‘By turning an entrepreneur, I have been able to create nearly 10,000 direct jobs’

“Skills acquired by the youth will be a defining factor in building a strong future,” said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD at Biocon Limited.

Addressing AACSB accredited IFIM Business School 22nd Annual Convocation, Kiran Mazumdar said “We are witnessing the birth of technologies that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. The scale, scope and complexity of the transformation is unlikely to be like anything humankind has experienced before.”

“Hence, skills acquired by the youth will be a defining factor in building a strong future for the country. As students of management, you would have learned that failure is inherent to building success and am sure you have been coached on managing risk and failure,” she added.

Converting challenges into opportunities

Narrating her experience in life, Shaw said, “In my life’s journey, my ability to face and learn from failure helped me a great deal. When I started off as a 25 year-old woman entrepreneur with no business experience and limited financial resources, I had to face huge credibility and perception challenges, as well as, failures.”

She added, “By turning an entrepreneur, I have been able to create nearly 10,000 direct jobs and several thousands of indirect jobs in lieu of the one job that I was seeking! Today, India needs all of us—especially capable young people like you—to be responsible and address the myriad challenges our country faces: food security, health security, job security, energy security and environmental sustainability. Remember, our country cannot aspire to economic greatness as long as India remains home to one-fourth of the world’s poor and more than one-third of all malnourished children. So I would like to ask you to get involved and convert these challenges into opportunities that can help bring about transformational change in alleviating human suffering while creating wealth and prosperity for all.”

She congratulated the business school on their recent achievement, “I understand that this is the first B-School in Bengaluru and the sixth in the country to be internationally accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which is considered to be the gold standard in management education globally.”

193 students received their Postgraduate Diplomas (PGDM) at IFIM Business School’s 22nd Convocation Ceremony.

‘Crucial times’

Dr Githa Hegde, Director, IFIM Business School welcomed the guests and congratulated the graduating students. “These are crucial times for the generation which is preparing to make major decisions for a sustainable future. Our role as an educational institution is not only to train them academically, but nurture their creativity and help them shape their ideas better. The employment industry is ever evolving, hence, students must have the skills and experiences that equip themselves to adapt and bring about better innovations. The eligibility criteria for jobs will eventually evolve and our responsibility, here, is to build a strong base for students to make them continuously employable,” she said.

The following awards were given to top students: Best all rounder - Male: Shubham Jain. Female: Renuka Mohta. Best Student of PGDM - Moyukh Mukherjee. Best student of PGDM - Executive - Deep Krishna. Best SIP Project: Assessing the impact of Air Pollution on the Health of auto Rickshaw drivers - Ajay Ballal, Imad Ul Huq Kola, Poornima Yadav, Priya Georgina Cutinho, Rohan Bhaskar Shetty, Shodhan J Shetty and Vishwaroop Shetty. Best Research incubation - Moyukh Mukherjee, Shatakshi Agarwal and Best Industry Internship Program - Samruddh P.