Asian Business School inaugurated its new batch of Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) on Monday, 23rd August 2021. The inauguration kick-started a grand five-day Orientation Programme scheduled from Monday, 23rd August 2021 to Friday, 27th August 2021. However, in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and keeping in mind the social distancing norms, this programme was organized virtually to benefit the students who were about to begin a new phase in their academic life.
Day 5 of the ABS PGDM Orientation Program 2021 that was held on Friday, 27thAugust 2021 was the final day of the five-day ABS Orientation Programme 2021. The day was marked by a detailed presentation of Asian Business School’s unique CRAFTING PRODIGY PROGRAM (CPP), an eye-opening LEAD Lecture session by Ms. Pritika Mehta, Founder – SockSoho.com, and the much-awaited grand finale of “Young Asian Entrepreneurial Challenge (YAEC) 2021” business plan competition.
The CRAFTING PRODIGY PROGRAM is one of a kind niche programme at Asian Business School which focuses on the “Individual Professional & Skill Development”. Here, ABS students get a chance to understand how beautifully their crafting journey is planned at ABS.
Set under the Center for Skill Development (CSD) umbrella at ABS, “Crafting Prodigy” is a thriving, impactful mentoring program where customized attention on each student is the focus. Every student at ABS is assigned to a ‘CRAFTER’ who gives personalized attention towards identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the individual and focuses on building his capabilities and skills needed to succeed in a dynamic global economy; in other words, crafting his ‘PRODIGY’. One of the main benefits of the programme is that everyone learns in different timeframes and in different ways.
CSD’s Soft Skills & Personality Development programme has two components – Individual Development Plan & Competency Development Plan. While the Individual Development Plan emphasizes on identifying and developing individual learning and development needs of the students covering various behavioral & communication aspects, the Competency Development Plan focuses on more customized training solutions to hone the required competencies, skills and making students ready for the professional world.
The post-lunch session of this final day of the five-day ABS Orientation Programme 2021 witnessed a sparkling LEAD Lecture session by Ms. Pritika Mehta, Founder – SockSoho.com who happened to be the ‘Guest of Honour’ for the day and declared the winner for the business plan competition, “Young Asian Entrepreneurial Challenge (YAEC) 2021”!
Ms. Pritika Mehta is a Data Scientist turned Entrepreneur. She is the founder of SockSoho, India’s largest direct-to-consumer socks brand for men. Ms. Pritika has worked with Fortune 500 companies in the US including Bank of America, Tripadvisor etc. and start-ups before she started SockSoho. She was chosen as an Ambassador by TEDx talks. She has also been a speaker at TEDx Wilmington Women. Her TEDx talk revolved around the future of work in the 21st century and how to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2017, Ms. Pritika Mehta was also chosen as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum. Recently, she was also featured on BBC for her work in tech.
In her LEAD Lecture to the new batch of ABS PGDM students, Ms. Pritika Mehta offered a brief but catchy and eye-opening account of ‘The Journey of SockSoho’ and shared some priceless insights to becoming a successful entrepreneur. The four key takeaways from her session were – (i) Build something that millions can get everywhere; (ii) Innovate in a category and become the best; (iii) Build something that people want; and (iv) Be prepared for a 24×7 life of an entrepreneur.
Thereafter, the day’s session entered into the last leg with a review of the business plan submissions made by students as part of the “Young Asian Entrepreneurial Challenge (YAEC) 2021” grand finale proceedings. Out of more than 100 presentations, 4 were shortlisted for consideration of the winner of the maiden YAEC 2021 Business Plan Competition.
Ms. Pritika Mehta confessed that she was impressed with the “amazing ideas” presented at this competition and said that “all 4 shortlisted submissions had the potential to become winning ideas.” Stating that it was difficult to choose one among them as best, she declared Mr. Arun Das’s business idea of “Deck Gun or Automatic Fire Extinguisher” as the winner for this year’s “Young Asian Entrepreneurial Challenge (YAEC) 2021”.
With this, the grand event-packed five-day ABS Orientation Programme 2021 came to a fitting end!