Five entries shortlisted for Business Standard B-School Project Award 2018

Finals to decide winner and two runners-up of the coveted Business Standard Best B-School Project Award

Five best entries, shortlisted by a power-packed jury, will compete for the coveted Business Standard Best B-School Project Award 2018 in the final round to be held 

on Saturday.

The jury comprises Ajit Balakrishnan, founder & chief executive officer (CEO), Rediff.com, and chairman of the jury, Nishi Vasudeva, former chairman and managing director, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Hasit Joshipura, senior vice-president and electrical & automation head, Larsen & Toubro, Rajat Gupta, senior partner, McKinsey, and Ambi Parameswaran, founder, Brand-building.com.

The shortlisted projects include a plan for creating awareness and consumption of fortified milk. It addresses countrywide vitamin deficiencies for the National Dairy Development Board by Roopal Singh and Vyom Joshi from Inst­itute of Rural Management, Anand; a budgeting tool to replace manual estimation of indirect spends by KJ Somaiya’s Harshil Shah.

The jury was also impressed by a project on improving logistics for the movement of telecom equipment at Airtel by Shailesh Mahajan from NITIE, Mumbai; an entry strategy into the solar industry for Cummins India by Prerna Chopdar from IIT Kharagpur, and a strategic methodology for deployment of charging stations and mapping energy infrastructure within a city for electric vehicles by Nimesh Shah from the School of Petroleum Management, PDPU, Ahmedabad.

The criteria used by the jury to shortlist the projects included the quality of research and analysis, the issues being addressed, practicality of the solution and the extent of innovation, apart from the problem being addressed. The members also looked into whether the solutions offered would benefit the business.

The jury commended the students’ efforts to tackle big problems, some of which were unconventional. Business Standard had received 131 projects for evaluation in 2018. They were narrowed to the final 17 by Business Standard's official tabulator EY, and finally, the five best were shortlisted.