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| The Finale: Intaglio 2013 came to a close with Parikrama’s rocking music and psychedelic lights playing up the celebration mood after all that hard work. |
What: The 25th edition of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, presents Intaglio 2013 powered by The Telegraph.
When & Where: January 4 to 6 on the Joka campus.
Biz Talk: It is not easy to guess what’s going on inside the sprawling IIM campus in Joka, least of all that there are around 20,000 young business minds from all over the world at work in there. Held from 9am till midnight for three days, the B-school summit hosted 25 events to mark its 25th edition. Did someone say boring? Well, have you tried selling a hair-dryer to astronauts?! That and much more spiced up the B-meet.
Day One: True to its billing of being the largest B-school summit in Asia, Intaglio 2013 kick-started with a talk by a mega brand — Dada. Sourav Ganguly played on the front foot, driving home the one message that is important to the students about to step out of their cocoon: “The only way you can get to the top is through hard work.”
Bengal’s favourite sporting hero was the first guest at Reverberation, the speaker series of Intaglio. He co-related cricket and the corporate world to lay down guiding principles for aspiring managers. “All I was ever worried about was the next ball and the next run.... It’s the smaller goals which take you to the bigger ones,” said Sourav, who had the packed audi hanging on to his every word, from coaching Team India (“let’s wait and see”) to not being on the same page as Greg Chappell (“when a new CEO comes in... make sure you send along your visiting card, which I didn’t”).
The other speaker to focus on leadership was former RBI governor Bimal Jalan.
The action on Day One unfolded at various venues across the campus. If Corporate Catalyst saw five finalists hammering away at valuation cases thrown at them by L&T Financial Services, The Secret Formula tested the understanding of consumer perception, and Chanakya tested the policy-maker.
But the biggest draw was Olympus, the ultimate test for a budding business leader, where the students were bowled googlies like handling a press conference in the wake of a plane hijack!
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| The Plan: Business plan competition Launchpad with Berklee student Paul (right) and Mumbai Educational Trust student Ayush pitching their idea. |
The IIM-C Dramatics Cell took the stage in the evening with Dil Hai Chhota Sa, a play written by Dhananjay Wanare, a second-year student, about a young boy with small aspirations who comes to the B-school and becomes ambitious, forgetting what life and love is. “Two very interesting characters in the play, apart from the male and female protagonists, are Mann and Buddhi, that is heart and mind,” said Wanare.
Day Two: The other flagship event was Launchpad, a business plan competition allowing student teams to present start-up plans to a panel of six investors. This international platform drew Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) through Skype, Berklee College of Music and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The Kellogg team, Kisan First, who put forward an innovative plan for food-processing, won the day.
To test the social commitment among would-be managers, there was Antyodaya, an event promoting social entrepreneurship. Then there was Empires of Mind, Intellivestor, Murphy’s Laugh, State of Affairs, Modulus… whew!
But amidst all that, lightweight events like Treasure Hunt and Sell were a big hit. Sample this: “The sailor’s message lies in a bottle corked, in a water that seldom rocked. Several paths that lead to the lake, one may be real, the others fake” — and that is just one of the many clues that the treasure hunters had to decode. (Answer: A Coca-Cola bottle in the dried-up pool in front of the IIM Calcutta Library.)
Day Three: The final day started with a debate and a quiz with Jayashree Mohanka and Kingshuk Biswas holding centre stage.
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The Hero: Sourav Ganguly was Intaglio’s biggest high. “Sourav picked up some very simple points and hammered them home,” said Anindya Sen, dean (academic), IIM-C (right). |
The event flow for the day included Great Innovation Challenge, FinGod, Marketplace, Bidmasters, Consulting Knights and the Olympus finale. FinGod was a real tough nut to crack with prize money of Rs 50,000 at stake. The Olympus finale saw nine finalists vie for the top spot and Rohit Nayal of SP Jain, Dubai, take home the prize money of Rs 1 lakh and the title of the ultimate leader.
The curtain was brought down in style by Parikrama, with songs like Am I Dreaming, But It Rained and Open Skies, which they dedicated to the Delhi rape victim.
Judge Speak: “This is the second year that Shell has been associated with Intaglio. The way we look at it, this kind of an association benefits both of us. It gives us an understanding of how these students are likely to perform in a pressure-cooker situation, how they can think when stretched. I find that the current trend among management students is to get into strategic roles. They are in a hurry to climb the corporate ladder, but it is important that they first try and understand the ground-realities and the various verticals in an industry,” observed Vinay Shinde, the judge for Wizards of Biz and leader, graduate recruitment team of Shell India.
the Intaglio experience
“This is the first time that IIM Kashipur is participating in Intaglio. I am glad I could come. We worked the whole day with barely three to four hours of sleep, but it was great.”
Akshay Tandon, IIM Kashipur
“Intaglio has given us two very important things. First, it focuses mostly on practicality rather than bookish knowledge. Second, in-house and outside talent coming together made for some great company.”
Sukshit Kapur, IIM Shillong
“This summit tests how people are on the inside, how they handle situations and how quickly they react with their optimum best. It has been a very different experience.”
Priyanka Jha, IIM Bangalore |
