Oberoi International School (OIS), Mumbai, besides providing the best learning experience to the students, also inspires them to lead and develop as entrepreneurs. The recently held unique weeklong “Humanities Enterprise Event” is one such initiative of OIS wherein the students are provided a platform to not only show case their ideas but also to translate them into reality.
A team of grade XI students keyed up at the event which provided an opportunity to pitch their ideas to a group of renowned venture capitalists - India Value Fund, Avendus PE Investment Advisors and Sagecap. The event provided an opportunity to students to apply key business skills such as communication, management and team-work while raising awareness and fostering entrepreneurial spirit. Students worked in teams of 5 over the course of the day designing an e-commerce application from a given brief. Themes focused on marketing, business strategy and the external economic environment.
"E-commerce has gathered a strong interest among Indian entrepreneurs and learners will succeed in the modern world only by effective application of new technologies. This event for entrepreneurship education for schools is unique and the only one that enables applying theoretical syllabus to an E-commerce project. Today’s world is very different from the one yesterday – we are having subjects that are completely new and jobs that have never been seen before. To prepare our students for these changes it’s important to use technology not only as a tool but as a partner. There was a real buzz throughout the week, driven by our shared passion to deliver excellence in education", said Dr. Vladimir Kuskovski, Head of Oberoi International School.
During the course of the day, students got an opportunity to hear and interact on a personal level with renowned experts from the world of international education, such as Kirthiga Reddy, India Head - Facebook, Paul Atherton, MD & Global Head of Finance at Nomura, Navin Talreja, President - Mumbai & Kolkata - Ogilvy, Ashish Jhalani, Founder - eTailing India, Sumit Dutta, Partner - MicKinsey, Tom - Belgian Consulate and few more experts from prominent conglomerates.
"In the session on Marketing, Reddy shared interesting insights on understanding the Indian customer, building brands and e-commerce businesses. She said, "The need of the hour is to put people at the center, understand shifts in consumer media consumption behavior, and leverage mediums that drive greatest effectiveness and efficiency. In the US, digital consumption overtook TV in 2013, driven by mobile growth. This trend is replicating across markets. Marketing platforms like Facebook offer the ability to reach your target audience at scale, drive deep engagement, and measure the impact on brand and business objectives. For e-commerce businesses in particular, it is an ideal match," she said.
The award for the best eCommerce application idea went to a group who developed an application by the name - ’Party All Night’.
Established in 2008, Oberoi International School aims to provide an elevated learning environment through comprehensive facilities and an enriching curriculum. A co-educational private school, OIS offers the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP) for Nursery groups to grade V and CLSP (Cambridge Lower Secondary Programme) and the IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) curriculum for grades VI to X.