Ocumen provides a platform for students to experience life at a top-notch business school. The event saw Initial participation of over 165 schools from across India and the top 15 schools were selected for the event. This is an increase of 50% over the last year.
The event would also see 30 teachers from the participating schools who will be invited to the campus where they will discuss the best education and management practices from world renowned management gurus and professors at IIM Lucknow.
Ocumen aims to introduce school students of class XI and XII, who are at an important inflection point of making their career choices, to the all-encompassing field of management. It tries to provide an introductory snapshot of management to young students through a variety of games and competitions, at the same time providing them with a unique opportunity to experience life at a B-school.
The event helps spread the knowledge about the best practices in the education sector to the schools, which are a vital cog in the development of Intellectual capital for the nation. According to Prof. Amita Mittal, Chairman, Student's Affairs, IIM Lucknow "As an reputed and esteemed institute of higher learning, our objective is to contribute towards management development and nurture global, socially conscious leaders contributing towards upliftment of society. Ocumen is quintessence of our efforts to improve our environs, by investing in the core sector of Education."
The event would also engage in "training the teachers" exercise, which would see the dissemination of best education practices for the IIMs to the school level. The teachers will be taken through a series of lectures and workshops to help them develop their skills in imparting knowledge, and generating a keen interest among their students for their respective subjects, as they are the catalysts who shape the thought process of young impressionable minds.
OCUMEN 2009 has some remarkable improvements planned over the previous years. The games cover all the gamut of functional areas such as finance, marketing, HR, strategy, and operations. The games have been especially designed to be exciting, fun, easy to understand and at the same time, educative enough to sow the seeds of management in the children's minds.
Highlights of the events scheduled for this edition include:
A Finance game that aims to make young minds conversant with the risks and returns, interest rates and investments. SIGFI, the special interest group in finance at IIM Lucknow, aims to imbibe in the students a rudimentary knowledge of the financial function in organizations and has designed a special game for OCUMEN 2009 to serve this purpose.
A Marketing Game: PRiSM, the special interest group in marketing in IIML, is an integral part of Ocumen 2009. Marketing is one of the core managerial functions and we hope to use this event as a useful platform for information sharing across educational institutes.
An Operations Game: The Operations Interest Group (OIG) will be conducting a simulation game for school children aiming to introduce them to the basic concepts of operations management.
A HR Game: This game highlights the importance of teamwork for creation of a successful enterprise. The participants would be expected to use the individual skill sets in a manner conducive of creation of synergies, and ultimate achievement of their common goals.
The Strategy Game: This event would expose the students to various strategic situations, in which they decide the course of their organization by indulging in strategic decisions, which shape the future of their organizations, and the ultimate winners.
