Venture Capital Investment Competition and placements

My team made it to the ISB finals of Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC), an international B-school competition hosted by University of North Carolina (UNC). Regional rounds are held in Europe and USA and for the first time this year in Asia by ISB. 33 teams at ISB participated in the 1st round and top 10 chosen for the ISB finals. More information at: http://www.vcic.unc.edu/. Students step into the shoes of a VC evaluating actual startups and other entrepreuners. The judges are actual VCs.

In the first round, we were evaluated on the basis of a investment case analysis of a telecom based startup in USA. The winner in next round (nov 28) will compete against other Asian B-schools in Feb and the winner will go to USA for the finals.

I personally don't have much interest in the VC space but the competition seemed very interesting. I got together a very diverse team - an entrepreneur, a doctor, an investment analyst, an oil and gas maverick and me. That should come in handy in the next rounds.

Since this is a personal blog, let me also touch upon something in the MBA life. There are times when the journey seems arduous. The competition here is deadly and it is very easy to get frustrated. But as one of our professors say, 80% of ISB grad (and I guess all MBA grads) change jobs within first 2 years. And that change happens through the people you meet at ISB. And I have met some wonderful people here. Some true geniuses. With the placement season already starting, things are heating up and everyone and everyone is beginning to step up a gear. Interesting months ahead.

Chance to win Rs 3000 by participating in ISB survey

As a part of an academic project at ISB, I am conducting the following survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=p9NSBbODPRSBSZGaf6cR7w_3d_3d
One lucky respondent stands to win a Rs 3000 gift check.
The survey seeks to understand the preferences of Indian consumer in the small cars segment.
I would request any visitor to this blog to kindly respond to this survey. It would take less than 15 minutes of your time, I promise.
The deadline is Friday, 6-Nov-2009 midnight.
Important Note: Please select the ISB Group name as "Ramgarh" (NOT Ramgarh_D) in the dropdown for question 13 in the last screen of the survey.
Since this is an academic survey, full confidentiality regarding respondent information (names and mail IDs) will be maintained.

Do forward this message to anyone who you think might be interested in taking this survey.

Thanks in advance.

2nd prize winner in Sectorama - Sector analysis competition at IIMA

The much awaited results of the competition are finally out and my team comprising 2 other ISBians won the 2nd prize at Sectorama. ISB also won the first prize, third going to IIM Kozhikode. Our paper was on Indian Education sector. Prizes and certificates on the way - woohoo

Getting off the waitlist

2 posts in one day! Now there's a first.
But couldn't resit:check this Freakonomics post

Why Obama really won the Nobel prize

We have an exam tomorrow (International Finance).
As usual, Facebooke, Youtube and other forms of entertainment are on the rise the day before. During my forays, I came across this delightful strip...
http://www.slowpokecomics.com/strips/terminatrix.html.
Couldn't help sharing

Elected pathos

Thought ill update the blog with the last few months' news. The core terms are over. All the sections are mixed up and now we are into the elective phase. Can't believe we have completed more than 50% of our MBA. Time does fly.

Anyway, this time I have taken 5 subjects. It was quite a last minute thing due to the vagaries of bidding system. Though I got all the subjects I wanted but the pressure is so getting just too much and I hope Im able to sustain myself over the next month.

Over and out.

PS: Mr Kishore Biyani (Group CEO of the Future group-Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, etc) was on the campus today to deliver a small speech about his journey. It was delightful.

Arbit CP Cult

In case anyone thought that all we do is study at ISB, here's what happened during a class today. The session was on Management of Organization Theory (Organizational Behaviour). The prof, in a bid to explain fundamentals of formation of culture in organizations, gave us a small group task to design a new cult and present its workings in the class. Before delving into what my group came up with, here's some contextual knowledge on CP in an MBA setting.

CP: Class Participation: B schools assign some % of total marks (say 10-25%) based on contribution to class discussions. It is expected that any CP be relevant to the current topic of discussion.
However, in practice, CP shows up in some other forms namely:
ACP: Arbit CP: With a view to garner points in CP when knowledge about topic of discussion is limited, some students engage in speaking on anything under the sun. Most of these thoughts start with something like..." In my last organization...", "Hypothetically...", "It may not be relevant but...", etc
DCP: Desperate CP: This is very similar to ACP but the timing differentiates it. Generally, when students haven't spoken in a while in the class, or in the last few classes, they engage in DCP to gain whatever points they can.
ICP: Infinite CP: As obvious from the nomenclature, this is the CP that goes on and on and on...At ISB, we have a tradition that the captive classmates start clapping when CP inches towards ICP :)
Now with this background, let me present my group's cult: The ACP cult.
1. Purpose of its existence: Encourage ACP!
2. Core values of beliefs that will inform behaviour in the cult: The right to free CP, The obligation of people to listen to ACP.
3. Examples of behaviour you would expect the cult members to demonstrate: Always raised hand, interrupt others, have opinion on everything, forgetting the question after answering for 15 min (happened to VR, a student)
4. Type of people you recruit into the cult: All Pappus (last week, during the interval someone changed the name tag of one particularly vocal student to "Pappu"!)
5. Procedures for inducting new members into the cult: Ability to ask 25 questions in 15 min, Hands raised before listening to the question, blackballing
6. How cult members will be distinguished from non-cult members: Raised hands, anyone who understands the meaning and can speak on "liberal paternalism" and "subliminal advertizing" (RS gifted these 2 phrases to the class on his way to ACP glory last term), anyone whose phone rings while they are not in class (it happened when V went out during the class - the prof commented then that she must be calling from outside!).
Other groups came up with gems like "Sleepers in class Cult", No Arbit CP Cult", Kela lovers Cult(!), etc

All in all this is the kind of fun we have in class. Man I'm loving it here!