āhvān

āhvān, formerly known as Iris, is the annual management summit of IIM Indore.

History

IIM Indore hosted the first edition of its management festival, Iris during November 2–5, 2001.^[1] Iris started as a national management festival with participation from all the premier B-schools of India. It served as the platform for the brightest minds of India to exhibit their potential in the various facets of management - Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, Operations, Strategy and Information Technology. The 2008 edition of the event featured participants from more than 30 business schools in India.^[2] In the year 2009, IRIS evolved into Ahvan, literally meaning "evocation" in Sanskrit. It signifies a call to the nation, for awakening, commitment, collaboration and action.

Themes for Ahvan

• 2010: "Inspire to Act, Act to Inspire"
• 2011: "Lead to Transform"

Events

Samanvay

Samanvay is a social welfare and community development initiative conceptualised under the auspices of Ahvan in 2010. It seeks to promote social upliftment through participation and contribution. The broader goal of Samanvay is to promote financial literacy and to expand the coverage of financial services to all sections of the population. Samanvay 2010 served the purpose of creating awareness through discussions and presentations as well as creating familiarity with the financial system by assisting the financially excluded people of nearby villages in opening bank accounts and availing of accident insurance. The event was a huge success as 700 people opened bank accounts with Bank of India and took "Janata Personal Accident Insurance" from National Insurance Corporation.

Adapt

Adapt aims to test the advertising aptitude of the contestants across media platforms. Teams need to develop a complete advertising package including the strategy, creative aspect and the media plan for the brands assigned to them. Whereas preliminary rounds involve creation of ads centered around a theme for print and video advertising, the final round asks the teams to plan and create end-to-end advertising campaigns about how, when and where their ads would be launched and in what way.

Ashwamedha

Ashwamedha, spread over 45 days, aims to select 'India's best leader' among the best managerial talent in the country. It tests the candidates in aspects like decision making, teamwork under highly stressful conditions. The event tests the contestants on a broad repertoire of qualities like leadership, intellect, teamwork and ingenuity. In the final round, the top three candidates are put under the 'Spotlight' in an extremely tense public interview conducted by a select panel of judges.

Bulls n Bears

Bulls n Bears is the finance spot event at Ahvan where the contestants trade the traditional way - by shouting and finding the counter-party and negotiating the price to execute their trades. Participants trade on stocks, derivatives and commodities as they try to make sense of the news flow and market sentiments.

Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction is the supply chain management event of Ahvan where the competing teams have to manage the various components of the value chain ranging from the manufacturer to the distributor while considering inventory levels, production possibilities, quality requirements and customer consumptions. It is a simulation game that checks the teams' risk taking capabilities and their ability to apply the theories of Operations Management to real-life scenarios.

Chanakya

Conceptualised in 2010, Chanakya is the consulting flagship event of Ahvan. The event aims to test contestants on skills integral to a successful consulting career like client management, problem structuring, innovative thinking and presenting a feasible solution. The first round is the elimination round in which the teams have to submit solutions to small caselets involving multiple aspects of business like HR, Finance and Marketing. The second round involves a real-life case to be solved in conjunction with the clients. The teams selected for the final round have to defend their solutions in front of a distinguished panel of industry leaders and academicians.

Entrepid

Entrepid is an interactive business simulation event which deals with management issues across industries. The participating teams are required to own and manage several business units with the aim of creating vertical and horizontal synergies across the supply chain. Each team will take management control for 60 months in which their decisions regarding strategic positioning, production levels and inventory management would affect the profitability of the company driving the share prices.

Envision

Envision is the speaker series of IIM Indore where distinguished speakers from all walks of life converge to IIM Indore to express their perspectives on creating tomorrow's world leaders. The speaker series is conducted with the annual management summit forming the backdrop of the talks. The ensemble of speakers encompasses a wide cross-section of areas like business, public administration, social development and many more. Industry leaders share their experience, insights and ideas around a host of issues that are pertinent to the central theme of Ahvan. The discussions ensure that the exchange of ideas and dissemination of knowledge is meaningful, thought provoking and inspiring for the audience.

