NANYANG MBA

Developing Socially Responsible Leaders-meet the social entrepreneurs

By Charu Verma

One of NanyangBusiness School’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Club’s aims is to help develop leaders who are compassionate, innovative, and who use their business acumen to solve social issues hovering over communities all over the globe.

The first and the most vital step towards this aim was taken through finding opportunities for MBA students to interact with budding social entrepreneurs in Singapore. The club wanted to achieve more than just a talk so that students get to experience the journey to social entrepreneurship rather than just a monologist lecture on how to become a social entrepreneur. This made “The Hub” an obvious choice for us to visit given that it is one of the biggest professional centers that not just provide office space to social entrepreneurs but also promote social entrepreneurship.

14 MBA students coming from both full-time and part-time programmes interacted with  5 social entrepreneurs. . Social entrepreneurs from organizations Akaraka, Milaap, The Hub, and Silverline Mobi shed light on various issues that a social entrepreneur deals with and a few examples of how they dealt with those same issues during their journey. Highlight of the day was the unique opportunity to mingle with several social entrepreneurs present at The Hub in their weekly evening get-together. The enthusiasm of us, Nanyang MBAs ,at the Hub made Akaraka invite the MBA cohort to its forthcoming fund raising event at The Arts House at The Old Parliament.

We at The CSR Club,  will continue to search for more opportunities for MBAs to be a part of such worthy endeavors such as social enterprises such as those in The Hub.

NANYANG MBA

Celebrating Christmas with our MBA Family

By Joel Austria

Before the Christmas break in December, our MBA cohort celebrated Christmas – with the theme ” the Filipino way” , the way we Filipinos do it back home, and so we Filipinos were the hosts.. The fun started a few hours before the event itself,  as volunteers decorated the room, prepared the food, and set up the photo booth and sound system. One by one, people started showing up carrying their gifts and looking excited to start the program.

NANYANG MBA students having fun at the photo booth

The party started with the traditional Filipino feast. We had some Filipino food favorites such as ‘adobo’ (pork & chicken stew) , ‘crispy pata’, (pork knuckles like the ones in Germany)  ‘inihaw na liempo’ (grilled pork ), and ‘pancit palabok’ (noodles) . Iris, another Filipino MBA participant, also prepared and served ‘sago’t gulaman’, a cool and refreshing drink with tapioca and gelatin. For dessert, Claire made her special ‘maja blanca’ which is a coconut pudding with sweet corn bits.

Steven can’t hide his excitement to finally get to taste Filipino food

After the feast, we asked the participants to form three separate teams to compete in Filipino parlor games. First up was the newspaper dance but with an added twist. Instead of just a pair trying to keep themselves within the confines of the newspaper, we asked the teams to send five representatives. It made the game more challenging and it was very interesting how our classmates strategized and executed their game plans. The next game was ‘hep hep hooray’, a game that required fast reflexes and concentration to not commit a mistake when asked to recite the next word in the sequence together with the corresponding hand gesture. The contestants in this game became very competitive and did a really good job of mastering the sequence and action. And so, to determine the winner, we introduced some changes by switching the hand gestures. Finally, we capped off the games with a relay. During the relay, we introduced the contestants to the ‘calamansi’, a fruit that Filipinos love to use as food seasoning. We also asked them to recite a simple Filipino tongue twister, ‘Pasko paksiw’. Just so you know, ‘Pasko’ is the Filipino word for Christmas.

Our classmates realizing that the Newspaper Dance is not as easy as it looks

Before ending the wonderful celebration, everyone gathered around the Christmas tree for the gift-giving and revealing of each one’s secret Santa. The activity highlighted for us that Christmas is really the season of giving and sharing. It was very interesting to see what the secret Santas bought for their recipients. The most entertaining part for me was when Li Qin received a number of joke-gifts from Pratik before finally getting the real thing. It was very funny to see Li Qin’s reactions and Pratik’s creativity. I was also touched when Catherine gave Emily (Student ExCo President)  some home-baked goodies and a special drawing made by her daughter.

