Bhubaneswar, Sept. 24: The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, which is celebrating 30 years of service in the field of academics and business, aims to bring together its alumni from diverse realms and create a blend of ideas to make the next leg of the journey even more fulfilling.

In this pursuit, the institute held the Business Excellence Summit on September 22 and 23 in presence of 26 alumni of the college. This was done to initiate an opportunity to interact, celebrate, discuss, reflect and collaborate. The central theme of the event is 'building the vision for XIMB at 40 in accordance with the VUCA world'.

VUCA is the abbreviation used to describe volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general situations. The term's common usage began in the 1990s and derives from military vocabulary. Subsequently, it was used to depict emerging ideas in strategic leadership that apply in an array of organisations, including everything from profit corporations to education.

The summit commenced with XIMB registrar Father Augustine taking a trip down the memory lane and speaking about how the XIMB came into being 30 years ago. Vice-chancellor and director of Xavier University Father Paul Fernandes concluded the inauguration ceremony by delivering a speech on excellence and universal education.

He spoke about the 'wings of excellence' and said: 'We need to put on and make sure we are able to have conviction and commitment in the future.' He believed that there is a need to 'think, reflect, inspire, and empower' minds to achieve this excellence.

Catalyst IT Solutions managing director Chandra Sekhar Chitrala opened the first panel discussion for the day by delivering a talk on entrepreneurship. The speakers felt that entrepreneurship was necessary for the country at this point. They discussed as to how management education could foster entrepreneurship, noting that management education was giving a boost to employing the youths of the country. He said: 'We are being taught entrepreneurship in our MBA without us knowing about it.'

There was a discussion on how management education inculcated leadership capabilities. The panel discussed strategies that the XIMB needed to adopt to surmount these challenges.

JP Morgan Chase executive director Chittaranjan Mohanty said: 'Everyone has their own journey. If you create values, money comes on its own.' Alumni from various sectors attended the meet to speak on various issues.