NMIMS Students’ Plan ‘Ahaar: Meal For Poor’ Wins Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition

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NMIMS students’ plan ‘Ahaar: Meal for poor’ wins Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition

Vaishali Katkar

Vaishali Katkar

Financial Analyst

The project ‘The Ahaar: Meal for poor at ten cents’ formulated by the students of SVKM’s NMIMS University, Mumbai has won the first prize of $10,000 in the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC).

Contest was organized by the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, Seattle, on February 23-27, 2009.

Fourteen teams from prestigious business schools participated to address problems of poverty in developing countries. At the five-day long event, the team of NMIMS University, led by N G Sreejith, was a cross functional one with Mr. Ankit Jain, Mr. Sidharth Bedi and Mr. Rahul Kumar Aggarwal, all specializing in varied fields of management. Their product was a full nutritious meal for slum dwellers containing rice, lentils, vegetable, vegetable peels and jaggery at the price of Rs 5.

According to NMIMS team members, they went to Seattle with ideas for how to improve life in those same Mumbai slums and prove that businesses having social purposes can work.

Says one of the participants from NMIMS, “Our team was shortlisted from 70 entries from 16 countries. It was not an easy ride, as we pitted our brains against prestigious teams from Kellogs Business School, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Yale School of Medicine, University of Alberta, Singapore Management University, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA; University of Buckingham (UK); University of British Columbia; University of Washington, Seattle, USA, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and few others.

While speaking on the proceedings of the event, NMIMS team said, “The grueling event spread over five days tested the team’s mettle in analysis, business strategy and presentation skills. It was the ultimate test of managerial ability where the students had to create an innovative product, develop a new business model to market it and get it validated from the world’s foremost experts in management.”

In their acceptance speech, the NMIMS team thanked their teachers at their alma mater for honing their abilities to perfection thus enabling them to pitch our national flag in the global arena. The team had previously won laurels at various Business plan competitions at institutions such as IIM-Indore, SPJIMR, SCMHRD, etc.

According to the team members, it was both an enriching and enlightening experience signifying the high point of their MBA at NMIMS. The education imparted to them along with a bent of social consciousness will help them to apply their skills to the long-term development issues facing the country and create both shareholder as well as societal value.

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