February 19, 2011
School of Business, Coimbatore
 

The first weekend in February saw the annual B-Fest Pragati get off to a grand start as hundreds of students from several dozen B-Schools in the country congregated at the Coimbatore campus for the event.
 

At stake was prize money worth over Rs. 2 lakhs. Tata Motors, Shakti Sugars, Fab India, Megamart were sponsors of this mega-event.
 

Attire partner Peter England and media partner 93.5 FM Radio Mirchi also extended support.
 

“This time around, as Pragati entered its 13th year, we honored the achievements of the celebrated management guru, Shri. C. K. Prahalad,” informed the student organizers.
 

Shri. Prahalad hailed from Coimbatore; his former student Mr. N. Manickam, now Vice Chairman and MD, Sakthi Sugars Ltd., provided an insight into the famous thinker’s life.
 

Business concepts popularized by him such as core competency and fortune at the bottom of the pyramid came alive in all fest events conducted by the different groups or forums viz. Fortune, Jagriti, Ozone, Relations and Technocratz.
 

The Amrita B-Fest promotes healthy competition not only among participants but also among the organizing students, as they vie for the Best Forum and Best Event Awards.
 

The Operations Forum Ozone emerged winners; their event Strategem tested the skills of future operations managers, challenging them to analyze, prioritize and finalize.
 

Last year best event was ‘I am legend’- the best manager , GenM, organized by the Marketing Forum ran for two continuous days as participants worked overnight overnight on a case study in the IT lab that was open 24*7.
 

“I’ve seen similar events being organized in India and internationally,” stated the new Dean of the Amrita School of Business, Dr. G. K. Kalyanaram. “I would say that Pragati ’11 compares with some of the best technical, cultural and educational events I have seen.”
 

“I am really happy with the organizing of the students. The atmosphere is lively and it’s a great opportunity for people to hang-out together.”
 

As if marking these very words, later he joined students on the dance floor as they celebrated the culmination of the historic event.
 

“We feel content with the great success of the event,” summed up the student organizers. “We are happy that we could take Pragati to even greater heights, just as we had envisaged.”
 

– With input from G. Komal, I M.A, ASCOM and Arun Babu, I MBA, ASB