IIT Bombay Independence Day Biathlon 2018

Posted on August 18, 2018 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

Diamond Jubilee is an important milestone in the remarkable journey of the institute that is taking challenges such as becoming an Institute of Excellence (IoE). IIT Bombay has a memorable journey spanning six decades, but the road ahead is now getting steeper. Having healthy students and campusites is a dream for any institute aspiring to evolve a greener campus. IITB Biathlon, that is in its 7^th year, has these dimensions as part of its strategic intent.

Here is a brief update @ highlights of the I-Day Biathlon 2018 that was organized from 6:00 AM on Independence Day, 15th August, 2018

More than 70 participants turned up before 6 AM, despite rainy weather
Many of these were freshers of biathlon, participating for the first time
Still, more than 60 completed the biathlon; a very high percentage
All women participants completed
Rich experiences were shared by veterans such as coach Dr. P. M. Reddy, J. P. Yadav, Prof. Prakriti Tayalia, Kuldeep Singh and others
Professor Mujumdar, Deputy Director (DD), IITB presented the medals

Indicative timing of first few completed participants are given below.

Students_Boys
Participants – 55	Total Time
Praveen Kumar	29:28:00
Dhanya Bahadur	32:01:00
Vinay Kumar	32:52:00
Rohan Shah	33:32:00
Avnish Bhagwate	34:18:00
Campusites_Men
Sridhar Sahu	30:55:00
Pravin Chavre	32:50:00
Prof. Dayadeep Monder	34:19:00
Prof. Sharat Chandran	34:54:00
Dr. Sreenath Ramanath	36:54:00
Women_Campusites and Students
Prof. Prakrati Tayaliya	16:31:00
Dhruti Shah	17:38:00
Mansi Khedekar	18:56:00
Vijai Laxmi	23:36:00

Here are few photographs of participants and high-potential athletes who may climb higher heights through practice in the near future.

Enthusiastic participants ready to start

Achievers being honored by Professor Mujumdar, Deputy Director, IIT Bombay

Leading women athletes on the podium receiving honors

Potential athletes should start practice for ‘Republic Day Biathlon’ and other exciting events on campus such as Triathlon and Swimathon. Some day you will aspire to complete some real triathlons on IITB campus and in India such as ones in Hyderabad, Pune.

We acknowledge cooperation from the Institute, SJM School of Management, Institute Sports Council members Ritik Madan, Pratik Patil and their whole team. Our team members- Sneha (has contributed to the organisation of several biathlons), Rayees, Shakti, Viral, Raj (for photography) and other volunteers deserve lot of encouragement. Group on Competitiveness, IIT Bombay has been co-organizing this event for benefit of campus community .

Keep visiting this blog page and our other pages to get info @ opportunities related to research and other projects:

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kirankumar_Momaya

For any ideas or suggestions to improve this challenge event, please email or talk to Dr. K. S. Momaya (momaya@iitb.ac.in) or 022-2576 7759; thank you for your ideas.

Best of practice in improving weather!

International Competitiveness

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

Take the challenge of life by learning @ competitiveness

Since most of the learners do not know @ competitiveness, we receive lot of questions. This is true for even IIT Bombay, a leading institute of competitiveness research. So here you go; FAQ’s related to the course, we are proud about.

What’s the course?

The course is about an emerging concept ‘International Competitiveness’ that has high relevance for capable learners at IITB. Key objective of the course is to give sound basics and new perspectives to learners. By effectively participating and contributing to the course, a conscientious learner should be able to:

Develop an understanding about the concept, importance and processes of competitiveness / excellence
Learn about the fundamentals of competitiveness using relevant resources: from articles, caselets to online learning resources, papers, books
Identify practical dimensions through discussion of cases and caselets
Give practical ideas and change agenda through challenging projects for competitiveness of ventures / firms

What’s unique @ the course?

IIT Bombay is among few institutions in the world (e.g. Harvard) to offer Competitiveness course. IIT Bombay has been contributing significantly to competitiveness research (for example see at Google Scholar, ResearchGate,..).

The course is developed based on years of research, teaching and outreach to industry in Competitiveness. The course was first offered at IITB in 2012 and has been upgraded over the years.

