Consortium (VNIT)

CONSORTIUM, an initiative by the students and E-CELL of VNIT Nagpur, is the business and management festival of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India. It is an annual convention which takes place in mid January every year. It was started in 2010 by a group of seven students, Mohit Mundra, Suryansh Shukla, Pranjal Johri, Rohit Kulkarni, Rohit Chaudhary, Sai kiran T., and Aditya Kharbade. Consortium is one of the very few conventions in India to be organised by engineering undergraduates. 4000 students from various institutes (IIMs, IITs, NLUs, NITs etc.) in the country take part in many of the events organized as a part of Consortium. The prime motive of the festival is not only to test and brighten the managerial skills of the participants but also to promote a general business acumen and ignite entrepreneurial thinking in the youth of India.

Consortium attracts thousands of participants in various contests. Events include corporate contests, traditional business contests, crowd magnet events, a business plan competition and many online events. These are judged by academicians and industrialists. However, the E-Summit attracts the largest number of attendees from all over the country.

The first Consortium festival was organized in 2010. The next edition, Consortium '11, attracted a large number of participants from all over India. Consortium become one of central India's largest business festivals, and one of the largest in India. It is the only business festival organized in Nagpur. Consortium '13 is scheduled to be hosted in January 2013. Various new events will be added to the already existing ones.

Consortium '12 hosted the very first National Social Entrepreneurship Forum (NSEF)-Idea Conference as well as the 1st Model United Nation of Nagpur, VMUN-2012..

Consortium is funded solely by sponsors, both small and large companies, solicited by the student organizers.

Although Consortium is student-organized, some working professionals from various industries, including the Merchant Navy, have also participated in the past two years.

E-SUMMIT

E-SUMMIT or the Entrepreneurship Summit is a mega ensemble of successful and the budding entrepreneurs from various aspects of life and from different industries with a mission to help carve out a path of success for the ambitious young entrepreneurs of the future. E-Summit usually takes place on the final day of the fest. E-Summit comprises a mega Conclave & Panel Discussions between the proven winners, i.e., the big wigs of the corporate world and the young aspiring winners of tomorrow. E-Summit provides a platform for all of them to come together and think out of the box to promote the entrepreneurship culture amongst the students who dare to think that 'Creating a Job is better than finding one!'. It also hosts guest lectures by eminent people from the academia & industries or people from other aspects of the world who have made it big in their lives. In the past, E-SUMMIT has been host to various people like Mr. Vivek Mohan, MD- Abott India, Mr. Raj Nair, CEO- Avalon Consultants, Mr. Deepak Deshpande, western region Head of Nasscom and Vice President of NetMagic Solutions, Mr. Jay Chopde, CEO- InfoSpectrum, Mr. Ashwin Balivada, CEO- Imperial Distillers, Mr. Nitin Sudame, MD- Spacewood, Mr. Faiz Wahid, Chairman- Pmanifold, Mr. Kaustubh Katdare, CEO- CrazyEngineers Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and many more. E-Summit, every year, is officially sponsored by TiE Nagpur. TiE members themselves make it a point to attend E-SUMMIT every year and also lend support by providing Official Moderators for the Panel Discussions. All these and much more make E-SUMMIT the perfect symposium of Entrepreneurs.

Corporate events

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Corp War

The participants have to take various decisions in the role of a top professional from the corporate world and have to go right up to the top against the brightest minds in the toughest situations.

HRM

The event builds the environment of the ultimate corporate jungle where staying alive means being both street smart and book smart. The participants have to take the role of managing the Human Resource of fictional MNCs. It is made sure by the judging panel that the smart survives each level.

Kaizen

One of the abstract events @ Consortium, it has been designed to test the Lean Management skills of the participants.

Radio FM

It is one of the most popular events to be held in Consortium. Auction and Bidding forms the theme of this event. Any person who loves watching or keeping a track of those flamboyant IPL auctions or the perplexingly detailed EPL auctions may love to be a part of this event.

