42nd Foundation day celebrations on Oct 28, 2015 at IIM Bangalore included the Foundation Day Lecture and the Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony apart from plethora of events and activities on campus.
This year’s theme for the Foundation Day Lecture was ‘Love, Faith & Craziness: An Entrepreneur’s Journey’, which was delivered by the chief guest Naveen Tewari, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, InMobi, at the IIM Bangalore Auditorium. An IIT Kanpur and Harvard Business School alumnus Naveen Tewari is the recipient of distinguished awards from his alma maters for excellence in leadership and entrepreneurship. Other than nurturing several start-ups in India, he founded and chairs a US-based nonprofit named India School Fund, which sets up and funds schools in rural India, a cause close to his heart.
Naveen chose to share stories from his life – the stories of Love, Faith, and Craziness – that turned his life into a dream. He told the audience if you have faith, hope and belief that things will change, and go through the grind to achieve that purpose, the larger plan will eventually take shape. “So you will fail, you must fail many times. And while you fail people will ask you to quit. Have faith and keep at it,” he said.
His second mantra was “Do what you love”. When one does not traverse the path taken by everyone else and does what he enjoys and has his heart in, will he be able to write his own definition of success for others to follow.
His third story related to “Crazy is good”. To change the world, you have to be crazy and be able to take risks, which is significantly better than trying to avoid failures. “We have 27 offices in 17 countries. And the reason that happened is not because it was planned but because we were crazy enough to believe in what others did not believe in and we went for it. All we did was what we loved, had faith in our plans including our failures and sprinkled it all with our craziness,” he added. He also said that we should strive to make our country better.
He concluded by thanking the IIMB faculty who dedicate their lives to enhance that of the students. He also gave the alma mater full marks for fuelling students’ ambitions. “Your faculty here is treating this institution like a start-up where they are innovating and disrupting constantly. Let us give a big round of applause to all faculty and to IIM Bangalore - one of the most premier institutes on the planet. When you leave these doors, it is not a goodbye. You stay connected with your faculty, your institute, and alumni and most importantly stay humble and stay grounded as you will have a long distance to go,” he said.
IIM Bangalore Director Dr Sushil Vachani presented a report on the Institute’s achievements on the occasion. This includes partnering with the world’s most respected MOOC platform, the Harvard- MIT joint venture, edX, to launch its very first MOOCs. He spoke about IIMB’s initiatives towards building a sound research and teaching ecosystem, providing students with a global perspective, deepening engagement in international networks, infusing an entrepreneurial mind-set among students, contributing to national objectives, mentoring the new IIM at Visakhapatnam, and much more.
The IIMB Foundation Day celebrations also saw Distinguished Alumni Awards (DAA) being conferred on Sri R Chandrasekaran and Dr. Hasmukh Adhia. Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIM Bangalore, gave away the awards. It was a proud moment for the Institute to honour the two awardees for their significant professional excellence as well as their contribution to industry, academia and society.
Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, an IAS officer by profession, is the Revenue Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Delivering his acceptance speech through a video message, Adhia said “My biggest learning from the Public Policy & Management course at IIMB was that one should not make any policy or programme without proper analysis of the relevant data.”
R Chandrasekaran is the Executive Vice Chairman of Cognizant India. As one of the Co-Founders of Cognizant in 1994 and an Executive Officer of the company, Chandra has played a variety of roles in shaping the company’s vision, strategy and goals, and meticulously implementing them. Talking about the importance of a good education, he said he got that experience at IIMB, where he discovered himself, which helped him realise his full potential later. “I was fortunate to interact with amazing faculty members and fellow students who raised the “intellectual” quotient in me. I still follow the advice given by Prof. S K Roy during personal counselling sessions; those sessions really made me step out of my “comfort zone.”
As per the Institute’s tradition, each recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award receives a citation and his/her name is engraved on the wall of fame at the Institute.
Long service awards were also given away to faculty and staff on the occasion to honour and recognize them for having spent two decades at the Institute. The recipients were ten employees who had joined the Institute in May 1995.
The evening’s awards included an endowment volunteered by the IIMB PGP alumni batch of 2001 for children of the Institute’s staff, which is based on academic merit and financial need. The merit-cum means scholarship to be awarded every year is for pursing higher education, after 10+2. The scholarship is awarded to one student every year and comprises a one-time cash award of Rs 50,000 and a merit certificate. It was received by PGP hostel staffer’s son Kishan Kumar, who is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Engineering program at the Oxford College of Engineering, Bangalore.
The evening drew to a close with an inspiring speech from the Chairman, Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. she pointed out the huge impact that entrepreneurship has had on the world and India today. “India is now beginning to get noticed as a start-up nation and IIM Bangalore has risen to the occasion. The Institute wants students to think differently and make a big societal change,” she said.
Adding further Dr Shaw said “India offers huge opportunities and money is chasing great, bright ideas. There’s opportunity for all of us, irrespective of age, gender, financial status, if you have a great idea, passion, commitment and if you believe in what you do” and made a special mention of IIM Bangalore’s incubation centre, the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL).
One of the top 3 business schools in India, IIM Bangalore is the only Indian B-school in GNAM list. IIM Bangalore has been accredited by EQUIS the international accreditation agency and is the first B-School in Asia to sign an agreement with Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) to distribute faculty teaching cases.
IIM Bangalore Director, Dr. Sushil Vachani is a great academician and leader. IIM Bangalore has produced leaders, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, artists, writers , managers who collectively have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Some of the prominent alumni of IIM Bangalore include academicians such as Aswat Damodaran, Raghavendra Rau, Karan Bajaj, great author and film maker Nila Madhab Panda. K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman of ISRO and business executives like Ravi Subramanian and Sameer Suneja.
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