Times Of India - Mango farmers to turn business-minded
Mango farmers to turn business-minded
TNN, Jan 19, 2011, 01.18am IST
LUCKNOW: Mango farmers of Lucknow's Malihabad block can look forward to some management help from students of IIM, Lucknow. Three students of the business school -- Aditya Jain, Vishal Kumar and Sudeshna Chakravarti -- have devised a business plan for mango farmers, which will suggest ways to commercialise the processing of mangoes produced from the region. For their proposed business model, the student team at IIM-L has tied up with city based NGO, Maitrey ERA Trust.
The business plan is a part of Manfest 2011's new flagship event `Yajna'. The event, which debuts this year in IIM-L's international business conclave, involves students, corporates and non-governmental organisations working on a single issue concerning a specific area. Manfest 2011 coordinator, Prashanth Mahadeva said: "The event is a part of Manfest 2011 corporate social responsibility endeavour. This is an attempt at working together on solving critical social problems of the day.'' The event, which is being held across six Indian cities -- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Bangalore and Pune -- will have teams submitting a business model to address city-specific issues. From IIM-L, the 3-member team of Kumar, Chakravarti and Jain are the finalists. The final round of Yajna will be held during Manfest 2011, on campus in IIM-L. The winning team will present its ideas and implementation plan to the panelists, who will then decide the winners. Mahadeva said: "We have also roped in ONGC as our corporate partner. We hope that the winning team is able to rope in the corporate partner in implementing the suggestions of the business report as part of the company's CSR agenda.''
Apart from Yajna, Manfest 2011 will also play host to nearly 26 other events slated to be held on the institute's campus between January 21 and 23, 2011. The theme of Manfest 2011 will be `Renaissance 2030: Shape the Change', and will have the likes of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Vikram Pandit writing exclusively for Manfest publication, Gravitas. Among those slated to attend the event will be K C Chakravarty, Mallika Sarabhai, Ad guru Prahlad Kakkar and H K Dua.
In its latest edition, Manfest 2011 has launched a series of events online, through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Unlike before, this year, most events were launched online and across cities, while the finals will be held on campus, during the designated Manfest 2011 days.