SIMSREE Students take up a cause on World No Tobacco Day

The results of the CPAA, Snap-a-moment, a photography competition were announced during a press conference at Trident Hotel, BKC on 25^th May 2012. SIMSREE students were present at the press conference as volunteers due to their association with the Cancer Aid Body. Mr. Arup Patnaik, Police Commissioner of Mumbai was the Chief Guest for the event. The event also saw the presence of noted celebrities like Vivek Oberoi, Atul Kasbekar, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Rituparna Sengupta among many others.

The Cancer Patients Aid Association of India (CPAA) has always supported the notion of a tobacco free world. SIMSREE has been associated with CPAA and has been an active partner in the events conducted by the cancer aid body. The SSR (Student Social Responsibility) Committee at SIMSREE had partnered with CPAA in organizing a social event, Sankalp earlier this year.

On 27^th May 2012 CPAA will be organizing a Music Concert that will feature the likes of Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Shaan, Shweta Pandit and Neha Basin at the Rang Sharda Auditorium, Bandra. SIMSREE students will again be present for this Music Concert as volunteers to ensure the smooth functioning of the event.

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SIM'ergence 12

On Thursday, 1^st March 2012, the Convention Hall of the Bombay Stock Exchange saw an amalgamation of industry stalwarts. The event was SIM’ergence 2012, the flagship corporate event of SIMSREE. SIMSREE has been successfully hosting this event for the last decade. SIM’ergence, a combination of SIMSREE and Convergence is meant to bring about an interaction between management students and corporates.

SIM’ergence 2012 was kick-started by the ceremonial lighting of the lamp by Chief Guests, Ms. Meera Sanyal, Mr. Motilal Oswal, Mr. Ajit Mahadevan, Mr. Kashyap Deorah and Dr. M A Khan (Director, SIMSREE) Mr. Rohit Khatau, Head, Corporate Communications at BSE and SIMSREE alumnus of the 2002 batch made the inaugural speech.

The theme for SIM’ergence’12 was “Envisioning Emerging Economies”. Ms. Meera Sanayal, Chairperson and Country Executive India at Royal Bank of Scotland, was the Chief Guest for the event. In her address, she chronologically traced the path of India’s growth and highlighted the important socio-political and economic changes that have impacted India’s growth story. Mr. Motilal Oswal, Chairman & MD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. was the Special Guest Speaker for SIM’ergence’12. He made a very intriguing presentation with valuable facts and data, highlighting the peculiarities of the Indian economy. He spoke about the demographic advantages available in India, consumption boom and the savings and investment boom in India.

Mr. Ajit Mahadevan, Partner, Ernst & Young, was the Corporate Speaker for the event. While expressing his views on the topic “Envisioning Emerging Economies”, he said that India has a sustained growth momentum and hence India will continue to grow steadily and strongly. Mr. Kashyap Deorah, Presidesnt, Futurebazaar.com was the Keynote Speaker for SIM’ergence’12. He spoke about the emergence of e-commerce in India and its role in India’s growth. Mr. Prakash Gaba, Technical Analyst, Gaba & Gaba Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd., conducted a session on Capital Markets in India. He shared with the eager audience, interesting experiences from his own academic and professional journey. His session was extremely insightful and interesting.

The post-lunch session started with a panel discussion on the topic “Building India for Sustainable Economic Growth”. The panel consisted of eminent corporates like Mr. Sanjay Parikh, CEO Taurus Mutual Fund ( Moderator ), Mr. Sachin Khandelwal, MD & CEO of ICICI Home Finance Co., Mr. Alok Churiwala, CEO, Churiwala Securities Pvt Ltd, Mr. Vikas Sachdeva, MD & CEO, Edelweiss AMC Ltd., Mr. Ashis Sen, GM and Head Training and Balanced Scorecard at HPCL, Mr. Rajiv Ranjan, CEO and MD, Reliance ARC. They spoke on a variety of topics ranging from problems in bank regulations and practices, the rise of SMEs to the need to create thought leaders. The conclusion that came out of the discussion was that sustainable growth requires sustainable businesses and meaningful profits. This would require all of us to be responsible corporate citizens. The panel discussion was extremely engaging and enriching.

The topic for the second panel discussion was “Rise of Indian Consumer Markets”. The panel consisted of industry stalwarts like Dr. Hiru Bijlani, Board of Directors, Zenith Global consultants Ltd (Moderator), Mr. Brijgopal Jaju, Global CFO, Welspun Corp, Mr. Rajesh Pant, Founder, Kandor Solutions, Mr. Abhijit Avasthi, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, Mr. Roosvelt D’Souza, Executive Director, The Nielsen Company. The corporates spoke on a host of issues ranging from captivating consumers’ fancies to creation of niche markets. The discussion turned out to be extremely insightful.  Both the discussions were followed by Question & Answer sessions in which the students got a chance to get their queries cleared from the eminent panellists.

SIM’ergnece’12, which saw an audience strength of around 400 people, comprising of students, faculty members and professionals, turned out to be a grand success. The credit of the success of the event goes to the students of the Corporate Relations Committee of SIMSREE who worked very hard right from the inception to the execution of the event. The constant support and guidance of our Director Sir, Dr. M A Khan and all our faculty members was also instrumental in making this event a grand success.

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CET Workshop and Mentorship Programme @ SIMSREE

CET Workshop and Mentorship Program@ SIMSREE

on 4^th march 2012 organised a CET workshop and Mentorship workshop for CET aspirants. The workshop saw an overwhelming turnout. It was a 3 hour workshop with 2 hours devoted to quantitative ability and logical reasoning and an hour for verbal ability. The sessions were taken by 1^st year students at SIMSREE who have had previous teaching experience. The sessions were aimed at helping the students with most frequently asked questions and giving them last minute tips. These sessions were followed by a counselling session where in students received handy tips on what questions to attempt first and how to manage their time. This was followed by a talk by the 2011 CET toppers from SIMSREE who shared their valuable experience with the students. The screening of the college video motivated the CET aspirants to give their best shot and try and convert SIMSREE. The workshop ended on an informal note with students getting a chance to interact with their coaches on a one on one basis over tea and snacks.

The mentorship programme is an extension of the CET workshop where each student who attended the workshop would get a mentor from 1^st year students of SIMSREE based on their intended specialization which would help students through the whole post CET journey like cracking the Group Discussions and Personal Interviews as well as answer various questions related to life at SIMSREE.

The media committee is extremely grateful to the coaches Mr Rahul Krishnan, Mr.Mihir Gathani, Ms.Gauri Sawant, Ms.Nupur Khare who worked extremely hard to prepare for the workshop and also to Mr.Nikhil Mahajan, Mr.Harsh Dhruva, Mr.Abhijit Singh for their invaluable contribution. A special thank you to our general secretaries Mr.Anilraj Pazhety and Mr.Gaurav Mewati. We are also extremely grateful to our director Sir Dr. M.A Khan who always encourages new initiatives and our faculty members for their constant support.

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Spanish Centre inaugurated at Sydenham - DNA News Story

Original Article: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_spanish-centre-inaugurated-at-sydenham_1647270

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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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