IIM Indore gets ready to break free with IRIS 2008

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 24, 2016
Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIM-I) is all set to hold its annual festival IRIS 2008. The theme this year is 'Break Free'. The four day festival will be held at IIM Indore campus starting on November 6. This is the ninth edition of popular manag

Says IIM Indore, “IIM Indore is leaving no stone unturned in hosting a show that will in every way be bigger and better than ever before. It is already bigger and better than last year. The scale and variety of events has increased. We have been overwhelmed by thousands of registrations. We have more interaction with the industry. We would be having more interaction with CAT aspirants and students from IIM Indore, the participating 30 B-schools, and local colleges.”

IRIS is defined by its flagship events Deloitte Kalpavriksha. This year’s winner will get a direct semi-final entry into the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) to be held at Foster School of Business in Seattle, USA. And with a total prize money of Rs 2 lakh up for grabs, this social venture challenge is drawing attention from B-school grads and as many as 103 teams sent in their entries. Kalpavriksha provides a forum for self sustainable business plans which seek to sensitise participants about the responsibility and the potential difference they can make. The top 5 teams will receive mentorship by executives from IndianNGO.com and India Development Gateway, a capital market place for social ventures in India. The finalists will also be able to put up their ideas on India Development Gateway. A member from Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund will also be on the judging panel of Kalpavriksha to judge the top five finalists who stand a chance to get a non-committal funding to the tune of Rs. 2 million for the execution of their plans.

Ashwamedha, is the search for the rightful holder of the ‘Best Manager of India’ title. From over 1000 applications of the brightest minds from among the top 30 B-schools of the country only 30 have been shortlisted to battle it out for the Ashwamedha trophy, the coveted 'Golden Horse' complimented with a prize money of Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The event comprises of several innovative and rigorous rounds to test the participants on varied attributes like teamwork, stress handling, conflict management, decision making and presentation skills and interlinks all of these to their theoretical knowledge.

Eminent personalities from the industry judge the participants and choose the final winner. This year Ashwamedha boasts of a panel of judges which includes business leaders from companies like Cavin Kare, JPMorgan Chase, Kellogg and many others.

And if you can’t make it to Indore on the D-days, there’s still a lot you can get clued into where everyone else is already there. Nearly 1.5 lakh hits in just 5 hours and 1.4 million hits in a week make Klueless4 the biggest online puzzle. To add to its success, is the fact that the participation has been from nearly 88 countries and 1127 cities. Everything combined makes Klueless larger than life and a great achievement for IRIS 2008 as well as for IIM Indore. Successfully completing Klueless4 is a great achievement for any individual, as the participant has to pass through multiple online levels, each one of which is a unique logical riddle. To cross each level, the participant should have problem solving skills as well as knowledge of wide variety of aspects. Many across the country swear by Klueless. The addiction for the game never dies. It is rightfully being termed as the “New Addiction”.  This year, Klueless broke from the tradition of the past and extended an opportunity of association to the participants, which grows beyond playing the game. This was the first time that Klueless Logo Design Contest was launched, which allows participants to design the logo for latest edition for Klueless a way to satisfy the Klueless buffs who keep craving for more involvement with the game.

Sanjeevani is an attempt to help aspiring entrepreneurs give flight to their ideas by providing a platform for them to launch their businesses. It provides a platform for interaction between companies and budding entrepreneurs at crucial stages of the contest. Thus the companies may expect relevant solutions, customised presentation of the event and high interaction with potential recruits. This year, nearly 200 entries were received from the participants of top 30 B-Schools in India and young aspirants (with less than 1 year corporate experience) combined, 20 of which have managed to make it to the next round. Experienced individuals from the industry have been assigned to the teams as mentors. After the interactions with the mentors the participants will be submitting the refined business plans. These 5 teams will have an opportunity to present their case to the VCs. With 1.2 Lakhs to pocket the real challenge has just begun for these 20 teams. Ideas having the potential to turn out to be a viable business will also get the opportunity to present it in the Mumbai office of Seedfund for a funding of up to Rs 30 million.

The finance, marketing and operations verticals have lined up a whole host of events each to cater to a different audience. Bulls and Bears is for those whose pulse beats with the markets, whether it be equity, options or futures trading. Next on the menu, we have Invested Interests, a stocks, bonds, options, commodities trading game where the participant with the best ending portfolio wins. We also have Insuris, a 3 hour game where 8 teams will battle it out. Ending this cuisine, we have Bank on Us, an event which gives participants a chance to manage an entire bank, not just a branch! It allows them to balance a whole gamut of operations performed by a bank.

Leading the marketing bandwagon is Adapt, an advertising game where creativity, intelligence and knowing your audience is as important in making the Ad as how good the actors hired for it. Storewars, a retailing game where 4 teams battle it out to sell the maximum units, takes the leap from simulation to reality. Finally Marksman is the ultimate strategy game in Marketing and the search will end here for the ultimate marketing guru. On the Operations and Strategy front, Entrepid and Chain Reaction are bound to wow you.

Cerebrate Finance, the case study contest of Finance vertical of IRIS is a platform for all the fin gurus to test their imagination and flaunt their analytical skills. This year, the highlight of the event is a live case by L&T Infrastructure. Finalists will be given an opportunity to discuss the case and put forward their queries to experts from L&T Infrastructure. They would also have the chance to present their detailed case analysis to a panel of judges comprising industry stalwarts from L&T and IIM Indore.

New events breaking the tradional B-school fest mould are Splash and Culticon. Splash is an opportunity to forget management fundae for 4 days and showcase your cultural streak - whether it be music, art, photography, theatre, quizzing or anything you can pull out of your hat. The overall winner will be determined by cumulative scoring across cultural genres and would be truly worthy of the title Culticon.

The events will be interspersed by several lectures and interactive sessions. On the guest list for IRIS include Mr. Ashok Desai is Consultant Editor of The Telegraph and a columnist in Businessworld who will speak on the crisis in 2008. Mr K.S. Ramesh, ex CEO of Cavin Kare, Mr Srinivasan Vishwanathan, ex MD, JP Morgan Chase, and Mr Anupam Dutta, MD, Kellogg India.

After four days of hard work at IRIS, Livewire gives everyone a chance to let their hair down and party. This last event of IRIS is a rock show organized at the IIM Indore campus. Bands Silk Route and Tatwa Delhi will perform at IRIS.

There is also a CAT Workshop being organized for the CAT aspirants from Indore on the November 9.