The Asian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Immersion Programme by three business schools–the Hyderabad based Indian School of Business (ISB), NUS, Singapore and Tsinghua, China– had participants come up with their ideas on setting up a company in either one of the markets.

With a stated objective of transcending physical borders, cultures and economies, 20 students each from the business schools formed the Tri-Uni contingent, spending one week each in the three campuses.

The Asian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Immersion Programme by three business schools–the Hyderabad based Indian School of Business (ISB), NUS, Singapore and Tsinghua, China– had participants come up with their ideas on setting up a company in either one of the markets.

The first week at NUS was on understanding disruption in modern markets. The students were asked to frame a business model for an idea which solved a pre-existing problem.

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Emergenetics International, an organizational development company,   helped sort the students into groups, based on psychological profiles to ensure parity.

The session helped the students identify the strengths, drivers and possible barriers while working together.

Meanwhile, to provide the students with details of start-up thinking, NUS lined up visits to IDA Labs, Impact Hub, Blk71, and the NUS Entrepreneurship Society over the course of the week.

The session concluded with a presentation by the students on their learning and a mock-up business model of their idea.

At THU, China, they took this idea forward by means of the SPRINT methodology of getting to a Minimum Viable Product. Visits to Tsinghua’s XLabs, the Zhongguancun Innoway and SEM Accelerator gave the students understand the difference in market strategies of Singapore and China.

The students were treated to a game of business simulation centered around the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ to test how much of group dynamics had been worked on since the previous week.

The teams visited the start-up sphere, represented by Sensetime and Apply Square and full-fledged companies (SinoSteel and ChemChina).  They were able to acquire a working knowledge of the Chinese market.

The inputs were later showcased in the presentations for that week. Their ideas in week one got restructured to cater to the Chinese market.

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At ISB, students were taught about innovation and also to use creative destruction to disrupt the markets. Taking the idea of their start-ups forward through multiple modules helped students understand the importance of being able to monetize an idea and to capitalize on it in time.

Sessions at the Technology Hub, India’s first start-up accelerator, fostered the seeds of innovation in students, while visits to Bharath Biotech and Microsoft India showcased how Intellectual Property Management and Offshore Innovation need to work in tandem for a company to achieve success.

The trend of innovation, IP rights management and offshoring/outsourcing solutions was continued in the presentations, with the groups analyzing their ideas as potential start-ups and deciding the path forward for each of the ideas. (Image Courtesy : pixabay.com)

Dubbed the ‘Oscars of the business school world’ by the Financial Times, the annual awards are given out by the Aspen Institute in the United States to recognise educators who have integrated social and environmental issues into academic research, educational programmes, and business practice.

Mary Margaret Frank

The award ceremony takes place took place recently in New York. There are only three recipients this year, with Associate Professor Mahmood winning in the ‘Rising Star’ category. Other winners include Mary Margaret Frank, Associate Professor and Academic Director, Institute for Business in Society, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia & Ryan D. Cabinte, Associate Dean, MBA/MPA Program, Presidio Graduate School

“Our Faculty Pioneer Awards this year honour faculty who challenge students to think more deeply about the comparative roles that the public and private sectors play in both value creation and problem solving. Many of the big issues of our day — whether economic growth, climate change, or access to healthcare and education – require really careful thought about what business and government can each do,” said Ms Claire Preisser, manager of the Faculty Pioneer Awards selection process and Senior Programme Manager at the Aspen Institute Business & Society Programme.

Professor Mahmood

“A person sitting next to me on a plane once taught me that we do not really teach what we want to teach, but we teach who we are. My dream is that I would someday be useful to someone, somehow.”

She added: “We thought Professor Mahmood’s teaching brought the public-private interface into the classroom in really interesting ways. For instance, teaching about ‘institutional voids’ that might lead to trade-offs between firm-level competitiveness and macro-economic growth, or teaching about the linkages between firm strategy and the interaction of firms and the state in various national contexts. Associate Professor Mahmood thus receives our ‘Rising Star’ Award which honours, in a special way, scholars who are doing the kind of work we value, and doing that work at a relatively early point in their career.”

Ryan Cabinte

Winners and finalists were selected by Aspen Institute staff in consultation with three academic advisers:  Dr Bruce Buchanan, Stern School of Business, New York University; Dr Bruce Hutton, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver; and Dr Anita McGahan, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Nominations for the Awards were submitted by distinguished academics globally, and self-nominations were not considered.

“This award has inspired me to think about how I can use my teaching to solve real-life problems faced by societies and business communities. I hope this award will inspire NUSBusiness School to become the best place in the world to study and learn about innovative products and business models across various emerging markets,” said Associate Professor Mahmood.

A faculty member of NUS Business School’s Department of Strategy and Policy, Associate Professor Mahmood teaches at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and directs the popular ‘Business Strategies for Asia’ Executive Education programme for senior executives. He also studies and works with multinational and indigenous companies on their emerging market strategies. A large part of Associate Professor Mahmood’s research is on how firms make the transition from being imitators to innovators.

He joined NUS Business School in 1999, after obtaining an economics degree from Oberlin College (1992) and a PhD from Harvard University (1999). Since 2012, he has also concurrently held the appointment of Professor at IMD Lausanne, where he teaches in its flagship Orchestrating Winning Performance programme.

Associate Professor Mahmood earlier taught at the Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan, and is a member of the Asian Service Business Research Institute at Waseda University. In 2002, he won the Haynes Prize, awarded by the Academy of International Business to prominent scholars in international business who are under the age of 40.

As part of the awards, Associate Professor Mahmood’s course syllabus, Asia Pacific Business and Institutions, will be featured on Aspen Institute’s resource page.

Remarked Associate Professor Mahmood: “A person sitting next to me on a plane once taught me that we do not really teach what we want to teach, but we teach who we are. My dream is that I would someday be useful to someone, somehow.”

With a career spanning four decades at the BOJ, Mr Shirakawa will bring a wealth of expertise to the School. He will be sharing his insights through various activities, including seminars, talks and dialogues with faculty members, students and the business community. Mr Shirakawa will also be taking part in discussions at the MAS.

Mr Shirakawa was the 30^th Governor of the BOJ between April 2008 and March 2013. He assumed the position of Governor after a term as professor at the Kyoto University School of Government between July 2006 and March 2008. From January 2011 to March 2013, Mr Shirakawa was also concurrently Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Mr Shirakawa had joined the Bank in 1972 and held several other key positions in monetary policy and financial stability.

“We are deeply honoured to welcome Mr Shirakawa to NUS Business School. Given his experience in guiding monetary policy in the world’s third-largest economy and his distinguished career at BOJ, we have much to learn from him. We look forward to his sharing, and I am confident that our school and the business community will benefit immensely from the discussions,” said Professor Bernard Yeung, Dean and Stephen Riady Distinguished Professor, NUS Business School.

Since leaving the BOJ last year, Mr Shirakawa has also been Special Professor of International Politics, Economics and Communication at Aoyama Gakuin University, and is a member of the Group of Thirty (G30). The latter is a private, non-profit, international body composed of senior private and public sector leaders as well as academia that aims to deepen the understanding of international economic and financial issues.

Mr Shirakawa joins Dr Duvvuri Subbarao, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, as one of two Distinguished Visiting Fellows at NUS Business School this year.

A career civil servant with some 40 years’ experience in India’s state and federal governments, Dr Subbarao will take part in various activities at NUS Business School, the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). He will share his wealth of insight and expertise at seminars, forums, workshops, lectures and meetings with policymakers, academia, students and the business community. 

NUS Business School, Singapore