Diwali celebrations @ K

Diwali was celebrated with great fanfare and enthusiasm as the entire student community came together to give the celebration a familiar feeling of oneness. As part of the celebrations, Spicmacay organized Rangoli and inter-hostel diya lighting competitions. The enthusiasm shown by the students for these competitions was very much evident as every hostel came up with innovative ideas to impress the judge, Prof. S.S.S.Kumar who was floored by the decorations and had a tough time deciding the winner. And how can one forget the lip-smacking sumptuous dinner arranged by the Messcom which had people remarking 'Paet Bhar Gaya Par Man Nahin Bhara'

After these competitions it was time to light up the night with fireworks. And what a magnificent display it was! This was followed by a game of tambola, thus rounding off what had been a memorable diwali to all of us.

The Summers Story

Summer Placements season for PGP-11 ended in grand style, with the participating batch of 193 students, including participants of the Fellow Program in Management (FPM), assured of a rich learning environment at some of the top corporate houses from India and abroad. IIMK’s performance this year outshone last year’s record-breaking placements season comfortably, setting new benchmarks along the way.

Summer Placements 2008 saw participation from 66 top recruiters from India and abroad, with 22 new recruiting partners participated in placements at IIMK for the first time. Some of the new names added to our increasingly impressive roster included: Google, Freudenberg, Accenture Business Consulting, Citibank, Bank of America, KPMG, Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Hewitt Associates, amongst others.

Freudenberg, the diversified German conglomerate that offers its customers technically challenging products and services in a wide variety of businesses ranging from chemicals to IT services, across the world, initiated a relationship with IIMK this year. Freudenberg was one of the most coveted recruiters on campus, and recruited students for positions in Germany and Hong Kong. Freudenberg, as an exclusive recruiter, recruits only from very select business school campuses in India, and its participation at Summer Placements 2008 speaks volumes about IIMK’s perception as the preferred destination for top-drawer managerial talent.

Other prominent names that participated at Summer Placements 2008 included: YES BANK, Johnson & Johnson, HUL, Yahoo!, Edelweiss, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Ocwen, American Express, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Boston Analytics, Marico, CHAINalytics, Standard Chartered Bank, Deloitte Consulting, Colgate-Palmolive, ITC, Asian Paints, and Tata Motors, amongst others.

The average stipend on campus zoomed 25% as compared to last year, to be pegged at Rs 25,000 per month. Accenture Business Consulting and Boston Analytics offered the highest domestic stipend at Summer Placements 2008 – Rs 50,000 per month. The offers saw an even distribution across verticals, with 28% of the batch choosing internships in the finance domain, 22% of the batch selecting marketing profiles and 20% of the batch showing their preference for Systems. Consulting internships were chosen by 16% of the batch, while the other 14% was evenly split across Operations, HR and Others.

Accenture Business Consulting extended its relationship with IIMK to summer placements this year, after making the highest number of offers across top campuses at IIMK during Final Placements 2007. Technology giants Google and Yahoo! were amongst the most coveted recruiters on campus; both offered roles in Internet Sales & Marketing that were extremely sought after at Summer Placements 2008.

PepsiCo, AIG, RPG Enterprises, IBM Business Consulting, YES BANK and Reliance Industries Ltd were amongst the many recruiters who made the highest number of offers across business schools at IIMK this year, during Summer Placements 2008. Impressed by the quality of talent, PricewaterhouseCoopers offered roles with the Performance Improvement division for the first time at IIMK. Deloitte Strategy & Operations and Deloitte Financial Advisory Services continued to strengthen their relationship with us; IIMK being the only campus where both Deloitte S&O and Deloitte FAS participate in placements processes.

A distinct trend at Summer Placements 2008 was the wide variety of exclusive roles on offer, even from traditional recruiters. American Express offered risk management profiles in their prestigious WWRIM division. AIG, impressed with the students’ knowledge in the financial domain offered roles in asset management, with the AMC division.

In a statement reflective of IIMK’s rapidly growing stature amongst premier recruiters, Senior Vice President & Regional Head (South) – Corporate and Institutional Banking, YES BANK, Mr. Nakul Beri said, “The response and enthusiasm to YES BANK on campus was terrific, with a professionally organized process. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with IIM Kozhikode that spans beyond just placements.”

