The phone rang and it jolted me out of my state of fanciful musing. I looked at the name of the caller. “Ohh……my good ol’ pal from yesteryears…”. The conversation started of with the usual ‘wassup’ bit, and then I told him that I was working for Ahvan. “And what is that? I thought your management fest was called IRIS!”, said he. And then I told him how IRIS had transformed to ‘Ahvan – a call to the nation’ this year. “Oh! So you are working for Ashwamedha are you?!” came the question from the other side. “You know Ashwamedha do you?!” was my surprised reply to the question. And then he told me how every Indian MBA worth his salt has dreamt of being ‘the one’ at Ashwamedha for the last seven years of Ashwa’s existence.

For an event enjoying popularity of that magnitude, Ashwa started out as a brand new concept and has become a trendsetter, pioneering a whole new genre of events across B-Schools. Obviously, the event team is not talking about what it plans to do this year since they re-invent themselves every year. All they say about Ashwa is that ‘The event places the participants in a series of simulated real life scenarios where the participants have to use all their wits, knowledge and passion to prove their mettle.’

The event will be launched on the 24^th of October with prize money of Rs.150000 (tentatively). The initial elimination process of online rounds will bring down the numbers from 1000+ applicants to ‘30 potential winners’. From then on, each one watches the others’ moves and out of this stiff competition, emerges the winner. Meanwhile, sponsors are vying for Ashwamedha, jostling for the eyeballs that Ashwa grabs. The buzz on the campus is that Ashwa in its new avatar is going to be one of Ahvan’s biggest successes. The personal interview round which promises to be nothing short of dramatic will decide ‘the real leader’. The focus is primarily going to be Ahvan’s theme ‘Imagining India’, where we look for leadership that is not restricted to corporate houses but makes a meaningful difference to this nation.

Cerebrate: The objective of this event is to identify the best management talents in India in the fields of Finance, Marketing, Operations and HR through soliciting solutions to live case studies. This gives the students an opportunity to prove their ability to perform in the corporate world (since case studies are live). The theme of the event is “Be the next Management Guru.”

Cerebrate Marketing:

Cerebrate Marketing is a live case study competition. It has 2 stages: first being the online round and the final held at IIM Indore campus. Participants from top 30 B-schools present their solutions to the industry experts and get a chance to interact with them and fine tune their marketing strategy skills with their help.

The tentative launch date of the events first and second round is  2^nd November 2009 and 19^th /20^th November 2009 respectively.

Cerebrate Finance:

Cerebrate Finance is a live case study competition based on finance. It has two phases. In phase 1 an online quiz of 40 minutes based on knowledge of the field of finance will be conducted. Based on their performance in phase 1 six teams will be shortlisted for phase 2. In phase 2 A live case study will be provided to all shortlisted teams and they will be invited to present their cases to the judges on 19^th November in IIM Indore campus.

The online quiz of phase 1 will be launched on 7^th November 2009 and its results will be declared on 9^th November 2009. Phase 2 will start on 10^th November 2009 with the distribution of the case study to the selected teams and it will end on 19^th November 2009 with the final presentation by the groups.

Cerebrate Operations:

This event is being held for the first time looking at the growing importance of operations these days. It is a case study contest in operations field. Objective of the event is “To identify best talents in India in operations management area through soliciting solutions for live issues faced by corporate”.

The registration for this event has started. The case study will be available on the website from 29^th October 2009 and the final presentations by the groups will be made on 19^th November 2009.

Kalpavriksha has begun with a BANG. The Kalpa team is ecstatic about the overwhelming response that it has received this year! The gruelling task of selecting the top 20 teams from the 131 Social Business plans has been accomplished and the results have been declared on the website on 18^th October. Visit http://ahvan.in/ahvan09/index.html to know your whether your team has been one of the fortunate ones or not.

With international tie-up with Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) of Foster School of Business and association with FINO as ‘Knowledge Partner’ and Cognizant as Sponsor, Kalpavriksha’09 promises to be bigger and better this year. Kalpavriksha moves a step ahead in assessing the social impact brought about by the business plans by introducing a new factor of “Social Impact Assessment”. Concurring with Ahvan’s theme of “Imagining India”, Kalpavriksha continues to be the torch-bearer of self-sustainable social entrepreneurship.

Testimonials from last year’s finalists speak tons about the success of Kalpavriksha.

“Kalpavriksha happens to be one of the most gruelling and testing B-plan competitions in India. Unlike other B-plan competitions whereby you can impress the judges with a 10 minute presentation to walk away with a prize, Kalpavriksha is almost a month long journey which ensures that only the best and genuine entrepreneurial minds manage to make the cut …”

“We have won many competitions, but the Kalpavriksha experience has been one of the most rewarding, even though we did not win anything! It tested our mettle in strategy, our team cohesiveness, the practicality of the plan among other things … Finally, we would like to say that if you want to rub shoulders with the likes of London School of Economics, Princeton University etc., Kalpavriksha is the shortest way to do it for an Indian team. So go for it!”

Team Kalpavriksha is looking forward to provide a platform to the path-breaking ideas of the nation’s young entrepreneurs and leave a lasting impact.