Media Release
Mangalore, Dec 1: Kaizen, a workshop on leadership for the students of BCom and BBM was held at AIMIT, St Aloysius College ( Autonomous), Mangalore on Tuesday November 29 from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm.
Kaizen, an annual one-day-event is a leadership-development cum get-to-know-us programme conducted every year, towards the end of the calendar year. Final year BBM and BCom students, from different colleges are invited to attend this leadership program and have a first-hand experience of our new-campus (AIMIT). This year the programme was attended by approximately 90 students from St Aloysius and St Agnes College.
The function started on a high note by thanking all the key people who are and have been a part of the great Aloysius Fraternity. This was immediately followed by a video presentation describing the rich, diverse and long history of St Aloysius, as a Jesuit Educational Institute.
The day proceeded by marking the auspicious ceremony of lightening lamps. Then the AIMIT directo Fr Denzil Lobo took us through the vision and mission of the institute, reiterating the belief and confidence to break into the top 10 B-Schools across the country in the next 5-7 years. He also spoke-of the achievements in the past years and the amazing pace with which the Institute has been progressing with every single passing day. He shared his vision on making this campus and the program truly global and contemporary to handle the challenges of tomorrow.
The key note was delivered by the chairman, MBA department, Fr Dr Oswald A J Mascarenhas.
Speaking about “Strategic Innovation Management”, he emphasized on the need of breaking the conventional mode of MBA, which is almost 200 years old, and how this can be achieved by implementing innovation, creativity and systematic thinking.
He did not restrict his talk to only from the point of view of an MBA institute and went-ahead to help students on tips how to prepare for the competitive/entrance exams for MBA such as CAT, XAT and GMAT Fr Oswald A J Mascarenhas has, to his credit of formulating the XAT pattern, during his tenure with the Xavier’s Institute. And hence words coming directly from a man of this stature were indeed of great help to all the future MBA aspirants present.
He also shared his vision on how the AIMIT-MBA proposes to move forward along with the rest of the world by including creativity and innovation management, corporate and business ethics and business turn-around management in our MBA syllabus.
Mapping the mood of students, the focus shifted from “listening” to “doing”. A team-building- exercise, the “Rope-Game” was organized, which tested students’ leadership qualities such as communication-skills, organizing and planning and sticking to time-frames. Some fun elements were also incorporated in the game in order to help participants come-out-of their shell and shed inhibitions. This helped the participants to work as a team and not just individuals.
Right after this activity, there was another fun-filled, yet learning-experience on offering for the participants. This was carried-out in the form of a Treasure-Hunt involving the campus. The teams had to search different locations in the campus and were all accompanied with one of the MBA students for orientation. This helped the students to work systematically, in a team and at the same time get to take a closer look at the campus and its infrastructure.
This activity was followed by a lunch break of half an hour and then the final team-activity, a collage-competition, on the theme of “Leadership” was conducted. The highlight was again on team-building, managing conflicts and working under limited resources such as time and products.
Finally, the Valedictory function was convened by chief guest Praveen Prabhu, an alumnus of St Aloysius presently the director of Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd, a firm initiated by him. He enlightened the participants on integrating a successful career in MBA and the art of becoming rich in life. It was an interactive session wherein he raised certain important points such as “One must learn to differentiate between what is required and what is not’ and “You never leave an organization, you always leave bad bosses”. He also clarified many doubts that an MBA aspirant generally has such as the requirement of work experience prior to an MBA, choosing institutes and so on.
And as it is said, all the good things have an ending, and so was the case with this enriching event. The day culminated, at an even higher note by awarding the best-team, based on their overall performances in different activities and then handing-over the certificates of participation.