The PRME Innovation Challenge, which is part of the PRME SDG Student Engagement platform led by the PRME Secretariat, brings together students from Advanced PRME schools to work with businesses to build sustainable business solutions addressing their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) / corporate social responsibility objectives.
Asian Institute of Management’s MBA 2020 team was selected to this year’s PRME Innovation Challenge. There were 34 team submissions from 19 schools from 13 countries. Two finalist teams were selected to work with two companies to develop their sustainability strategy. One of the two teams selected was AIM’s MBA 2020 team, InnovAsian, which won the opportunity to work with France-based Manitou Group. Manitou is a world-leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and servicing of all-terrain, material-handling equipment for construction, agriculture, mining and industrial application. The other team was from Copenhagen Business School, which was designated to work with Rockwell Automation, one of the largest companies in the world dedicated to industrial automation and information.
MBA 2020 InnovAsian team consisted of (from left to right) Tonie Flores, Rahul Nagaraj, Venghat Swaminathan, and Jaganath Taduri. Dr. Felipe Calderon was the faculty mentor to the InnovAsian team. He is also AIM’s representative to PRME.
It was a nine months project that involved Skype interviews with Manitou’s employees, clients, and suppliers. The project also included a survey of Manitou’s stakeholders covering 1,093 respondents from 20 countries. Originally, the Innovation Challenge was supposed to culminate with the final competition between the two teams in New York in June 2020 during the 2020 PRME Global Forum. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the final competition between AIM MBA 2020 InnovAsian Team and Copenhagen Business School was held online on September 23, 2020 before a jury of academics and practitioners. The AIM MBA 2020 InnovAsian Team won the final competition!
Congratulations Tonie Flores, Rahul Nagaraj, Venghat Swaminathan, and Jagannath Taduri and Prof. Felipe Calderon!
