Prof. Sourav Mukherjee was an inspiration for me, to say the least. What his lecture instilled in

me is that we, as PGP students can really put our knowledge into use to develop the society. He

explained using two examples. The first one being the one in which Diageo developed some

methods to provide hygienic beer to the poor in Africa. However, he also gave us insights as to

whether this was really required because this might have induced many non-drinkers to drink.

The second example was about the Gyaanshaala School. The learning from this case was the

great business model, which was on the lines of Amul and Aravind Eye Care. The model was

divided into 2 parts, which are design and delivery. A proper design for education was created

which could be easily executed by low skilled teachers too, even without any infrastructure.

Thus, the lecture was a great eye opener as to most key problems have very simple solutions. All

that is required is concern towards our society and a little bit of common sense.

Mr. Mahadevan was another person who motivated all of us to another level all together. The

main learning for me was the use of consulting in social welfare. What was a major learning for

me was the fact that consulting is far better as career in social development as it is very easy to

get the access to key data. He took the examples of the Akshaya Patra Foundation and the

Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam. He also told us about the projects he worked with, along with

his students at IIMB. The fact that together they were able to come up with a simple but effective

software for supplying food to thousands of students in various parts of India. To put it across

simply, he also told us that it was a basic Operations Research problem. However, there are a lot

more constraints than what can be seen on paper, which can truly be understood only with field

experience.

On the whole, the M.A.D sessions have truly shown me how MAD we were all this while.

Although we have all been aware of all these problems, we have simply ignored them thinking

that someone else is there to solve the problem. This series of lectures have shown us the right

way. The M.A.D project, according to me will give the real meaning to the MBA degree. As Mr.

Mahadevan said, “The MBA programme gives you only the tools to solve a problem. It’s up to

you to go out there and solve the problem.” The M.A.D project certainly gives us all an

opportunity to do so.