IIT MBA League

There is an old saying, “Empty Mind is devils workshop.” And in my case this workshop works with at least 2-3 times the optimal efficiency rates. For past year and a half I had been in Kanpur, mostly sitting in my room thinking about various ideas. My computer is now over loaded with hundreds of half cooked business plans, marketing ideas, analysis of various issues that rocked our world. A few even spilled out of my computer and reached my blog. (This was again created, during the past year of my empty mindedness.)In this article I will be talking about an event, which was created by me and a few of my friends. It was called IML or IIT MBA League. The basic idea for this was inspired from the very famous IPL. But before I take you further with it, let me talk a bit about making of IML.

IML: How the idea was born

Let me take you people to January’09. We were cheerful 21 management students who went down to IIT Roorkee for Spornado, an inter IIT MBA sports competition. In this event, MBA students of 4 IIT’s (Delhi, Roorkee, Kanpur and Khadagpur) compete in various sports events for the overall cup. So we participated in all the competitions and to be very honest with you guys, we were virtually thrashed out in all the sports we played. I had never been a very active and passionate sportsman at any point of time, but still it was hurting me that we lost nearly all our games. As per my understanding of my classmates, the main reason for our whitewash was quiet simple and straight… “We never played”.
It is an open secret that IIT Kanpur boosts about its world class sporting infrastructure. But the thing that many people don’t know about is that IIT Kanpur also has one of the most developed and robust LAN infrastructure. Most of the students from our batch, were optimally utilizing the later of the two state-of-art facilities that our college has.
So I was thinking of something that can motivate people from our batch and push them out of their rooms and play. (I believe talent makes a player but practice produces winners.) So I zeroed upon the competitive event that can involve a lot of students. I along with a few batch mates of mine decided on the number of sports to be played, number of teams the batch should be divided into etc.
I had a lot of ideas up my sleeve and I used all the tricks in my bag to do the publicity of the event. I worked over time to create catchy teasers for the event, which were sent by people who had been traditionally the least active members of the class (Thus including them into the group). For many days every one was talking about IML, but could actually not figure out what it was. A friend of mine commented, “These days if I find you guys talking about some thing that no one else can understand then that is IML”. The first teaser was so random that people thought that it was some B-Club type literary activity that we are planning.

IML launch
IML was formally launched on 7th of February 2009, with a cake cutting ceremony. With just the launch of the event it became the talk of the town. We had a 100% attendance in the opening ceremony and it was an achievement considering the fact that even our professors can’t ever touch that 100% mark.

Team Distribution
For team distribution we had a bidding system. A few players were declared as owners, they had to bid for each of the remaining classmates with the virtual money they had. The excitement for the event was already Himalaya high. I remember people staying up till late in the night, a day before the bidding for the event. One team even used complex mathematical function to gauge the value of players. Each of the teams came full prepared with their prices, expectations and wish lists for the bidding process.

The Rise of IML
The event started with a bang. The first sport for the competition was Cricket. It had participation from the girls as well. Each game of the sport witnessed a full house. People didn’t only stay for the full length of the game; IML also became a regular topic of discussion over a cup of tea in the hostel canteen. Due to this event, some of the unknown and untapped players of our batch became over night stars.

The cracks appearing
The best thing of all the sports is that it creates a special bond between the team members and a sense of rivalry between the competing teams. Team spirit is one of the biggest gifts of all competitions. But strangely that was the biggest flaw in the concept of IML.
As usual a person can not be equally fond to all the other 50 people in the group, same happened here. The charged spirits and excitement due to a few close games created a few quarrels which even continued off the field (which should have not been the case). These petty quarrels acted as the epicentres or primary stress points on which bigger issues were born.

Closure of the event
The recurring issues and fights that started on the field at the heat of the moment escalated to such a high level that we had to unwillingly call the event off for this year. It had been a very ambitious event with 7 sports in it, but just one wrong assumption (on field emotions are left on field only) killed the whole event.

Rise of the ashes
IML was an event and a culture that was and is must for budding managers more than anyone else, as it teaches the nuances of team dynamics that no book can teach.
After months of soul searching, thinking and planning I promise that the new version of IML that will be starting soon will be meaner and tougher competition but will also have vents to release all the heat and friction to make it a sustainable and a popular attraction at IIT Kanpur.

