It’s about a month to go for āhvān ’09. 30 days of excitement, and 3 days of fun!! But for the organizing teams and the participants from top B-Schools from all across the country; it is sheer hard work in an intensely competitive environment. Afterall, āhvān ’09, one of the biggest management festivals in the country will provide the biggest platforms for aspiring managers to showcase their talent through various events that would take place during Nov 19-21 at IIM Indore. Year on year, standards have been set and surpassed. Year on year, IIM Indore has raised the bar, put forth new challenges for the participants. This year promises to be no different.

The name might have changed, but the essence remains just the same. So, just like its predecessor IRIS, the grand finale of āhvān ‘09 will be LiveWire, the live musical concert of IIM Indore. LiveWire has historically been the most exciting event of the festival because of all the electricity and passion that a live performance generates in the crowd and on stage. It’s definitely my favorite part of the festival, and also the perfect culmination to the festival, giving everyone involved a chance to enjoy and have a blast. It also gives residents of Indore and other closeby areas a chance interact with the institute and its students. Over the years, LiveWire has played host to some of the most sought after bands. Indian Ocean, Euphoria, Parikrama, Strings and Silk Route have all graced the stage, and each time, the audience was left completely captivated by the performances, crying out for more.

This year, the LiveWire team is more excited than ever, for this would be the first LiveWire under the banner of āhvān!! Team LiveWire has been working frantically for the past four months to try and ensure that the legacy of LiveWire continues. LiveWire is already attracting huge interest from the participants at various B-Schools as well as residents of Indore. “We’re already flooded with enquiries about artist, tickets, event date and timings” says Aamal Mishra, LiveWire Co-coordinator. Kamal Chhabra, also a LiveWire Co-coordinator said “All I can confirm is that LiveWire will be different this time, it will be bigger and better. We have planned a host of activities and so the audience can look for something new and exciting. The details will be out soon”.

November 21, 2009. It will be the same setting, the same venue, but this year, LiveWire promises to be completely different. If the enthusiasm level of Team LiveWire is anything to go by, it will be another addition to the spectacular series of concerts organized at IIM Indore. I, for sure, would not want to miss this one. The countdown has begun; it’s just a month to go now before the festivities begin at IIM Indore.

Keep watching this space for more information.

PS: More details about LiveWire to be revealed in the next post

Klueless, an integral part of IIM-Indore’s annual management fest Ahvan (earlier known as IRIS) has grown from strength to strength over the years. Last year, it saw an astounding 6 million hits. What is this phenomenon that has caught this nation by storm?  That has become an addiction among the young and old alike. That has engaged one and all.

Klueless is primarily an online game wherein a participant has to crack the clue at a given level to move on to the next level. Cracking the clue requires some lateral thinking, some googling and quite often just some presence of mind. This year’s version promises to be even more engaging and enthusing. The Link for this year’s klueless will be put up on the website in the first week of November. It goes without saying that there are lots of prizes to be won.

For more, watch this space.

Klueless over the years

Klueless 1

Klueless 2

Klueless 3

Klueless 4

Caution: It can be addictive.

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.

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.

We have made sure that in spite of all the changes and scaling up going on, āhvān does retain some of the trademark traditions of IRIS. So yes, you will once again see the 3 storey banner and yes it will be larger than last year’s. Other than that we have taken the tradition of in house designing of all our creative requirements a step further. This year even the images used on our brochures were ones taken by our own people except one for which we are highly grateful to Antony’s friend Gopal, who shot some amazing pics while he was on campus. Ah ok…for the benefit of the non-inhabitants of Planet I, Antony or Father as we call him,  is one of the most respected personalities in Planet I and is Joint Head of Operations vertical in āhvān 09. So, coming back to my point, it was indeed a proud moment for me when Vishal Jalan, our senior and one of the best talents to have walked on Planet I, pinged me and told me this -

Very elegant work with the brochure dude….
congrats…
Felt so proud to show the work to my colleagues here telling that it
was done totally inhouse.. literally … even the photos are inhouse
convey my congrats to all those who worked on it…

Our creative and design team truly rocks!! With people like Sudhir, Harish and Sadaf, we are never short of ideas and talent which can turn those ideas into jaw-dropping designs. And thanks of course to Sayani for patiently bearing with us while we shot a zillion pics of her, Neeta for obliging us and allowing us to use her pic on the brochure and Rakesh for being the man behind the lenses. Sayani, please don’t forget to thank us in case you start receiving ‘more’ offers for modeling once people see our corporate brochure.

As for the website, yes we have once again been able to save some money by not outsourcing the work. We are working on it and you’ll soon get to see it at http://ahvan.in

These and a lot more things we are planning will make sure that IRIS lives on in the soul of āhvān.

Very elegant work with the brochure dude….
congrats…
Felt so proud to show the work to my colleagues here telling that it
was done totally inhouse.. literally … even the photos are inhouse

convey my congrats to all those who worked on it…