SANKALP '12

SANKALP ’12!

Saturday 25^th February, a very anticipated day for SIMSREE students! For the first time in the history of SIMSREE, there was an event hosted by the Students’ Social Responsibility (SSR) Committee, SANKALP. SANKALP was drawn up with an aim to spread awareness through a larger involvement of students, not only from Mumbai, but across India.

To achieve this, a Print and Video Ad competition, Parivartan (A change), was organized. The participants were expected to make a creative ad, showing awareness about the various addictions leading to cancer. The event got over 50 entries from across India. Mr. Ankeet Dave, a media consultant with CPAA – Cancer Patients Aid Association was the guest of honour for this event.

 The other competition was Chanakyaneeti - a Case Study competition. B-School students were given a live case study of an NGO and asked to come up with a marketing and Operational solution for better sales of the NGO’s products. Again, there were over 50 entries pan India from various management institutes like IIMs, S. P. Jain, NITIE & NMIMS, among others. 5 finalists were selected, who came down to SIMSREE on the 25^th to present their solutions. The eminent  judges for the event, Ms Divya Chaudhary, Mr. Aughi Dalton, Ms. Anuja Mutha, Mr. Ravi Naidu and Mr. Aashish Pawaskar had a tough time deciding the winner but after a long discussion, Team Zenith from National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management, Hyderabad, won the first prize, worth Rs. 7500.

The last part of the day was a panel discussion. Eminent personalities like Mr. Bharat Nadkarni – Former  CSR Head, Tata Power, Dr. Pankajaksham – Dean, HR Department in Welingkar , Ms. Deepika Mandrekar – Volunteer with the Aseema Foundation, Mr. Bhagirath Shanbagh – Head, Talent Management at Larsen & Toubro EBG, Mr.  Krishnaraj Rao – An RTI activist, Mr. Swapan Garain – A Social Entrepreneur, Mr. Mahendra Narang – Program Director at Tata Power & Mr. Sanjaya Pradhan – Co-ordinator of Community Relations at Tata Power, graced SIMSREE with their presence. They had an intriguing and animated discussion on the topic – ‘Social Responsibility a hype? Do crises affect Corporate Social Responsibility?’

The SSR Committee is grateful for the immense support that it received from the Director, Dr. Khan and all the faculty members as well as from the students, without which, this event would not have been so successful.

Nupur Khare

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SIMERATIONS 2012 ..... Back to the future

The most awaited event at SIMSREE, Simerations, the inter-collegiate event was successfully held from the 17^th to the 19^th of February 2012. Simerations is the flagship event of Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE) organized by the Student Events Committee.

The Youth festival was a three day celebration, which consisted of events ranging from Management to Sports to Cultural and Literary. A combination of all these four categories coupled with the most abstract theme called “Back to The Future!!” created the perfect mix of events. “The future is only the past again, entered through another gate”clearly reflects the theme of our festival.

The inauguration of the festival was done on 17^th feb by the General Secretaries of the college. For a student run institute like SIMSREE, this was the perfect start. The opening competitions of Simerations’12 were, Mock Stock and Cricket Qualifiers. These being the crowd pulling events, were houseful. Mock stock saw about 15 teams of 3 participants each and cricket saw an unbelievable crowd of about 45 teams with 5 boys and 1 girl in each team to pump up the glamour factor.

The other events were Table Tennis and Antichess. These events were followed by Cranium hosted by our very dear alumni Mr. Kartik Ramaswamy. In the evening the Group Dance and Fashion Show competitions were held followed by a DJ Mix. The group dance was judged by Mr. Akshay Dhoke, a professional choreographer. The fashion show was judged by Miss Patil who is a fashion designer herself and is also an Ex faculty at L S Raheja College.

It got even better on the second day with amazing sports events like Blind Volleyball and Rink Football. The Management event ‘Home Coming’ was held where, the partipants assumed the roles of representatives of companies and had to make a petition to back “Regretted Attrition”. The event was judged by our dearest Prof. Cabral and Mr. Somesh Roy, the Deputy General Manager, HR at BPCL. The afternoon saw an interesting turn of events with the Salsa Workshop, in which around 20 couples participated. Solo and Duet singing competitions followed which were judged by Timothy Sir, a stalwart in the music industry. The evening saw the performance of the very popular and the very amazing band “Ehsaas”. The crowd let their hair down while the band gave a rocking performance.

