C. About Career Prospects
Question: What are the career opportunities available to students who are looking for a career in these areas?
Answer: The career opportunities for the students specializing in social/ environmental issues are mainly in the area of consulting. The students can either start their consulting service or can look for opportunities in established consulting companies, most of which started provided services in the area of Sustainability. In the recent past, many large companies, especially MNCs, have started looking for people having specialization or understanding of Sustainability. In addition, many international developmental bodies also offer very good career opportunities.
As far as IIM Lucknow is concerned, companies like Emergent Ventures and Managing Emissions have hired students. This year, Wipro has shown interest in hiring students who have knowledge and skills of working on issues related to Sustainability.
D. About Campus & Student Activities
Question: What have been the recent activities/events related to CSR/ Climate Change organized at IIM Lucknow?
Answer: In addition to the regular two courses being conducted for various programmes, following were undertaken recently:
a) A two-day workshop on CSR for all IPMX students (45 in number) on May 29-30, 2010. This two-day workshop was conducted by me. The idea of the workshop was to expose students to the concept of CSR/ Sustainability and sensitize them so that they should start looking at their learnings from the perspective of Sustainability. In fact, most students, at the end of the workshop, conveyed that there should be a full course on CSR, since according them, this is the need of the hour and every manager needs to understand the concept and its importance in today’s business environment.
b) Plantation drive by the students at IIM Lucknow campus on July 11, 2010. The idea behind this plantation drive was to make students undertake some practical activities and not just restrict them to the classroom work. We planted over 100 plants on the campus and a student committee has been entrusted with the work of upkeep and maintenance of the plants. Most students, at the end of the activity, felt a great sense of satisfaction.
c) Next leadership summit to be held on November 13, 2010 at IIM Lucknow Noida Campus will be based on Sustainability theme. The event will see participation from industry leaders, academia, regulators, media and the civil society. We plan to hold three panel discussions on themes closely related to Sustainability in the Indian context.
E. About Faculty
Question: Do you have visiting faculty for these courses? How do they support the MBA program?
Answer: Yes, we do invite people from the industry as visiting faculty to give practical insights to the students.
F. About Future Plans
Question: What kind of activities related to sustainable development (and related issues) does IIM Lucknow plan for this year and next?
Answer: Would like to list down the following:
a) IIM Lucknow has partnered with ASSOCHAM as Knowledge Partner for the forthcoming 8th Knowledge Millennium Summit: “2010 – 2020: Decade of Innovations” (Food Security, Healthcare, Energy & Water), to be held on November 17-18, 2010, Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi.
b) IIM Lucknow is planning to establish a Centre dedicated to the issues of public policy and sustainable development. The Centre will strive to influence the policy making processes in India in the field sustainability by undertaking research and consulting assignments. It will provide a platform for the Indian industries to interact with the policy makers and express their expectations from the policies. Also, the Centre will generate Case Studies in business sustainability which can be used for classroom teaching. It will make available the best practices being followed in business sustainability from all over the globe to the Indian companies.
c) The institute is exploring possibilities of partnership with companies or industry associations for holding a conference on Sustainability.
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