If necessity is the mother of invention, recession is the mother of innovation — this is the mantra of Intaglio ’09, the annual B-school meet of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

The highlight of this year’s event will be the Great Innovation Challenge, to be conducted over three rounds and designed to test the ability of future managers to think out of the box.

Intaglio ’09 will be held from January 8 to 11.

“A number of start-ups came headhunting to top-notch B-schools this year, prompting us to introduce an event on entrepreneurial spirit,” said Ritesh Kamath, a member of team Intaglio.

The event received 761 entries from 65 business schools across seven countries, of which 50 teams were shortlisted after an online aptitude test.

The 50 teams — with two members each — will be given assignments by five companies in sectors like IT, consumer goods and social ventures, and asked to solve real-life problems.

Based on their solutions, each company will select two teams, whose members will have a first-hand experience of the problem. “The finalists will have to work on the company premises, solving problems by devising strategies of market expansion and protecting market niches,” said Kamath.

The top team from each company will have to present its solutions before a panel of judges during the fest. The winners will walk away with a prize of Rs 1.5 lakh and the runners-up will get Rs 50,000.

The new ideas could be anything from renting out software to companies that don’t want to spend big on IT to retail chains operating mobile vans for door-to-door sales.

“Given the recession-like situation in the global market, companies are now looking for new ideas for value generation. This is where the entrepreneurial spirit of future managers comes into play,” said Kamath.