By Shubhro Sen

The School of Management & Entrepreneurship (SoME) at Shiv Nadar University has launched its two-year I-Global MBA Program. The I-Global Program is symbolic of our core vision to be a globally recognized institution for developing outstanding leaders and entrepreneurs and for advancing the theory and practice of management.

I: Let me start with explaining what the ‘I’ in I-Global is all about. This symbolizes two aspects. The first aspect is the preparation of students for a business world disrupted by technology. The second aspect is that we view each candidate as a distinct individual – each of them will be put through detailed personality and educational profile assessments so that we can fill gaps in their capabilities as well as channel their energies in the appropriate direction. So this ‘I’ is really about making it a personalized program, and that this program is about you as an individual.

Global: At SoME, we are working towards creating global leaders… in India, for India and the world. For this, we have introduced a number of global elements in the program that will allow them to achieve these objectives. This begins with courses and projects that have an explicit cross-cultural and international dimension.It will be heightened further via exposure to global universities. Our partner universities are Babson College, Duke University, Carnegie Mellon University, as well as one of the top universities in China, the Peking University, where a number of our students have already visited. In addition, global internship and project opportunities will be available to students.

Capacity Development: Out-of-the-box thinking is a prerequisite for success today and in-class learning in the traditional form is inadequate. From program design to curriculum and pedagogy, the entire emphasis at SoME is on multi-modal learning. What students learn through academics is applied by them in real life situations to develop hands-on experience while still in the two-year program. Students are also formally taught creativity and innovation. For example, we have one of the world’s finest professors in this area, Michael Gelb, author of 13 best-selling books, as a visiting professor to teach innovation and creativity workshops. The former Chief Innovation Officer of GTE Sylvania, who pioneered LED lighting, is also part of the visiting faculty roster.

Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship is in the DNA of Shiv Nadar University. Given that we are founded and driven by the vision of one of India’s foremost and most successful entrepreneurs, Mr. Shiv Nadar, it follows naturally that we try to inculcate some of those sensibilities in our students. Apart from core courses in Entrepreneurship and electives such as Negotiation, Starting Your Own Business, Business Planning and Technology Prototyping, we encourage exposure by way of workshops, where prominent entrepreneurs come to share their journey and the wisdom that they’ve acquired. We want our students exposed to a variety of such people so that they can learn vicariously and not perhaps repeat some of those mistakes. More significantly, Shiv Nadar University is committed to a full spectrum entrepreneurship incubator. Unlike most universities in India, we are a multi-disciplinary university. Apart from the SoME, we have the School of Engineering, School of Natural Sciences, School of Humanities & Social Sciences and School of Law operating out of the same campus. The exposure that students get across all of these disciplines comes together in the incubator. So if you are an existing entrepreneur and you are coming into the program or while in the program you develop a great bankable idea, Shiv Nadar University will not only take that idea and help you sharpen it, we may also help you with the technology prototyping and commercialization. Every summer, starting in 2017, we will have an entrepreneurial “boot camp”. This is for people to come in and take an intensive ten-week course, which will take them through all dimensions of successfully navigating the hurdles from generating an idea and making it a successful commercial business.

In these ways, we plan to make our Program distinctive and more valuable for our students. We look forward to welcoming the future managers, business leaders and entrepreneurs to the SoME.

The author is Director of the School of Management and Entrepreneurship at Shiv Nadar University