Innovative solutions to real life challenges in society and businesses
WeSchool concludes 4th edition of Global Citizen Leadership (GCL) Industry Academia – Action based learning approach
Students of Welingkar Institute presented innovative industry business plans through prototypes
Mumbai, 22nd March, 2016: Industry veterans congregated to witness the outcome of six-months long industry collaborated Global Citizen Leadership (GCL) programme at Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research (WeSchool). Students of WeSchool presented their innovative business models through poster presentation and prototype display at the fourth edition of the Global Citizen Leadership (GCL) programme finale last evening.
In a joint collaboration with Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL), USA, a company that trains fortune 500 companies globally on innovation and leadership practices, the GCL program is a WeSchool course which is an integral part of its full-time management program. This unique programme offers a platform to address industry issues and imparts leadership and innovation skills to create a difference in the industrial eco-system.
Over 440 students from the full-time programs worked on 80 varied live business innovation/social impact challenges shared by corporates and government organisations. These prototypes have been created by students themselves after working on them for about five months, under the guidance and mentorship of faculty members. Some of the corporates who have engaged the students on these challenges include McDonald’s, Tata Motors, Mahindra Finance, Shopoholix, Godrej Innovations, Raymonds, TRRAIN, Soul Flower, Maxwell and Hinduja Hospitals along with Start-ups and Government Departments.
The walk-through arranged by WeSchool exhibited the prototypes and posters related to the various challenges and the research findings from their survey of the problem and interactions with the stakeholders. The projects covered various sectors such as Rural, Healthcare, Social, Human Resources, Infrastructure, IT and Energy.
Group Director of WeSchool, Prof Dr Uday Salunkhe said “The Global Citizen Leadership programme is an excellent example of how industry and academia can work together to nurture students. The program nurtures innovative thinking and at the same time encourages empathy. It is unique in its approach due to its immersive nature and ensuring they take the entire trajectory from ideation to execution. We encourage our students to adopt human centric approach while working on industry situations and aim to create leaders who can engage their mind, body and soul of towards creating solutions. We believe such an intervention can create solutions that are innovative, sustainable and have stakeholder involvement.”
Sanjay Burde, currently pursuing PGDM – Healthcare Management mentioned that the “Global Citizen Leadership programme also results in internship and placement opportunities as well as corporate investments boosting entrepreneurial initiatives for WeSchool students. It has helped me understand what Thinking Out of the Box means and the power of team work.”
Ammar Shaikh, PGDM student at WeSchool said “The GCL program has helped me discover many things about my own capabilities too. I feel inspired and I’m thinking of some ideas I would like to develop.”
Some of the interesting projects were –
- Solve Mumbai’s Traffic Problem using Information Technology
- Mobile App for preventive Healthcare
- Initiative towards Breast Cancer Awareness
- Electrical vehicles v/s Gasoline vehicles
- Unconventional way of wearing jewelry
The projects presented in the GCL finale’16 are under review by the participating corporates after which these would progress to explore funding in the next phase.