Intensifying The Startup Culture

Pawan Kumar Singh, Director, IIM Tiruchirappalli, in a conversation with BW Businessworld, opens up about the shift in students’ focus towards startups rather than taking up corporate jobs

Established in 2010, IIM Tiruchirappalli began its operational journey in 2011 with its flagship Post Graduate Diploma in Management programme, now called MBA. The institute had its temporary campus at the National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli.

“It is time to express gratitude that NIT Tiruchirappalli gave all the required support as a caring host during 2011 to 2017. IIM Tiruchirappalli shifted to its own permanent campus spread over 175 acres, and conveniently situated just 10 km south of the international airport at Tiruchirappalli. The institute began its journey from admitting 60-plus students in 2011 in its flagship programme, the size of which has increased to 360 in 2022,” says Pawan Kumar Singh, Director, IIM Tiruchirappalli, underlining the journey of the institute and the challenges faced.

“The institute started the MBA programme in Human Resource Management with an intake capacity of 50 in the year 2020. The institute has its MBA programme for executives conducted at the temporary campus in Chennai. Our doctoral programme conferring Ph.D degree now has also flourished. The institute has the state-of-art infrastructure for the present range of activities. However, in order to plan for a better scale, the institute is geared to create additional infrastructure,” he adds.
 
Technology In Teaching

IIM Tiruchirapalli right from the beginning has taken up a proactive approach towards the use of technology in acquiring, disseminating and creating knowledge.

“Our Long Duration Online Post Graduate Certificate Programme with the provision of face-to-face campus module was started six years before Covid hit the world very badly in an unfortunate manner. These programmes are aimed to help managerial and leadership capabilities reaching to the far corners of the country. However, as Covid hit our regular programmes badly, we responded to the whole situation in a wholesome manner, especially in responding to various failures of Covid, we made provisions for online classes, hybrid classes, proctoring system etc. to tackle the situation,” states Singh, opening up on the impact of disruptive technologies on the campus and the institute’s approach towards these technologies.

“Our varied mix of pedagogy leading to effective teaching is meant to address the phase where we are getting impacted by disruptive technologies. So our approach has been a combination of pro-active as well as forced-reactive due to Covid with respect to addressing the impact of disruptive technologies,” he further informs.

On the expectations of industry from management education and how the institute is meeting those expectations, Singh says, “On the whole, there is no incongruence between the goals of various institutes of management and the expectations of industry from management education. The institute wants to create worthy future leaders and industries expect industry-ready graduates from management institutes. Our institute takes care of all aspects including quality management education, creating skills for effective managerial capacity and leadership providing value based and socially relevant insights and education that is sensible to micro, macro and international perspectives.”

“In order to make students industry-sensitive, the interaction between industry practitioners and students are arranged regularly. Industry project is an essential feature of our educational system,” he adds.

Talking about students' aspirations and the change in their focus towards startups and entrepreneurship rather than taking up corporate jobs, Singh states, “The institute prepares the capacity of the students so that they may choose career and life as per their choice. Corporates feels happy in including our students in their scheme of things. To build up strength in the field of entrepreneurship, we have included provision for such knowledge in our compulsory as well as elective courses.”

He adds: “Accomplished entrepreneurs keep sharing their valuable insights with our students. The institute is taking further steps to intensify startups culture among students.”