Off late, I was reflecting on the last one year of my MBA education in SP Jain Institute of Management Research. Thoughts pondered from my engineering days, where I cleared the toughest exam in India (IIT JEE 2002), was selected as a Research Scientist in Indian Space Research Organization in 2006 and opted for research in Infosys R&D labs instead. I took a pause to travel back in the memory lane to that moment where I was considering admission in SP Jain Institute of Management Research Mumbai.
By that time, I had five international papers published in ACM and IEEE conferences across the world and was rated one of the best employees of Infosys and my career was flying high. A natural choice, other than to excel in the career, if any was to continue fundamental research with an M.S or PhD degree.
However, the last 4 years of work experience and 25 years of existence had deeply engrained some pearls of wisdom in my soul. The most important pearl being "The greatest happiness I have ever got is when I built something for the good of the society". My ultimate goal is to be an entrepreneur with a difference, the difference being to give back to the society especially to the lower economic strata of the society. In fact all my works were concentrated on green technologies, agriculture and, rural healthcare sometimes out of the purview of my work.
I found myself somehow lacking in reaching my work to the world and after cautiously evaluating the MBA at SPJIMR from primary and secondary research I found the below matching my thoughts about an education system that believes in reinforcing healthy thought process giving back to the society in a profitable way.
· The institute intertwines the teachings of the west and that of the east – A firm believer in eastern learning's and of western science, this seemed and proved to be the most important reinforcement of my thought process throughout the last 1 year
· The case based methodology – I firmly believe in multi-universe theory in physics and in multiple solutions to problems in case studies follow naturally into me.
· DOCC – It is a program of 6 weeks undertaken by students to bring about a change in the society.
· Abyudaya – the concept of reaching the under privileged and empowering them with the mentorship to succeed in life.
The highlights of my work in the past 1 year have been
· Academically, I have excelled in all courses of study (currently ranked 9th overall), practical and theoretical and it is reflected in my increasing slope of grade points in the last trimesters. I put keen and intense effort on the group works, case studies and individual assignments with the intention of discovering each subject such that it can help me in my ultimate goal of entrepreneurship with a difference. In all these situations I found myself ably leading groups, discussions, often charting the roadmap, analyzing the most critical aspects and finally leading the group to accolades of peers and professors.
· Green Corridor – As a part of my DOCC project, I conceptualized and implemented the idea of pan- India revolution. Green Corridor is a novel and replicable model for afforestation with public & private enterprise, community, media and government, going hand in hand to cover the open area of 116000 kms along the railway tracks to address the issues of rising environmental concerns and Global warming. Nothing of this sort and scale has been implemented before in India and this is the first ever effort that combines the Indian railways with the private and public enterprises' CSR activities, the NREGA program of the government and the will of community through "Shramdaan" and voluntary donations in ticket bookings.
The pilot project is being implemented in Pune, India and is aptly covered by the local and national dailies. When implemented fully, it shall neutralize the Indian Railways carbon footprint and enables millions of kms of biodiversity in India.
· Paper on Agroeaze– Almost every farmer across India is a hostage, in one way or another, to a vicious cycle of the promises the land he owes vouches for at the sowing of the seeds and the dreams that are shattered at the harvest. Who is to be blamed? Not one but many factors together come to pounce the lightning on the Indian Agriculture. Agro EaZe[Educate anywhere Zero in on buyers Everywhere] is a mobility platform to cater to the needs of the farmers through the use of mobile devices and an integrated effort of the government, private enterprises and the Information Technology.
· MedEaZe – On the lines of Agro Eaze, MedEaZe uses the same EaZe [Educate anywhere Zero in on buyers everywhere] platform to cater to the health needs of the rural sector.
· POLOMO (Pollution Monitor)–The growing human population, declining natural resources and industrial processes, has resulted in the widespread pollution of our environment. Air pollution is one of the serious issues faced by the world today. POLOMO is an architecture based on wireless sensor network to enable the community to check the rising health concerns through comprehensive Web 3.0 approach.
· Mumbai Oil Spill (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT)India Disaster Management) – Armed with the knowledge of Technology and Management Skills I chose to do our ADMAP project 70 kms far from college where I had to travel every week by land and sea . Having lead a team of four, we carefully studied the flaws in the disaster management system of JNPT and charted mitigation strategies to combat both natural and manmade disasters.
Business School Initiatives
· Organizing Information Management (IM) Conclave 2011 – lead a team of more than 10 people in managing the Information management Conclave of 2011 on Web 3.0 era – the changing business world. Right from conceptualizing the conclave which was only second to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the scope and relevance of Web 3.0 to business, the bigger picture to the keen details was administered by me.It was the first conclave on India on Web3.0 and business.Moreover, It was one of the best organized conclave in the history of SPJIMR with highest numbers corporate delegates.
· Consultancy Projects for Bakery stores & for buyinsuranceonline.in - While studying subjects such a Business research methods and Operations Research, I proactively chose live projects as my submission reports. Although it would mean extra effort but ensured greater practical learning.
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A. Kumar