Students chose to intern with organizations offering some of the most exotic and unique profiles across top business school campuses, thus underlining the diversity that sets us apart. Students were offered roles in Carbon Credit Trading and Environmental Consulting, while TCS offered unique roles in Entrepreneurship Marketing. SET made five offers in the Media Management and Media Marketing roles.

As an institute, we have been growing at a rapid pace. The last two years have seen the student intake increase by no less than 25%. That said, the growth of key placement parameters more than kept pace with the pace of growth of the institute.

Chairperson-Placements, Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni remarked “IIMK’s placements have consistently bettered the records the institute has set for itself. In spite of IIMK setting an aggressive pace of growth, placements performance has consistently exceeded all expectations. This augurs well for the next decade of excellence for IIMK.”

Every placement season, we set new benchmarks, easily surpassing its past records. Never one to rest on its past laurels, and driven by its motto of ‘Dream. Innovate. Achieve.’ we continue to march ahead, poised to challenge new frontiers in the next decade of its existence.

IIMK AIMS to be the best

On the 17th and 18th of November, IIM Kozhikode will host its annual Technology Summit, AIMS.

Every year since its inception in 2003, AIMS has been widely recognized as the place to be to witness how Technology is transforming Business. Over two days of discussions, talks, breakout sessions and networking dinners, attendees have forged partnerships, showcased new products, engaged customers and found inspiration.

The theme for the year is "A Nation Online". The AIMS weekend will see a range of speakers unparalleled in their industry reputation, depth of expertise, and clarity of thought and vision. Visit the Speakers page at the AIMS website for more.

The highlight of AIMS is Brainstorm, the Panel Discussion. This year, Brainstorm features

* Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Bharatmatrimony.com

* Mr. Hitesh Oberoi,Co-promoter and COO of Naukri.com

* Mr. Manoj Gupta, Vice President, Nexus India Capital

The panel discussion will be moderated by Kiruba Shankar, one of the country's finest and most influential bloggers. More on the Brainstorm page.

Cypress Semiconductors and SAP Labs will conduct two workshops on campus, on Strategic Marketing and Careers in ERP respectively. Last year's workshops were sold-out before the event began.

Here's looking forward to the biggest Technology Business Summit getting ever bigger. Write to abakus@iimk.ac.in to register or visit www.aims2007.com.

Mesmerized!

Pundit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a recipient of the Padmashree and a Grammy award winner performed on 23 October, 2007 at IIM Kozhikode, in a concert organized by IIMK’s sub-chapter of SPIC MACAY. A renowned Hindustani music exponent and disciple of Pt. Ravi Shankar, Pt. Bhatt is also the inventor of the Mohan Veena – a fretless, 19-stringed instrument played like a slide guitar. He was joined by Pundit Ram Kumar Mishra, renowned for his mastery of the Tabla and a scion of the ‘Benaras Gharana’.

The concert began with a brief introduction of Pt. Bhatt and Pt. Mishra followed by the lighting of the ceremonial lamp by PGP Chairman, Professor Unnikrishnan. Pt. Bhatt started by telling how music is also a science and how a musician needs to divide every second down to fractions, mentally and play to them.What followed was the most mesmerizing performance, many people in the audience had ever witnessed. Pt. Bhatt started out with Raag Poorvi and went on to play a mélange of Raagas, enthralling everyone with the variety and complexity of notes he played while Pt. Mishra, won the hearts of the people with his skills on the Tabla. The timing of the two together was so perfect that the audience often spontaneously broke into applause. ‘Jugalbandi’ and ‘Sawaal-Jawaab’ were kept to the end when both the masters, in a display of perfect coordination and mastery of their arts teased and tantalized the audience, who wanted more and more.

At the request of everyone present to play more, Pt. Bhatt went on to play his composition, ‘A Meeting By the River’, part of an album he made with slide guitarist Ry Cooder which won the Grammy award for ‘Best World Music Album’ in 1994. At the end of the song, the masters were given a befitting standing ovation.

The concert ended with Professor Unnikrishnan presenting the artists with mementos and a vote of thanks on behalf of IIM Kozhikode for an evening so memorable.

