Samriddhi, the biggest B-school conference of India, conducted by the students of the Goa Institute of Management (GIM) began today, The 2013 edition of Samriddhi takes the legacy even further with greater participation, established speakers who are leaders in their own fields, and more buzz in the corporate spheres. In fact, in just the first few hours, the audience was treated to a short sample of what was to follow over the next few days with speeches by our keynote speakers.
The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Repositioning Brand India’. India is at the precipice of the world stage with global recognition of the value that India can bring while at the same time understanding the enormity of the task that we are faced with. Every event is centred around this theme whether it be quizzing, photography, live case studies or even the impact of social media in our lives. The inaugural function served as an introduction to the conference with a line-up of visionaries all set to address the audience.
The guest of honour for the inaugural session, Pramod Sawant, personified the image of the young and energetic leader that we can all look up to. As a member of the legislative assembly, for Sankhali, Goa, he is specially known for his work with the backward and downtrodden classes. He is Chairman of the Estimates Committee and a Member of Committee on Privileges and Select Committee on The Goa Succession, Special Notaries and Inventory Proceeding Bill, 2012. His work on repositioning brand India has led him to work dedicatedly for the Formation of Goa State Youth Policy and the beautification of the Harvalem Waterfallls in particular.
The opening address was delivered by the Director of GIM, Dr. Sunil Rai. In his typically insightful manner, he drew a vivid picture of the evolution of India by mapping it to Bollywood. While movies in the fifties and sixties spoke about the freedom movement or social evils, movies in the following decades milked the themes of the angry young man under the license raj. This was when the nation opened up to the world with the path of economic liberalisation. According to Dr. Rai, Director, GIM “we must lead the way through our values and leverage our learnings and culture that our forefathers have handed down to us through over 2000 years.”
Dr. Bala Balachandran, the Founder and Director of the reputed Great Lakes Institute of Management, immediately seized the audience with his vibrancy and vigour. Evoking examples from mythology and religion, he masterfully connected our ancient culture to the modern principles of management. He emphasized the importance of Bharat in the true sense of the word, a combination of ‘bhava’, ‘raaga’, and ‘thaala’, or in current parlance, ‘people’, ‘process’, and ‘technology.
The final speaker for the inaugural session was Kruti Parekh, the world’s youngest artistic illusionist and a corporate trainer who conducts workshops to fully utitilize the power of the mind. Continuing on the theme of repositioning brand India, she explained the latent power of Indian culture through a shloka.
All in all, the inaugural session was a teaser of the events to come and set the bar for the next two days of intense competition among students from the IIMs, SIBM, NMIMS, XLRI, XIMB, and other top schools. This is not to forget the speakers to come such as Sam Pitroda, D Shivakumar, Ayan Chaudhuri, and Harit Soni.