19^th feb was the final day of Simerations. In the morning, the finals of various sport events like Cricket, Rink Football, Table tennis and Anti-chess were conducted. The management event for the day was ‘Tod Mod Ke Jod', which had a very new concept of taking a popular company and diversifying it to sell a product out of its line of business using its core competencies. The event was judged by Mr. Unmesh Diwan who is an alumnus of the 2008 batch and a partner at URSA Associates. Business Quiz and the Spent-Quiz were crowd-pullers. The final night witnessed the grand DJ Wars Nite. The competition had 8 DJ's competing against each other. It was a fitting finale for the 3 exhilarating days.

The grand success of Simerations'12 speaks volumes about the dedication and managerial skills of the Students Events Committee, the student body that toiled hard right from the inception to the execution of the event. The constant support and guidance provided by Director Sir, Dr. M A Khan and all the faculty members played a huge role in making this event successful.

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E Week 2012

Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education is a unique B-school in the sense that it has “Entrepreneurship” in its name. SIMSREE has always believed in encouraging and nurturing entrepreneurial spirits of the students. We have a dedicated student body called the “E-Cell”, which aims to promote entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship in students. The recently concluded annual flagship event of the E-Cell “E-Week” was a great success.

 The inaugural ceremony of the E-Week was graced by the presence of Mr. Kunal Shah, founder of Freecharge.in. Mr. Shah addressed the audience and spoke about his journey as an entrepreneur. He explained that it requires a lot of efforts and dedication to become a successful entrepreneur, but the journey is nevertheless rewarding. He also insisted that it is necessary to discard the fear of failure out of one’s mind in order to become successful. He advised the young students on what to expect and what not to expect during their entrepreneurial ventures. Mr. Shah’s address was both enlightening and motivating for the budding entrepreneurs.

The inaugural ceremony was followed by the event called “Idea Generation”, where the participating teams had to spontaneously generate business ideas based on a theme that was decided by the judges. The judges for this event included Mr. Ninad Deshmukh, owner, Uniheal Foods, who is also an alumnus of SIMSREE and Mr. Dhirwani, who is an entrepreneur in the field of exports, textiles, finance and hospitality. Due to the enthusiastic participation of the students and the able guidance provided by the judges, the Event Generation competition turned out to become a success.

The B-Plan competition was scheduled for Day 2 of the E-Week. The shortlisted teams had to present their B-Plans in front of the judges and each plan was examined by the judges in terms of its feasibility. The B-plans were in various different sectors ranging from Health, Education and Power to Mobile solutions and Pearl Farming. For the initial round, Executive Summaries were called. Out of them, 22 teams were selected for the second round wherein their B-plans were shortlisted and final 8 teams were invited on campus to present their B-plans in front of judges. ‘Team Gladiators’ from SIMSREE, Mumbai and ‘Team Sunshine’ from KJSIMR, Mumbai won the first and second prizes, respectively.

The esteemed judges for this event included Shweta Aggarwal- Regional Manager, India Angel Network, Parag Sheth - Co- Founder Pacecon Technosys, Amit Kulkarni- Co-Founder Pacecon Technosys, Rohan Deshpande- CIO Oglivy India Ltd. Apart from evaluating the B-Plans presented by the teams, the judges also provided some valuable advice to the students.

Business Badshah was the grand event planned for the 3^rd and final day of the E-Week. The ability of the teams to make money out of an idea within a specific time period was put to test in this competition. The judge for this competition was Mr. Jai Mamtani, Co-founder, Volanse. The participating teams were given Rs. 100 and told to maximize the investment. The teams performed various activities on streets of Mumbai like selling candies, selling chana, guiding the tourists, performing street dance, selling chocolate gift-cards specially made for Valentine’s Day, etc. And the returns generated ranged from 500% to whopping 7000%. Three winners were chosen based on criteria like innovation, RoI, concept, etc. The enthusiasm of the participating teams and the valuable inputs provided by Mr. Mamtani, made this competition a grand success. It was a fitting culmination for the E-Week. All the hard work put in by the students for making the E-Week a successful event paid off as the event turned out to be a bigger success than was anticipated. It also set the students thinking about entrepreneurship as an attractive career option.

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