Horizons '07 - An invaluable learning experience

Horizons '07 - IIMK's Annual Management Conclave, was held during this weekend, from 5th - 7th October 2007. The overarching theme was 'Bharat - Ek Khoj' with three sub-themes 'Unleashing India Inc.', 'Rediscovering Rural India' and 'Unlocking the Human Potential'. IIMK students benefited greatly from the knowledge and insights that were shared by Horizons' eminent speakers.The Horizons blog has been updated with some of the speakers' speeches. They're definitely worth a read. Looking forward to a bigger and better Horizons next year!

IIMK turns 11!

IIMK celebrated its completion of eleven years of excellence by organising a host of events on 21st August . The evening began with a performance of “puli kali” (roughly translated into "tiger dance"), a local art form. The audience – comprising of the faculty and the staff, their families, and the students looked thrilled as the artists performed daring feats. After the event, Prof. Rameshan promised to conduct the same event at a much larger scale. He added that many more artists will be invited to perform various other local art forms.


The function moved on to the auditorium where Prof. R.P.Suresh, one of the senior most faculties, gave a small speech as he took a trip down the memory lane. He spoke about how much progress we’ve achieved in these 11 years and expressed hope at continuing at the same fervent pace. After that Dr Krishna Kumar, the director, addressed the audience, speaking about the importance of celebrating the foundation day, and maintaining our distinctness as we continue to grow in size. This speech, peppered with anecdotes, was followed by a function where the administrative officers were felicitated.

The evening ended on a high note with an excellent performance by the orchestra.

PGP 10 Merit Evening

The second year PGP students were presented with merit certificates at a quiet event in the auditorium on the evening of Aug 16. Quiet because no-one seemed to know about it and those who did couldn’t sadly find the time.

The PGP Chair, Prof. Nair kicked off the evening, explaining the idea and the method - 1 in 20 students get the merit awards, based on their academic performance at the end of year one; the top ones of course. After the congratulatory message, came the turn of the students to receive their awards. Amidst the applause, the achievers from PGP10 - Venkat, Sagar, Ananya, Prakhar, Sheetal, Tushar, Gopichander, Prasanna and Aruna collected their certificates from Prof. RP Suresh. Venkat, Sagar and Sheetal, took the opportunity to share their thoughts with the audience – all of them attributing a big share of their success to their group mates, the faculty and everyone else at K. Sagar had an interesting story to narrate, about how he got the offer to join IIMK on June 19, 2006, precisely 2 days before the course was to commence, about how he started from a clean slate and the journey from then to now.

Prof. Suresh gave the concluding address: explaining the low coefficient of correlation between the academic awards and success in career and life but underscoring their importance nonetheless. He recounted how the awards were started in the year 2000, and how they had grown from being a low key affair to the merit evening function of today. [Prof Suresh was the PGP Chair in 2000.] Just like everyone else present, he lamented about the low turnout, especially from PGP11, whose numbers totaled less than the number of faculty and staff present. And also like everyone else, he hoped that the coming years will see more enthusiasm from the junior students. Saurabh, from the student’s council proposed the formal vote of thanks and High tea followed.

The photograph is courtesy Saurabh, who also doubled up as the official photographer.

Here’s wishing great success to all the winners!!

Independence day celebrations

The 60th Independence Day celebrations began for IIM K at 9.30 AM sharp at the Harvard Steps. Around 200 people consisting of students from PGP10 and PGP11, the Faculty with their families and the employees of NTPC undergoing Management Training programme, gathered to participate in the celebrations.

The event began with Professor R. P. Suresh hoisting the Tricolour which was followed by a rendition of the National anthem, sung enthusiastically by everyone present. Professor R. P. Suresh went on to give a short speech about the sacrifices made by the founding Fathers of the country and how we ought to work for the betterment of our country together, with unwavering commitment.

Speeches by Professor R. Pillai, Mr. Kunhikrishnan and Professor Rameshan followed. Professor Pillai gave a short speech with a philosophical intonation. The floor was then thrown open to everyone. Student Council Member Saurabh Garg took the opportunity to say a few words. One person from NTPC also spoke briefly regarding the occasion. Refreshments were served after this and the event concluded at 10.15 AM.