Team India, represented by students of the unfancied Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Delhi (SSCBS), was adjudged winner of the Enactus World Cup 2017 by an eminent panel of business leaders. The winning projects included Mission Raahat and Project Udaan. Mission Raahat suggests ways and means to provide safe sanitation in urban slum communities. Project Udaan recommends ways and means to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural India by setting up computer centres.

Enactus, an international non-profit organisation with 72,000 student members from 1,700 universities in 36 countries, held its annual, signature global event — the Enactus World Cup — from September 26-28 in London. As World Champions, the SSCBS and Enactus India were presented the Ford Better World Award of $50,000 (Rs.33 lakh).

Enactus (estb.2008), whose objective is to nurture the entrepreneurial skills of students, addresses fundamental social and economic challenges by creating experiential learning opportunities for students to use their entrepreneurial skills to transform communities. 

 

Godrej LOUD winners 2017

Five students won the sixth edition of Godrej LOUD (Live Out Ur Dream) grand finale in which 11 students from India’s top business schools presented their extra-curricular dreams. Godrej LOUD is a campus hiring programme to find young and passionate first year B-school students with interests beyond the workplace. The finalists presented their dreams to a jury of senior Godrej companies’ leaders. 

Speaking on the objective of this campus engagement programme, Nisaba Godrej, executive chairperson, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, said: “We believe that people with unique interests outside of work bring great ideas and diversity of thought to work. Godrej LOUD is our endeavour to find such B-school students and enable them to bring the same passion to Godrej Group of companies.”

The five LOUD winners, 2017 from among 1,400 entrants are: Ayushi Gupta, SIBM, Pune (to make rescued dogs psychologically healthier and more adoptable); Kanad Basu, XIM, Bhubaneswar (solo photography excursion to Bangladesh); Omkar Jadhav, FMS, New Delhi (study the Henley Royal Regatta (UK)); Saurav Kumar, IRMA, Anand (develop 10 villages and form Green Groups of empowered women) and Viraf Heerjee, SIBM, Pune (to attend a clinic at the International Sailing Academy, Mexico, and prepare for sailing at the Asian Games 2018). 

The winners were awarded Rs.1.5 lakh and summer internships in Godrej companies. 

 

Kokuyo Camlin essay contest

The Mumbai-based well-known stationery company Kokuyo Camlin Ltd has made common cause with the Rally For Rivers campaign of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and the Isha Foundation to rejuvenate India’s dying rivers. Kokuyo Camlin will contribute to the campaign by hosting a creative writing contest on the topic — ‘Saving Rivers: India’s Lifelines’. This contest will be conducted in over 1,500 schools in 26 cities across the country. The contest is open to all class V-VIII students countrywide. 

Comments Saumitra Prasad, chief marketing officer, Kokuyo Camlin: “Kokuyo Camlin has been promoting mechanical pencils which aren’t made of wood and don’t destroy trees and hence help to sustain the environment. We are also associated with projects such as tree plantation on World Environment Day and Project Ganga on World Rivers Day.”

Contestants will have to write a short essay on the topic of ‘Saving Rivers: India’s Lifelines’ in not more than 40 words in the given time of 15 minutes. In every state three winners will be decided by a jury who will attend an event with Sadhguru and other eminent personalities. Prizes valued at Rs.3,000 will be presented to each state winner, who will become eligible for a national online voting contest and three national winners will be selected. “Prizes valued at Rs.25,000 will be awarded to each national winner,” says Prasad. 

 

Fourth Dr. Kurien Oration

The fourth Dr. Verghese Kurien Memorial Oration on Sustainable Development was held on September 25 at XLRI, Jamshedpur. The annual lecture is organised in memory of the founder of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) and Amul Dairy, Dr. Verghese Kurien, popularly known as the ‘Milkman of India’. 

This year’s lecture was delivered by Dr. Ashok Khosla, eminent environmentalist and founder-chairman of the Development Alternatives Group, on ‘The Machine Revolution: Fulfilling the Aspirations of Rural India’.

In his speech, Dr. Khosla said: “Some 70 years ago, Dr. Verghese Kurien created GCMMF and Amul, one of the most successful social enterprises in history. Over this period, Amul pioneered technic  al, managerial, and institutional innovations that led to remarkable progress in India’s dairy industry — taking it from one of the least productive in the world to becoming the largest of any country within a few decades.” 

Elaborating on the subject of his oration, he added: “Improving productivity needs technology to extend and multiply the capabilities of the human and animal effort on which the large numbers of our marginalised compatriots solely depend. Technology means tools, instruments, methods and know-how, all of which can be subsumed under the metaphor of ‘machine.’”