The Indian economy has witnessed rapid growth during the last two decades as a consequence of liberalization and globalization. Such growth has created challenges for both environmental and social sustainability.  Rapid industrialization and urbanization, on one hand, has resulted in depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation, while on the other, it has caused large scale migration, increase in urban poverty and stagnation of the rural economy.

Fortunately, such challenges have spurred several organizations into creating business models that explicitly address the needs of the poor, create products and services that are environmentally friendly and adopt sustainable practices.  In a week long programme at IIM Bangalore students from Hitotsubashi ICS, Renmin Business School, Yale SOM, HKUST and IIMB discussed the challenges of sustainability that India and many rapidly growing countries from emerging economies are grappling with and explored some of the business models, which in their innovative ways, are providing possible answers to deal with these challenges. Apart from in-class discussions led by real life case studies, students met with top management at companies like Furlenco, Chumbak, LetsVenture, Axilor and Accel Partners.

Industry experts on start-ups mentored the students on various subjects including the problems with incubators and how to solve them; Support services in the ecosystem; Building a vibrant startup ecosystem; and Startups and Intellectual Property (IP). On the last day, a panel comprising industry experts discussed about: ‘Taking Stock of the Ecosystem – Opportunities and Challenges’.

Most participants stayed at the campus during GNW and they soaked in the greenery and flowers blooming all around the IIMB campus. As the campus is centrally placed, participants were happy to explore the city for shopping and Indian cuisine. It was delightful to see some participants in Indian attire on the last day.