Over the years, IIM Indore and Ahvan have played host to eminent speakers like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Mr. Sam Pitroda, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Mr. M. Damodaran, Mr. S. Ramadorai, Mr. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Mr. Gurcharan Das, Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Mr. P. Harshavardhan, Mr. Philip Jackson and many more. At Ahvan '09, Mr. V. Shankar.MD and CEO of Rallis India spoke about wealth creation at his company.

Finance League

Finance League started at Ahvan '09. The event is designed to test the overall finance knowledge including banking, insurance, and capital markets. The preliminary round is an online quiz testing the knowledge in various domains of finance and the latest happenings in the corporate world. The second round is an online market simulation game where the participants are tested on their trading acumen. The third round is a variation of board game, Monopoly, in which the participants try to create a monopoly in their industries to capture competitive advantage. The event culminates in a debate on the contemporary issues in Finance testing the understanding of current affairs and communication skills of the teams.

Gordian Knot

Gordian Knot has transformed from being a part of the B-plan competition Sanjeevani at IRIS 2008 to a flagship event at Ahvan 2010. The event tests the thinking ability of the participating teams in the real world by giving them real-life tasks to be performed across the city of Indore.

I-Rising

I-rising is a series of online quizzes spanning over a month which serves as a prelude to the management festival, Ahvan. It attracts participation from people across professions and not just students.

Kalpavriksha

Kalpavriksha, the social b-plan contest of Ahvan, is one of the most prestigious business plan events across the country. It was conceptualized in 2006 with the focus on sensitizing the participants about their responsibility and the potential difference they can make. It provides a platform for budding entrepreneurs to showcase self-sustainable B-plans with a strong societal focus.

The event has been associated with reputed sponsors like Infosys, Tata Group, Deloitte and Cognizant. Kalpavriksha has also tied up with Foster Business School, Seattle since 2008, whereby the winnerof Kalpavriksha secures a direct entry in the semi-finals of the "Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition". The finalists are offered mentorship under the knowledge partners and faculty coordinators of the event to make the plan viable.

Finalists of Kalpavriksha '08, Team "Aahar: Meals for Poor at Rs.5", went on to win GSEC '09.

Klueless

Klueless is the annual online puzzle (or Online Treasure Hunt as it is popularly known as) which was launched in October 2005 by students of IIM Indore as an event during the annual management summit Ahvan of IIM Indore. It now ranks itself amongst the most popular Indian puzzles of its kind, with enthusiasts from over 1100 cities in over 80 countries logging in to play the game every year, being the first of its kind in India. The game has seen its player base grow over the years to nearly 3 million hits in the previous edition alone, and usually registers over a million hits within 3–4 days of commencement. Modeled on the lines of the popular Notpron, which has also been tagged as "The Hardest Riddle on the Internet", this game too follows a linear format where players are required to solve each level by using hints in different parts of the page - the URL, the Source Code, the page title, image names and the images themselves. Off late though, it has also brought in the concept of non-linearity, thus making it closer to a real-life treasure hunt. The players who solve a level get to progress on to the next level and on eventual completion of the game, get to the Kluless Hall of Fame.

The game differentiates itself from most other by having a fresh edition every year, with an altogether new set of puzzles. Each year, the game's developers, work towards creating an entirely different set of 30 to 40 quizzical levels, making a conscious effort to avoid repetition of similar levels over the editions. Now in its 9th year running, the themes for different levels range over a broad spectrum of topics, from popular comic book and movie references, to mathematical and advanced computing concepts.

Launched around the month of October each year, quizzers and puzzle fanatics from all across the world spend close to 3 entire days trying to crack the game and enter the game's Hall of Fame. With the number of spots in this Hall of Fame varying across years, the objective for most players is not only to solve the levels by hook or by crook, but is also to do it the fastest, which makes the game highly competitive. ^{[3] [4] [5]}

Live wire

Live wire is the annual concert held as the last event of the festival. In the previous editions, it had featured artists like Euphoria,^[6] Parikrama,^[7] Mohit Chauhan etc. Livewire 2009 saw an audience in excess of 3000 from across the country.

MyCampaign

MyCampaign is a practical and socially relevant marketing event under Ahvan where contestants from across the country create an end-to-end marketing plan for winning social campaigns. The objective of the event is to test the creativity, knowledge, passion and compassion of the participants while they create a campaign that compels the common man to spend money on it.

References

External links

• Official website