Traditional events

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Biz Mantra

Another mega attraction at Consortium. The last and current year have been a mind-boggling ride through the world of marketing and sales. Spun by your own Mantra for success in the Bizworld, you are made to outthink the established marketing gurus. So if you think you have the right attitude to compete at the top level, then game on.

Sansad

The Mock Parliament contest. Participants are made to compete in a simulated Parliament environment where qualities such as innovative thinking and decision making skills are tested.

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The Crisis Management event. Here, we are looking for the 'One' who can make the difference, who can rise above the obvious, who can go beyond the odds and the limitations, who carries the swords of intellect and innovation and the one who can rise to the occasion where others have failed.

Sosyal Manoos

This event is an attempt to create a base of students of technological, management and other reputed institutes, to address the problems of rural India and unravel them via a socio-managerial vision. The competition puts actual burning problems of the rural Indian society in front of the contestants and they have to develop solutions for them in their unique way.

Crowd magnet events

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Entrepreneur

Here, the participants take the role of brand new Entrepreneur willing to start a business for which they are given certain amount of investment capital and they are supposed to make the maximum out of it in terms of goods, turn-over, human resource value etc.

AD-Venture

The Advertising event at Consortium, designed to test the ability of the participants to create brand awareness in general public and make a business more popular in the circle of potential buyers.

Car-Nama

Another star attraction at Consortium. Participants are supposed to bear the maximum number of cars in a witty, compelling, fun-filled virtual car business with the use of various schemes by buying, selling, loaning, & mortgaging cars to emerge the winner with the highest no. of cars at the end.

Premier League Manager

This one for the fans of the Beautiful Game. Does Wenger's lack of transfer activity bother you or do you think you might be better than Mourinho at managing the superstars of Real Madrid or Fergie's numerous losses out of refereeing blunders irritate you?? Well!! Stop criticizing because this is your chance to do everything yourself!

B-PLAN

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The B-Plan is one of the biggest attractions at Consortium. It has been precisely designed to test one's business acumen from various perspectives. Boasting of the highest prize money a Massive cash amount to be taken away as the prize for winning, It has always been one of the major & one of the hottest things at Consortium, and will continue to do so in future too.

Informals

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Informals do not require any prerequisites and run all day throughout Consortium. "Management is a skill, not only a performance!" With this thought various on-campus and online events of non-formal nature are also organised. Events like PaintBall have been extremely popular amongst the crowd.

Online Events

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Other than the various events & competitions, workshops on entrepreneurship & general management skills are also organised at Consortium.

Online events like BizzQuiz, Dalal Street, Jugaad etc. have been hosted successfully in the past at Consortium.

Theme

Every edition of Consortium has a unique theme associated with it which symbolizes its CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR). The Theme at Consortium '11 was called "छोटी सी आशा". Whoever said charity begins at home couldn't have been more right! And that is exactly what was done at CONSORTIUM '11- finance with a difference. Everybody talks about financing the ideas presented in digital multimedia, but the Consortium team dived straight to the root of this-to-that voice of a vendor who aspires big. To convert his dreams into absolute realities, Consortium financed his start up. Because this is where the idea germinates, it's a very " छोटी सी आशा ", a hope to one day reach beyond the skies and sail past the westmost abode of the distant stars, because it all starts with a small hope, with a " छोटी सी आशा " One year Later, at Consortium '12 the theme was even larger and taken to newer heights. It had been rechristened as Prajjwalan, figuratively meaning "Lightening of the Lamp of Hope". And this is not merely Lightning, it is a continuum of efforts that ultimately lend themselves to the warmth and light to lighten the fire of hope, the fire of change. One major way of dong this is through microfinance – to orphanages, Women Self Help Groups, farmers, artisans, NGOs, Small scale Medical Services, etc. Let this be everyone's Apollo moment, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"!!!!

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See also

• Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology

References

External links

• CONSORTIUM
• CONSORTIUM '12 TEAM
• Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur