IIM Calcutta students win best teams awards at X-Culture 2020 for solving real-life challenges

KOLKATA: Five students of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, have won the 'Best Teams' awards at an international academic competition for solving real-life business challenges of corporates, the institute said in a statement.

The global X-Culture competition was launched by Dr Vas Taras in 2010. In this global event, students from various countries come together as a team, on a virtual format, to solve international business challenges of companies. Along with their international team members, five MBA students of IIM Calcutta - Soham Basu Chaudhury, Ikjot Kaur, Arun Sharma, Haritha Unnikrishnan and Ritika Verma - were recognised for their excellent performance in a highly competitive process, the statement said on Wednesday.

Their teams were picked up from among 45 'Best Teams' from 1,277 teams, comprising 5,955 MBA students from 150 universities in 78 countries. Each team was given a problem-solving task for an international business and the business idea was to be submitted in a form of a report. The 1,277 reports submitted were evaluated by a large group of international business experts comprising 174 professors and coaches from 45 countries.

Each report was independently evaluated by 3-7 experts on several parameters, including report creativity, clarity, viability and style. The finalists were evaluated by an additional awards committee and owing to the worthiness of multiple reports, 45 teams were listed as 'Best Teams', the statement said.

Prof Ramya Venkateswaran of the Strategic Management Group said, "The X-Culture project is a greatly engaging pedagogical element in my international business course that brings alive the context and challenges of doing business across borders. "The opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge to a live company project, interacting with global practitioners, while simultaneously negotiating cross-cultural challenges in a global virtual team, makes for a rich and deeply reflective personal experience for my students that boosts their confidence to take up international assignments in future."

Institute Director Prof Anju Seth said, "Internationalisation is one of the key pillars of our strategy at IIM Calcutta to prepare our students to be effective managers and leaders in the global workplace. "In the year of the COVID-pandemic, the X-culture competition provided a particularly valuable opportunity for students to collaborate virtually on a global platform and develop a winning strategy for international businesses".

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