand its alumni network of about 5000+ alumni who have been dedicatedly serving community through contributions in various domains.
The list of Medal winners for the Post Graduate Programme in Management & Post Graduate Programme in Agri-business Management included Mr. Raghav Arora - Chairman’s Gold Medal; Mr. Arzoo Jain - Director’s Medal; Mr. Himanshu Arora - PGP Chairman’s Medal; Ms. Chitra Kashyap - RESHMA SAREEN Memorial Medal for Best Girl Student & Bizkool Medal for the Best Student in Information Technology among others.
Addressing the august gathering, Dr. Ajit Prasad, Director IIM Lucknow highlighted the accomplishments of the institute in the academic year 2016-2017:
Research and consultancy continue to be the key thrust areas at IIM Lucknow. The institute has undertaken several socially relevant research and consultancy projects in areas like Agriculture, Entrepreneurship, Health Management, Education, Information Technology and Rural Development. This year about 106 research contributions in different forms have already been published in prestigious journals.
Prof. Prasad also mentioned that the Institute and the World Bank Group have entered into an MoU to offer training programs on the World Bank’s procurement framework. Under this MoU, IIML will offer international training programs twice a year. The first of such training program was held in IIM Lucknow NOIDA Campus in December 2016. It attracted participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Georgia, India and Rwanda.
Prof. Prasad shared that the Institute with the guidance from the Ministry of Human Resource Development is in the process of setting up the National Faculty Management Centre (NMFDC) at its NOIDA Campus. NMFDC will be distinctly positioned as a high quality capacity building centre to create a suitable pool of faculty for management institutions in the country.
After successfully mentoring IIM Rohtak, Kashipur and Sirmaur, IIM Lucknow is now working on developing IIM Jammu and its satellite campus at Srinagar. While the PGP will continue at Jammu, Srinagar will be the hub for entrepreneurship, skill development, management development programs, and explore the possibility of installing an incubator there.
One of the key messages by Prof. Prasad was that success and achievement are very individualistic in nature and one must define them by their own parameters.
Chairman of Board of Governors of IIM Lucknow, Dr. J J Irani shared his wisdom with the graduating batch. He highlighted the role of parents in ensuring access to quality education to their wards. Sharing anecdotes about Shri JRD Tata, he concluded with the following words: “Be humble, be true, and be honest. You will have the world at your feet.”
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