The course has been designed to impart distinctive skills, knowledge and perspectives to committed learners. Following are the few elements of this holistic learning opportunity for IIT students. Here is just a glimpse of elements that make it a great learning opportunity for IITB students:

Opportunity to learn and compete in projects dealing in competitiveness of Industries and firms.
Interaction with past learners, professionals and executives from leading firms and ventures.
Challenge options to learn, practice, compete and excel on different fronts –Intellectual, Physical, Social,

Why shall we take it? Now?

Opportunities to take such challenge courses come once in lifetime. You can look at the challenges being taken by past learners and the heights some are aspiring to climb.

These are just a few of the learners of the course in different walks of LIFE:

Corporate: Aman Shah (Nomura Consulting),..Anuj Karkare (Enpro),…

Research: Pranusha, Karan Gupta

Entrepreneurship / Adventure: Vivek Shivde, Ketan Bhokray

This year the course comes with newer contexts, concepts and case studies. The course is a once in 2 year opportunity. The course on a distinct and significant subject like International Competitiveness is definitely not the one you want to miss this year!!!

When is it slotted?

The course is offered in Institute Elective slot (slot 6; Wed. & Fri., 11:00-12:30). Venue will class room 4 (CR4; 2nd Floor in SJMSOM building).

What to plan?

Its an interesting yet demanding and challenging course, we suggest a systematic approach for swift adaptation, progress and learning. Here are key suggestions:

Since this is high intensity, challenging course, we suggest that you plan systematically to have higher match and learning that you can apply. Here are key suggestions:

Must Complete the form to access material, information, etc.
Keep your updated CV & SoP ready to be shared any stage of selection (we prefer to have higher match of your learning interests & course)
Plan to have adequate time for this course during Jan.-May 2018; schedule your other high intensity courses/projects to minimize overlaps

For any additional questions, clarifications

Please talk to us & clarify your doubts.
You can contact Amruta @ amrutadeokar007@gmail.com at 9404001981

Republic Day Biathlon 2017

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

The IITB Biathlon climbs 10^th step

What can be a better way to start the group challenge of 2017, the best year of the block of few years to vision 2020. Governments across levels in India have been working hard to accelerate growth. If with that, some real ventures grow fast, including internationally, we will have more exciting jobs, careers and future. Having crossed the milestones such as 10,000 students, IIT Bombay (IITB) is also embarking multiple actions under a strategic plan 2017-20. We at the Group on Competitiveness (GoC) are proud @ contributions we have made for research in the area, as well as, CSR. 10^th IITB Biathlon is a good example of that CSR. Thanks to significant advance planning, response in registration was better. More importantly, conversion rate was far better, and we had more than 100 enthusiastic participants, including good participation from M.Mgt., veteran athletes, regular practitioners and many first timers. Important lessons emerged for many interested learners.

Here is just a glimpse of key highlights of the 10^th Biathlon:

Enthusiasm of participants was amazing, many reported before time
Start was given by Reddy Coach, the veteran behind many initiatives on campus such as Swimathon
Participation in women category was far better this year; lead was provided by BTechs
Spirit of run was stronger and many could complete the full biathlon, perhaps highest in recent events; several people who got late, ran with enthusiasm
Regular practice helps in climbing heights. Some of the winners of this triathlon (see Table) practice regularly and have already completed full/half marathons/swimmathons or higher with good timing
Professor Sameer Jadhav, Chairman Sports, graced the occasion to witness the spirit and give medals to winners in different categories (a photo below; many more can be seen at the link)
On this auspicious occasion, winners were also given event T-shirts having creative design, thanks to efforts by IITB Sports Council

Table: Leading athletes in different categories

	Students-Male (5km run+7km cycling)
1st position	Kuldeep Singh
2nd position	Anand Gaurav
3rd position	Manoj Kumar

	Campusites-Male (5km run+7km cycling)
1st position	Sahil Sharma
2nd position	Vagish Prasad
3rd position	Prof. Harish Phularia

	Students+Campusites-Female(1.4 km run+5km cycling)
1st position	Dhruti Shah
2nd position	Tanya Singh
3rd position	Mahika Raghunathan

All winners of different categories with Reddy Coach, volunteers and mentors

Winners in different categorieswith Reddy Coach, volunteers and mentors

Such noble initiatives couldn’t have sustained without active contributions of several stakeholders. We remember several energetic youth who have contributed significantly to this 10 mile journey of IITB Biathlon, e.g. Pranusha, Ankur, Lalit and Vivek. Sneha and team of researchers, Rahul, Vishwas and Rayees, have contributed significantly to this event. They have been building on good work of other researchers at SJMSOM. Some of them have done very exciting experiments in research (as can be seen from their basic knowledge shared; pl. visit the urls by clicking,…). Dhondi Sai Krishna, an amazing photographer has been contributing to Biathlon. Get a feel for event through his beautiful photography.

From coaching community, Dr. Reddy Coach has been a source of strong support. Prof. Sameer Jadhav, Prof. Sharat Chandran, Prof. B K Chakravarthy,…have all been contributing. Institute sports council has been cooperating for the event for years. This year, Aditya Kumawat, Sahil Dhingra and his team put considerable efforts. We thank all of above and many other hidden contributors, whom we couldn’t acknowledge here.

With such a milestone, we hope to plan next level event in coming planning cycle, once team has been trained adequately. We are getting feel for difficulties ahead and hence are looking for associates keen on next level challenges. Wish to explore such evolving experiments, build capabilities through unique courses such as ‘International Competitiveness’ and the multi-stage selection process to take the challenge of becoming an associate of IITB ‘Group on Competitiveness’.

We are pleased to invite you to an information event at IITB that will bring professors of several leading Japanese universities to interact directly with IITB students keen on doing research in Japan. If you are keen, keep evening of March 9 free, and seek out details.

Thank you all for making 2016 a challenging and rewarding year

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

2016 was a challenging year in many respects. Leadership in politics introduced several pioneering initiatives such as “Startup India” and “Standup India” and to promote entrepreneurship and to enhance “Ease of Doing Business”. Leading industry association, CII explicitely selected theme for 2016-17 “Building National Competitiveness”. Such initiatives are helping bring awareness about competitiveness.

Group on competitiveness (GoC) has been steadily working on competitiveness research for knowledge creation and sharing to create awareness and has been striving hard to build on journey of more than 2 decade. We worked enormously on administrative fronts (e.g. Admissions), still we tried to advance on research as well as outreach. Achievements on research front are more remarkable due to some quality journals we competed. Here is just a glimpse of events, initiatives and achievements by members of GoC:
• We matched 2013 peak (in terms of no. of papers), but with better quality and competed in newer arenas.
• Years of hard work on research on internationalization, driven by Sundar had major break-outs. Comparative case studies of two competitive tyre firms of Indian origin (FIOs) has reached a relevant journal.
• Sneha and Pranusha played at IIM Indore IB conference. Sneha’s contribution on IP was presented at 4^th International Conference on IP and Strategy ( MIPS16). Findings of micro-studies have started reaching audiences as book chapter through platforms such as RG.
• With 3 papers, Dharmesh is competing at an international journal from
his work on innovation management
• Lalit’s contribution on technological innovation reached an international strategy and management journal.
• No. of associates learning Japanese is growing and we had visit of the
Ambassador of Japan to IITB campus, perhaps first time in 2010s.
• We had quite energetic participants from build to last firms (e.g. > 6
decades of journey), who endured grueling program (see photo) Management of Technology
and Innovation for Competitiveness at IITB campus.

Alert learners keen to know @ IITB Research Park even @ 22:00

• We have started selection processes for selecting energetic participants (e.g.
triathloners/biathloners, if not swimmathoners) for the unique IITB 2017
program. Interested learners can complete the form.

• Last, but not the least, thanks to hard work of members and associates
of GoC over years, we crossed the target of 1000 citations much ahead of
time (2018).

Triathlon / swimathon friendly members of GoC are excited to welcome new
challenges of 2017, as our balanced and efficient operation help us intensify our contributions to IITB (in its new strategic plan) and in arenas of internationalization and MoT for international competitiveness.

With steps towards better quality and knowledge sharing with industry in 2016, learners of competitiveness will take next level challenges in 2017 and beyond to achieve our contributions targets for Vision 2020.

Unique IITB Program on Innovation and MoT

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

Highlights of Program on Innovation Management_International Participants

Detailed Brochure of Program on Innovation_International Participants

For domestic participation, please feel above form and we will try to get back to you within 3 days.

IITB Republic Day Biathlon 2016

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

With an efficient government starting several path breaking initiatives, 2016 promises to be a memorable year. One very exciting initiative for learners of competitiveness focusing on venture competitiveness, may be the ‘Start-up India Summit’ where our PM and Team launched/declared an action plan having several measures to accelerate scale-up of start-ups.
Biathlon can be a good starting point for next level challenges such as Triathlon, which are getting popular in some Indian cities also. New organizing team of this Republic Day Biathlon lead by Group on Competitiveness (GoC) member Sneha Bhat has focused on quality measurements. Here are quick highlights of IITB Republic Day Biathlon 2016:
• Quality biathloners; more than 95 % participants successfully completed the biathlon, perhaps the highest percentage in IITB biathlons
• Increasing proportion of women, almost reaching 1/3
• Mayanka challenged men by competing in their category, which is much longer distance then women category
• Sustaining participants, some have started practicing
• Participation by several serious long distance players, who have already completed half marathons
• Better recording of time, thanks to efforts by Sneha & team
• Increasing contributions from SJMSOM on multiple dimensions
o Max. no. of staff participation (incl. first time entry by Dhaval and Pradeep)
o Repeat participation of ladies team
• Quick tips for beginners from accomplished achievers such as Sreenath and Anup Bali-a sports leader of SJMSOM who have already completed two Mumbai Full Marathons in less than two years of his stay on campus.

Table: Leading participants in each category

Group behind Republic Day Biathlon 2016

Thank you volunteers for your contributions for improving quality in this event.

More pictures related to the R-Day Biathlon16 are shared here.

We acknowledge cooperation from members of SJMSOM sports club SPIKE, led by Manmohan Singh. We thank Dr. Reddy Coach, in-charge Gymkhana, and IITB sports leaders Nihal, Sukhada and others for their help and sustained cooperation with IITB Biathlon. The event provided an opportunity for budding biathloners to meet, interact and learn from some accomplished enduros.

With signs of quality improvements, we are looking forward to an exciting 2016—the Olympic year—for friends who practice regularly.

Keep up on practice as more challenging events such as IITB Run (including Half Marathon), Swimming Gala and Swimathon await you on campus. Those very keen on next level challenges, feel free to talk to us at GoC, a unique greener group identifying potential champions of enduring competitiveness. Please do revisit this and other posts to know about opportunities for competing at conferences, journals and internship openings in specific areas: e.g.

Upcoming Conference:Technology Management and Competitiveness
Journal: International journal of Global Business and Competitiveness (IJGBC)

Goodbye 2015: A Memorable Year in Many Respects

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

The year 2015 was memorable in many respects. The most important may perhaps be the efforts and achievements of young members of the Group on Competitiveness (GoC). Also Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM), IIT Bombay completed 2 decades—quite a remarkable journey of childhood to start emerging as a leading research-based management school of India. We have started a major experiment of Executive MBA (EMBA) in cooperation with Washington University in St. Louis in 2015.

The Group on Competitiveness (GoC) completed half a decade at IIT Bombay. It is quite a short time, but thanks to its energetic members, the group has started contributing to differentiation of SJMSOM, IITB. Here is just a glimpse of some achievements to celebrate and build on:

2^nd course on competitiveness was launched and benefited more than 70 students; 2 competitiveness courses were offered in a calendar year, perhaps 1^st time for any IIT or even IIM or any institution in India
GoC Alumni (from IITB) have started landing in Japan
Sundar represented us at major conference and paper development workshops (PDWs) of AIB, the leading academy of international business (IB) that came first time to India in more than 5 decades:

Sujata presented her work at conference of Strategic Management Forum (SMF), leading strategy focused society of India
Beginner GoC associates are getting trained at basics of knowledge-creation and sharing (KCS); Rahul, Deepa and Lalit cooperated to publish their first journal paper
Enduro associates are climbing steps; e.g. Pranusha’s first journal paper got > 200 reads; her next knowledge artefact may compete at a C-level competitiveness journal
Thanks to all associates, we crossed 600 citations since 2010 (as compared to less than 200 in earlier 12 years; a kind of a 5X) (Source: Scholar, 25 Dec. 2015).
New associates have started getting on track early on: e.g. Sneha completed her first biathlon and a conference paper in the first sem.
With quantity part being taken care of by younger associates, mature associates will start focusing on quality

We are excited about 2016. We hope to see papers reaching many more people; more energetic engineers exploring competitiveness course and even industry leaders getting taste of knowledge emerging from India’s leading group on competitiveness. Due to hard work done by us to lay foundations in the first half of the decade, we feel confident of taking the group forward to next heights in the second half.

We plan to build-on systematically to take SJMSOM, IITB in to top ranks in MoT and competitiveness, and related areas such as Strategy, Internation Business,…

GoC members wish you a healthy, more energetic and challenging year 2016. Let’s cooperate on shared values such as hard work, diligence and commitment to quality. I urge you to at least have a glimpse of a beautiful book by the great former president of India late Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari—Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences…—from which I borrow a quote:

The most powerful force on this planet is human cooperation

You may directly post comments on this post or Email to momaya@iitb.ac.in with sub: Comment on blog.

IITB Independence Day Biathlon 2015

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

Considering that 2015 is an unique year for Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM) in several ways, we had desire to build on good work being done at IITB, the university sustaining top ranks in India. SJMSOM is also building steadily on research to sustain it’s position as a leading a niche management school of South Asia. With emerging areas such as international competitiveness getting many capable students, SOM is likely to strengthen its differentiation.

This biathlon was dedicated to our beloved late former president of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. We tried to improve on following fronts as compared to the past event:

Longer distances for cycling to increase the challenge
Higher women participation target was set and achieved
Staff participation was much better, including staff who rarely get such opportunities
First time, separate categories for campusites were introduces and good number participated

Glimpse of spirit of participants can be seen in photos here. Medals were distributed by the Dean (Student Affairs), Prof. Soumyo Mukherjee (glimpse of select medal winners is given below; more can be seen at the drive.

_DSC1642

Spirit of the day at the start of the event

Prof. Mukherjee with the winner Mr. Manoj Kumar

Joy of completing

Key volunteers

We acknowledge contribution of volunteers who played a key role on that day, who worked at the back-end for many days with Lalit Lalwani (who did not get sleep previous night to make things happen), Anup Bali and his team. Able proactive approach by the IITB Athletics Secy, Sukhada helped in many ways, including in systematic recording of timings for participants.

Let us think next levels creatively and cooperatively, and practice well to enhance IITB participation in higher level events. Feel free to talk to us (e.g. at coop@rediffmail.com, Subject: Feedback on I-Day Biathlon 2015) or directly to me @ your feedback at 2576-7759.

Yogathon for GoC

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Dr. K. S. Momaya

India has started opening new vistas of awareness with proposing Yoga Day. Acceptance of 142/143 countries of IYD reflects the liking of so many countries. With such a response, big responsibility fell on India to demonstrate that new benchmarks of awareness can be set. Thanks to massive efforts by so many organizations, India was ready to demonstrate its concern for health.

IIT Bombay, a leading university of India, also wants to contribute. Practices were planned and interested learners were taught basics of Yoga, particularly Suryanamaskar. The basics were good enough for one to start practice by self. The main coach Sarang Nandedkar and volunteers Shiva were very helpful.

Group on Competitiveness (GoC) often creates awareness for SJMSOM’s participation in such local events. We are very happy that members such as Lalit Lalwani and Yugandhar Vardhineni helped SJMSOM represent well. Research scholar and faculty (incl. families) kept the flag high as all (7/7) completed the Yogathon (108 Suryanamaskar) smoothly. We have rarely seen such balanced achievement by GoC in the past; a symptom of growing maturity of training of members and their desire to climb steps. GoC members were happy to have contributed their bit to such pioneering event of IITB.

IITB Yogathon 108 Suryanamaskar Challenge

Yogathon 2015 Glimpse of participants

The members are getting ready for next level challenges. 7^th IITB biathlon is coming close (First was launched on August 15, 2012) and we hope that several new records will be set.

With very successful participation in the local Yogathon, the group is all charged to take next steps on competitiveness research journey. We eagerly look for matching talent that is keen to aim next levels in Swimathon.