Not all B-school grads queue up for plum jobs, some start on their own

IIM Calcutta student Vivekanandan M is unperturbed by the placement frenzy on his campus. He is least concerned whether i-banks or consulting firms flood his campus or make crore-plus offers. His mind is on breeding butterflies. He is focused on learning about butterfly food and ways to attract local and migratory species.

While his peers attend interviews, Vivekanandan is charting strategies to build his pilot 1,000 sq ft butterfly park in Uttarakhand this month. The mechanical engineer, from Guindy in Tamil Nadu, is determined to set up 40 butterfly parks across India in two years, once his pilot takes off.

As a child, Vivekanandan was enamoured by butterflies. He soon realized that unlike in the West, India does not have many butterfly gardens where the insects can lay eggs, breed and multiply despite having nearly 1,600 species. He is already in discussion with three resort chains to set up the parks. “Like swimming pools, I want to make butterfly gardens an intrinsic feature of resorts,” he says. 

Like Vivekanandan, in Lucknow, IIM student Arun Tangri is also unfazed by the placement hype on his campus. He is busy preparing presentations for corporates on his initiative to sponsor the education of poor children.

While working as a software engineer at Microsoft India in Hyderabad, Arun noticed the plight of bright underprivileged children. Though these children scored 80-85%, many dropped out of school or were on the verge of dropping out due to financial difficulties. He realised that NGOs were not keen on helping the children of construction workers in areas like Madhapur and Madinaguda. That’s when Arun decided to set up Sankalp Foundation along with a few friends. Today, the organisation sponsors the education of 40 children in Hyderabad by convincing corporates to loosen their purse strings. The average fee per child is Rs2,500 per year.

“We convinced the labourers to send their children to school as the funding would be taken care of, while simultaneously we identified children who genuinely required funding,” says Arun.
Vivekanandan and Arun form a small group of management students who are inclined to establish their own initiatives toward the betterment of society. Both feel that their management education made them understand concepts in finance and marketing, and taught them how to build a network of contacts.

“Management principles are the key for running any initiative,” says Kumar Ankit from Xavier’s Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) in Jamshedpur. He is working toward the creation of jobs for 50,000 small and marginal farmers in Bihar by encouraging them to cultivate a bio-diesel yielding crop called pongamia in the wastelands to generate energy.

Although the MBA syllabus is structured to prepare students to join companies rather than start their own initiatives, there is a trend of students opting out of placements to devote themselves to their projects, say experts.

“However a firm eco-system needs to be in place in institutes which can support the entrepreneurial desires of students,” says Prof Madhukar Shukla of XLRI. Prof Amit Dhiman, placement chairperson, IIM Calcutta, says that deferred placements, which are prevalent in several B schools, are necessary to encourage students to pursue careers other than those offered by corporates.

“If a student is unsuccessful in the pursuit of an alternate career, he can enter the placement process later. This helps mitigate the risk which students face if they aspire to venture into alternate careers,” says Dhiman. Vivekanandan says that deferred placements is of tremendous help as it allows budding entrepreneurs like him to take the plunge.

Apart from deferred placements, there is a requirement for seed funding, incubation, as well as some kind of fellowship which takes care of the basic requirements of the student, says Shukla. “If fellowships are provided, then the student can fully devote himself to his projects without worrying about day-to-day expenses.”