Guest Lecture 1415

Agony of progeny when India failed Bhopal

The guest talk on October 14, 2014 by Mr. Satinath Sarangi (Sathyu) was an eye opener for the young managers at SDMIMD on how to think the concept ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ sensibly. The talk was scheduled after the play “Agony of progeny: when India failed Bhopal” featured on the 30 year old Bhopal Gas tragedy, which was one of the world's worst industrial disasters. The student interaction triggered the discourse on the issues in Bhopal, corporate accountability and environmental justice. Mr. Sathyu, is a prominent activist and leader of the campaign for justice for the Bhopal victim, has been engaged with the health care of the gas and water affected survivors of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

Guest lecture by Mr. Pramod Grama

Mr. Pramod Grama, Founder & Executive Vice President, SPAN System was the invited speaker on October 11, 2014. He spoke on Entrepreneurship. In his talk, Mr. Pramod shared the success story of SPAN from its humble beginning to its present international stature. The essential characteristics of entrepreneurs were brought out with the personal experience and anecdotes from the speaker. An interactive session followed the talk.

Guest lecture by Dr. Anil K. Ramshesh

An invited talk by Dr. Anil K. Ramshesh, on "Product Development" was organized on October 11, 2014 for SDMites. In his talk, Dr. Anil stressed on the need for integrative approach in product development. He opined that 'there will not be any need to revisit the product concept after the reaching prototype stage in integrative approach'. The Q & A session of the talk discussed the different dimensions of product development.

Talk on Importance of Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economy

Mr. Sukumar Rangachari, Director, Pointcross.com Pvt. Ltd., was the invited speaker for the special lecture organized by E-Cell Swayam – the entrepreneurial cell of SDMIMD on September 20, 2014. Mr. Sukumar addressed the young managers on the topic “Structuring and developing a management team for a start-up and the way of fundraising”. In his talk, he stressed on the importance of entrepreneurship for an emerging economy and illustrated with live examples from the industry. The achievement of Delivery, a food delivery business that has sprung up in New Delhi, was introduced in his talk. Earlier Prof. M.R. Suresh welcomed and introduced the speaker.

Guest lecture by Dr. T. Kanti Srikantaiah

Dr. T. Kanti Srikantaiah is currently a professor from Maryland University and brings with him his 20 years of experience earlier working for the World Bank in Washington D.C., USA. He delivered a guest lecture on “Managing knowledge in project environment” at Institute’s Auditorium on August 04, 2014. The talk was well received by the students.

Guest lecture by Dr. Selvam

Dr. M. Selvam, Professor & Director – Research, Alagappa University, Tamil Nadu delivered a talk on “Contemporary issues in management – A specific reference to managerial communication” on July 28, 2014. The talk was enriched with innovative presentation and focused on the need for managerial personnel to make a transition from good to great communication. The program was well received by the audience comprising of management students at SDMIMD Mysore.

People with Disabilities are the Untapped Labor Force

Prof. Susanne M. Bruyère, ILR School Associate Dean of Outreach, Professor of Disability Studies and Director of Employment and Disability Institute, Cornell University, New York, addressed the students and faculty members of SDM Institute for Management Development during a special talk on the topic “Why it is a good business to hire people with disabilities?” on July 22, 2014. This talk was arranged in collaboration with GRAAM.

Prof. Suzanne outlined specific issues involved in hiring of people with disability, their training needs and the organizational initiatives needed to make this process successful. She also outlined results from specific research on related topics. The talk was followed by a Question and Answer session on related issued in the Indian environment.

‘Crystallize your thoughts’ – Praveen Kamath of Wipro BPO

Mr. Praveen Kamath, General Manager & Global Head- Talent Transformation, Wipro BPO, Bangalore, conducted a workshop for the new batch of PGDM 2014-16 students on June 21, 2014. Mr. Kamath called upon the future young managers ‘to be the best and to be brutal in competition and to be winners all the way’. He said ‘viewing things in multiple angles and crystallizing thoughts will help to face the competitive world and develop the ability to manage risk’. Speaking on placement preparation activities he advised SDMites to get equipped with the thorough basic knowledge of all key subjects and to develop the ability to present these to groups; and how these can make a big difference at their workplace.The workshop was organized as a part of the week long induction program for the new batch.

Alumnus on Campus – N Chandan of Harita Fehrer Ltd.

As a part of the orientation lectures for the new batch of first year students, Mr. N. Chandan an alumnus of the PGDM batch 2004-06 who is presently working as Sr. Manager – Business Planning, Harita Fehrer Limited delivered a talk outlining his experiences he had in his first project which concerned the solutions in the supply chain of the client he worked for. He candidly answered questions from the new PGDM 2014-16 batch students and at the same time dwelled upon the expectations the corporate has from a B-School new bees in terms of understanding and gauging customer expectations.