CoEs at MDI Murshidabad – Incubating Ideas and Talent

In the last four years, Management Development Institute, Murshidabad has been transforming an excellent set of individuals into responsible and dynamic professionals. With a comprehensive curriculum and progressive pedagogy already in place, it has continuously been racing towards upgrading its current knowledge base and expertise.

With the mission to continue action-centric research, MDI-M has set up 3 Centre of Excellence:

Centre of Agribusiness & Food Processing

Centre of Entrepreneurship & Start-Ups

Centre for Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning.

Let us take a closer look as to how they function.

Centre of Agribusiness & Food Processing

Since West Bengal primarily is an agricultural state, MDI-M pays grave focus in the field of agribusiness and food processing. Some of the highlights of the CoE are:

Students are involved in preparing sustainable business models that support the local farmers do their business, avoid wastage, and earn profits
They work closely with the farmers and connect them with local co-operatives and agencies

Various initiatives are run under the guidance of Faculty members that create financial and social capital for the state of West Bengal
Students closely work with government and related agencies to prepare plans and shape policies

The center aims to impart relevant training and courses to help develop agribusiness specific managerial skills.

Centre of Entrepreneurship & Start-Ups

MDI-M believes in shaping its students into change agents who can transform the society as a whole with their brilliant ideas. The center offers the right platform to its students in the form of inspirational talks, workshops, seminars, and events to help nurture their entrepreneurial ideas. Some of the recent events conducted by the center are:

A workshop on Entrepreneurship Development was held on the 9th and 10th November 2018. It was the first of its kind organized by the center in collaboration with Dhaka School of Economics. The PGPED Executive students got to learn about Agripreneurship, Sustainability & Community Banking Models, Business Models of Entrepreneurship, and Financing for SME’s
The Hatch Pitch 1.2 event was conducted in August 2018. Here the students got to think, plan and pitch their ideas to win exciting prizes.
Zircon 1.3 was held in October 2018. In Stage 1 various teams participated in a treasure hunt. The winners from this stage moved to stage 2. They got a chance to set up their business for a day. As part of the process, they had to promote and advertise their business, make sales and garner profit or loss. The team with the highest revenue won.
Such events help the students hone their innovative skills, communication skills, leadership qualities, and observation skills. They are judged on parameters like Marketing Strategy, Customer Satisfaction, Teamwork, Promotion, and Presentation.
Under the Guest Lecture series, Mr. Kushal Trivedi the CEO of PreBOO was invited to address the students about his journey and learnings as a successful entrepreneur. He spoke at length about the marketing strategies and challenges one faces while starting a new venture.

The center indeed acts a bridge connecting the students with experts from the industry.

Centre for Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning

With this center in place, MDI-M aims to conduct research based activities and build a knowledge pool for AI-ML driven business solutions. Some of the highlights are:

The center seeks to produce and incubate some cutting-edge ideas and file for patents.
The team of students and faculty work tirelessly in developing unique business models driven by new technologies.
MDI-M recently launched a new course on Business and Data Analytics which covers topics like Data Analysis in Excel, Data Visualization & Tableau, Predictive Modeling, and Analytics for Decision Making. Dr. K.R.R. Gandhi, member of the prestigious Bharathidasan University and Dravidian University, has been invited as a guest faculty to teach the students about Management Aspects of Business Analytics.
As part of the virtual talk series, an interactive session with Dr. Emandi Sankara was conducted in October 2018. He addressed the students on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Changing Job Scenario and effect on Startups.

The three centers at MDI-M create differentiation in curriculum and provide the students a platform to carry forward some exemplary work in the fields of agribusiness, entrepreneurship and new age digital technology.