The Christmas tree was filled with gifts from the Secret Santas

By the end of the activity, everyone looked happy and content with their gifts and people were getting ready to leave. But as a final touch to the whole program, Mr. Nick Soriano, our admissions director, arrived with a small washing machine to be raffled off. The winning name drawn was Sumin. But he decided that a woman should win the raffle, and so, after a few more attempts, Charu was lucky to take home the prize. Indeed, Chrsitmas spirit is in the air-gifts!

As the day ended, I was very happy that I got to spend Christmas with my new friends and share with them how Christmas can be more fun in the Philippines.

NANYANG MBA

Turning Ideas into Reality

By Pete Thanapornpun

In December 2013, Nanyang MBA’s The Venture Capital (VC) Club invited Kelvin Ong, Executive Director of FocusTech Ventures and also NANYANG MBA Alumni, to be a speaker for this session.

FocusTech Ventures (FTV) is an entrepreneur-led startup accelerator that combines private investment, active mentoring, and advisory to help capital- efficient startups transform venture ideas into fundable, profitable companies. Kelvin  shared his experiences and what he does exactly in his daily work (Fund Raising, Strategic Management, Recruitment and, Deal Sourcing). To end the session, he gave us some good tips :

1. Don’t go to the area that you are not familiar with.
2. Enter the market with ready infrastructure.
3. Pay attention to the cost projection rather than the revenue.

The key insights shared during the talk are really useful not just in the future, but can also be applied in our case studies and group reports in class.

NANYANG MBA

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Club Event – Art & Copy

By Raza Irshad

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Co-Chair Raza Irshad giving a short introduction of the film documentary

The event, organised by the Marketing & Entrepreneurship Club,  showed the documentary, “Art & Copy”, which showcases some of the most iconic advertising campaigns of their time and how they were successful in breaking grounds at the time when they were released. The film also includes reflections on the careers of some of the finest people in this field like Hal Riney, George Lois, Mary Wells Lawrence, Dan Wieden, and Lee Clow.

The purpose of the event was to share an insight into the world of marketing and advertising, how it has evolved over the years and to share some real life examples of how people have actually been inspired to produce some of the most memorable ad campaigns of all times.

This activity was a light yet very enriching way to learn more about the marketing and advertising industries as well as to get to know more the members of the club.

NANYANG MBA

Management Consultancy Club organises ” Walk the Talk” with fellow MBA participants as speakers

By Sandeep Bhuyan 

On November 25th 2013, the Management Consultancy club organized its first event “Walk the talk”.  The event was organized as an information sharing session among the cohort’s members. MBA students who worked previously as consultants shared their experiences and knowledge about their consulting job. The purpose of this event was to expose MBA students to different types of consulting, to familiarize them with what working as a consultant looks and feels like, and to guide them how to look for jobs in the particular fields.

Jason, Rey and Akshay Sharing on their experience

We had a total of 8 speakers   and 20 students attending the event. The speakers represented many different industries. Jackson spoke about Risk consulting, Emily shared her experience on oil refining, Vicky on development consulting, Akshay about technology consulting, Rey on HR and Tax and Mohammed, Sukhjeet, Charu shared their experiences on management consulting.

Mohammed, Charu and Vicky in Action

Each of the speakers spoke about their qualification, how they made into the job, experience and one particular project. They had their own style of presentation- some used designer slides, some used whiteboard-marker, some spoke directly and tried their best to make us understand the nitty-gritty of their industry. The attendees in turn asked many questions specific to the jobs and tried to find out what they need to do if they want to join a particular type of consulting.

Token of Appreciation from the club

Thanks to the MBA office for dinner and token of appreciation presented to all the speakers. And the speakers specially for the presentation, enthusiasm, warmth, and confidence.

Students listening to the talk and dinner time

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