IFMR GSB Faculty publishes impactful research paper

Sumit

IFMR GSB faculty member — Sumit Mishra, Assistant Professor, Economics and Data Science has published another impactful research paper. His paper “Diversity Deficit and Scale-Flip” co-authored with Naveen Bharathi (Harvard University), Deepak Malghan (IIM – Bangalore), and Andaleeb Rahman (Cornell University published in the Journal of Development Studies, using data from more than half a million villages in India, shows that greater caste-diversity is associated with better public goods access in rural India.

Krea University welcomes its 2nd cohort of undergraduate students

SIAS

Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo delivers the keynote address

The School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences at Krea University welcomed 144 talented students into the second cohort of the undergraduate programme. The inaugural ceremony preceded the virtual five-day interactive orientation event which brought together the incoming cohort, sophomores, faculty and eminent speakers. The classes for the new cohort commenced online from the 1st of September.

The holistic admission process at Krea gauges potential beyond academic scores, ensuring a diverse set of students from varied backgrounds and interests. The students come from over 17 states of India and from various boards of education. In keeping with the University’s need blind admission and need-aware financial assistance process, over 25% of the cohort has received financial assistance.

Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor of Krea University welcomed the students with the message of FLARE — Fun, Learning, Adaptability, Resilience and Empathy, he deemed necessary for the young students to embrace, in their life at university.  “As you begin the Krea journey, send out a flare into the world. I hope you will make your impact, and as you are trying to make your life better, I hope you also make it matter.” He shared Krea’s mission statement to admit high potential students and prepare humanity for an unpredictable world. 

Nobel Laureate and co-founder of J-PAL, Dr Esther Duflo, was the special guest of honour and addressed the students on this momentous occasion. In her keynote address Dr Duflo extended three guiding principles for the students, for their time at Krea and beyond. She encouraged students to embrace diversity, be flexible and not be overwhelmed with problems. Tracing her own journey in life, she added, “You have the luxury of being at a very unique institution that values multi-disciplinary learning. Take this opportunity to take life chances, encounters, and let intellectual discoveries guide you. Embrace nimbleness and flexibility rather than single minded focus on one goal.”

She asked them to celebrate the diversity in their cohort, create social networks and learn from people who are different from their own selves.

“You are here because you want to be change-makers but you might be wondering where to start from. Don’t get overwhelmed. There is no problem however big it is that can’t be broken into smaller pieces. Pick one of those small pieces, apply your mind and skills to it and solve it. Then move to the next one. And don’t worry about the size of the overall challenge, before you know it you would have changed the world and changed yourselves as well.”

Dr Bishnu Mohaptra, Dean of School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences in his message to the students welcomed them to explore the idea of university. “Freedom, diversity and interconnectedness – all these ideas are debated within university and here within Krea. This is a place to debate these ideas and give them a new lease of life. It’s also a place where by giving new life to these ideas, we make them more meaningful, vibrant and useful.” He shared SIAS’s commitment to provide a space in fostering and strengthening these ideas and the ability of students to debate these ideas.

Dr Shobha Das, Dean of IFMR Graduate School of Business at Krea, welcomed the incoming cohort on behalf of the school. She added, “In weaving, two distinct sets of threads are interlaced at right angles to weave a cloth. The two schools, SIAS and GSB are distinct, and the University is woven with threads from the two schools, each distinct but both together forming parts of the woven textured cloth that is Krea.”

The ceremony included special moments from the welcome by the faculty and also the second-year students. Student Meera Trivedi on behalf of the Class of 2022 shared, “What I want to tell you today is that in all of its glory, with the beautiful campus, beyond excellent professors, unique curriculum and the intellectual culture, Krea is essentially what you make of it.”

The orientation programme was put together by the Orientation Team comprising the 2nd year cohort and was themed “Along Came ’23”. The fun and lively five-day long orientation was inspired with themes from gripping TV shows and movies. The event also witness sessions by celebrated activist Kalki Subramaniam and international artist Jacob Boehme.

Media Mentions- https://indiaeducationdiary.in/noble-laureate-esther-duflo-delivers-the-keynote-address-at-krea-university/

Krea student wins Global Tech competition for unique vaccine distribution solution. Presents to co-founder of Apple.

arnav jalan

Unique vaccine distribution solution wins the Prospect 100 Global Tech Competition

Arnav Jalan, a second year undergraduate student at Krea University was teamed up with five other students he had not met before, for the Prospect 100 Global Tech Competition.

The team had a period of 5 days to come up with a unique solution in the battle of COVID-19.

They presented –VaxxUp– an efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable vaccine distribution system that would also revive the ice-cream industry. 

Arnav, on behalf of the team, responded to questions from head judge Steve Wozniak — co-founder of Apple. The student team presented the idea during a LIVE pitch on the 8th of August and won the global competition.