IIT’s and IIM’s are they helping Bharat?

I am a student at IIT Kanpur. IIT is one of those few names in India that are comparable to if not bigger than “Brand India” itself. Every other day we read volumes in the newspapers about what this breed of graduates and postgraduates who were in one of the IIT’s or IIM’s and are changing the world. In the “SACRED” places like Silicon Valley or Times Square, having brand IIT or IIM on your CV can open the gates to success and laurels for you.
First Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had realized that to keep pace with the ever changing world of science and technology, it is necessary to collaborate closely with the outside world. Thus due to his vision five IIT’s were formed at Khadagpur, Kanpur, Delhi Bombay and Chennai with collaboration and assistance from the leading universities and intuitions from the countries like US, Germany, USSR etc. and since then many more have been added to this list.
Over the years these institutes of National Importance had evolved and grown into the centre of excellence in the field of Science and Technology. These institutes (like a factory) are now producing nearly 3000 graduates and many, many more post graduates each year.
Recently I read a report in Times of India that about 50% of successful entrepreneurs in India are the pass outs from these IIT’s and IIM’s. It surely makes me proud about the institute and being part of it. But the very next question that came to my mind was is all this actually helping India or Bharat as we Gen Y people refer to it.
We at IIT are made to live in a virtual world. Students of these elite institutes don’t have a much interaction with the local people, local Infrastructure or any other local thing or flavour of the place. I know IIT Kanpur more than any other IIT thus will quote examples of what I saw here than at any other place, even when I know that the story is more or less same at other places too.
City of Kanpur is in a sorry state but IIT Kanpur is a booming and happing place. In most of the areas of Kanpur you can actually not find even traces of road, but inside the campus you can see roads as smooth as silk. In the city, load shedding of 6-8 hours is a norm, but inside the campus, we are informed through a mail 2 days in advance about even 5 minutes of power cut. The institute which has Kanpur as an integral part of its name is simply out of bounds to the people of Kanpur. For our various festivals in campus we proudly spend about 1-1.5 crore in about 7-10 days, but we rarely think of helping the city to improve its infrastructure.
At in these colleges the students are not able to interact with the locals, they are just not aware about their issues, so when they graduate from this college they just can not relate to “AAM AADMI”. Thus for them these people are just part of infrastructure that is to be used for some time. I feel this lack of association more than affiliation with the locals is a major issue due to which India faced brain drain for so many years. Though now we are observing that more and more people are coming back to India or opting not to search for opportunities abroad, they still are far away from these people. Even the ones who are having some interactions with commoners are still interacting with the top 30-40% of the population (Mind you even the person who is at 50% line in terms of his net asset would be having at least ten thousand times less assets than any of the internet users in this country) and not with the vast majority of the nation, for whom the biggest challenge of the day is to arrange for the bread at the end of the day.
These colleges have surely produced more entrepreneurs than any other place in the country, and they are surely producing huge amount of wealth at a brisk pace. But it is the wealth only a few people earning, but what about the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid? What about the ones who were displaced from the very place which is now the centre of excellence? What about those who are not allowed to enter into these places of “National Importance”, the places which are the large giants that gallop a huge some of money that the common people paid for the nation’s development in the form of taxes?
India is surely gaining a lot from these centres of excellences in terms of the GDP growth and technological improvement. Indeed not only India but the whole world today looks at them with respect. The efforts these sharp and curious minds have made can not be equalled leave surpassing. But these gains are just restricted to India and are not getting transferred to Bharat, the poor India that still fights for the basic issues like “Roti aur Paani”.
I feel that the only radical step that is required to make India more equal and grow faster on each and every scale and not only on GDP indexes, is to make the two India’s stand face at least once in the life time. And what can be the better place for this than these great institutes. With a small interaction of about 2-3 months of the best and brightest minds of the country with these people can mark an impression on these people. And thus I hope slowly but surely they will try holding hands of BHARAT and make it walk shoulder to shoulder with India. This might reduce the speed of India’s growth a bit but then as the say it, “Rome was not built in a day”.