Career Launcher plans B-school

Career Launcher, a premier Masters of Business Administration (MBA) test preparation institute in India, is all set to join the league of B-schools. Indus World School of Business (IWSB), as the B-school is christened, will induct its first batch next year.

With an investment to the tune of Rs 50 crore, the B-school will come up in Greater Noida. It will accept scores of Common Admission Test (CAT), Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) and Xavier Admission Test (XAT), for a strength of 90 students in its first batch.

The B-school will eventually look at seeking approval from the regulatory body of technical education in the country, All India Council for Technical Education.

Industry interface and entrepreneurial leadership forms a major focus of the B- school's syllabus. "A core differentiator for our B-school is that we are not targeting to place our students with the largest companies, but with the fastest-growing companies," Satya Narayanan, founder-chairman, Career Launcher Education Foundation and director, IWSB said. "We have signed letter of intent with over 20 companies for internship programme of our students," added Narayanan. These include Google, Mototrola, AstraZeneca, CNBC-Network 18, InfoEdge and others.

The B-school also boasts of an incubator at campus. With a seed money of $1 million, the incubator will help young entrepreneurs of the B- school actualise their business plans. All that a student has to do is prepare a project-plan and get it approved by a special board created for this purpose. This Board will consist of industry experts, who would later guide these students in setting up their enterprise.

"We will invest money, provide the student with a laptop, necessary infrastructure, and industry expertise right from day one. The seed fund will then take a small stake in that venture," Narayanan said.

IWSB will begin with 10 permanent faculty members who will be actively engaged in research and industry consultation.

It already has illustrious names like Philip Anderson, dean, INSEAD Singapore, Sridhar Iyengar, former chairman and chief executive officer of KPMG India, Ishwar Dayal, former director, IIM-Lucknow, Mirza S Siayadain, former professor, IIM-Ahmedabad and others on its board.

"We aspire to turn IWSB into a full fledged university by 2012," said Narayanan.

Career Launcher forayed into mainstream education two years back with a chain of Central Board of Secondary Education-affiliated Indus World Schools.

It also has plans to set up play-schools across the country. With all these initiatives the Rs 90 crore-company is all set to touch the Rs 500-crore mark by 2012.