58 teams from 32 different countries in the world participated in the competition. The process included getting to know the teammates, understand each other’s skills, ideate and create a unique solution. While Arnav worked on the technology and data, Shubham worked on the introduction, Rishita and Naazneen worked on social aspects involved with the project, Naazneen created the app mock up, Sibasis worked on the logistics aspect, and Sri Vamsi worked on the ethical implications.

 ‘VaxxUp’ went on to win the highly competed round and were declared winners. The students now have a chance to work with Abbas Kazmi, founder of Collegiate Capital, and Oxford Accelerator on transforming this idea into a reality over the upcoming weeks. They also get to work on an invite-only global project with the charity Humane Society International.

Arnav, and his team mates find themselves in the Prospect 100 for Tech, a list of the top 100 global young talent in technology and also win a collective cash award.

Media Mention-https://indiaeducationdiary.in/krea-student-on-the-global-list-for-young-talent-in-technology/

Beyond the Classroom- the skills to become a potential employee

Laks Krishnamoorthy

In an insightful interaction with the students of IFMR GSB, Lakshmanan (Laks) Krishnamoorthy- VP Engineering & General Manager, Navis shared his perspectives on transformational leadership. Allaying concerns surrounding the leap from classroom to employment, Mr Krishnamoorthy stressed on SIMPLE, expanded to Social Skills, Interpersonal Relationship, Money Matters, Personal Branding, Learning, and Endurance. Imparting lessons from his own journey, he encouraged students to “Learn to do the work without expecting anything in return”, relevant to both the professional and personal aspects of life.

COVID-19: A Turning Point for Fintechs in India?

LEAD_COVID Fintech

Anoushaka Chandrashekar and Fabrizio Valenti pen this final installment in the three-part blog series – ‘Beyond Health: How the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting financial services in India’. Based on discussions with founders of two fintech companies, this piece looks at implications of the COVID crisis on fintechs in India. It explores the challenges faced by fintechs in the current context, and highlights opportunities for growth.

Supporting Women-led Rural Microenterprises through COVID and Beyond

LEAD Women Microenterprises

LEAD hosted the third chapter of a webinar series on supporting women-led rural microenterprises amid COVID-19 and beyond. A collaboration with the World Bank and the Ministry of Rural Development, it featured senior policymakers and experts with a discussion on short-term and long-term policy interventions and strategies to enable graduation of women-led enterprises. The panellists and speakers highlighted the need for entrepreneurship development programs that focus on strengthening capabilities, providing handholding support to women entrepreneurs, strengthening access to institutional finance by building credit histories, and improving market linkages for women-led enterprises.

IFMR GSB at Krea University welcomes incoming MBA cohort

GSB Orientation

IFMR GSB at Krea University welcomed the new cohort of MBA students with Prarambh – a week long virtual orientation program. The orientation programme for the 2020-2022 MBA batch was a 5-day event, hosted from July 1 until July 5, packed with engaging sessions from leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni. This is a historic year for IFMR GSB, marking a journey of 20 years steered by some of the best minds from academia and industry, creating immense value for students and society.

Prarambh 2020 witnessed the Krea community extending a warm welcome to the incoming cohort. The incoming class comprises 182 students from across the country who have been through a holistic admission process which evaluates applicants with tailor made rounds catering to diverse aspirants.

Leading industry leaders actively participated and engaged in Prarambh 2020.

Industry stalwart Mr CK Ranganathan – Chairman and Managing Director of CavinKare, addressed the 180+ students on the inaugural day. Tracing his humble beginnings in Cuddalore to building a major business, Mr Ranganathan encouraged students to walk the path of personal transformation and use education as a starting point.

On day 3, Tech leader and co-founder of Fractal Analytics, Mr Srikanth Velamkanni spoke to the students. He carried them through important life lessons that students can take from their business school, including staying humble and constantly keep pushing to learn more broadly.

Speaking to the students on the concluding day Mr Rajiv Lochan, Executive Director at Sundaram Finance Limited, shared 5 key lessons with students. Addressing the uncertainty of our times, he highlighted why this is the best period to remain a student and learn as much from the world as possible, so they are prepared to reap the benefits of learnings in two years.

Renowned academia including Prof N Ravichandran, Former director, IIM-Indore and Prof V Anantha Nageswaran, Part-time member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India & Former Dean, IFMR GSB, actively interacted with students.

In her welcome address, Dr Shobha Das – Dean of IFMR GSB commended the students for their decision to invest in education amid the global crisis and put forth her vision for the new cohort, “We hope to develop well rounded human beings as well as managers. There are four attributes we hope IFMR GSB graduates will come out with, they are elements of being reflective, ethical, effective and professional.”

Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor, Krea University added, “As the world has shown, with crisis comes opportunities. Hopefully it prepares you to handle these opportunities, no matter what you want to do when you graduate with an MBA degree, whether you want to join the corporate sector, be an analyst, join the banking sector, the nonprofit sector or want to be an entrepreneur. What I really hope that you’re here for is building yourself up as a professional and as an individual and human being, because I think that is really what the world currently needs.”