The world renowned Cranfield School of Management in the UK will present a scholarship to any member of the three leading IFAC accountancy bodies in Sri Lanka, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the Institute of Chartered Accountants Sri Lanka (ICASL) or the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants Sri Lanka Branch (CIMA). Full Time MBA Programme Director Sean Rickard who informed Sri Lanka of the scholarship said, “We hope the scholarship attracts candidates who will benefit from this initiative and that, with the help of the accounting bodies in Sri Lanka, it will raise Cranfield’s profile. We are extremely grateful for the support of the institutes in this. We will be reviewing the success of the programme after two years.”

ACCA Sri Lanka’s Immediate Past President, Dilshan Rodrigo, himself an alumni of the Cranfield School of Management extends his best wishes to all candidates and says, “I hope most sincerely that this initiative will signal the birth of a new generation of professional skilled managers who will add value to the corporate boardrooms of Sri Lanka.” Stating that this is truly a world class MBA ranked consistently as one of the top MBAs in Europe, he adds, “This one year full time programme is ideally suited for members in middle and senior management positions with ambitious career goals.” Rodrigo, who has continued to maintain ties with Cranfield, further reinforced the relationship once he became President of ACCA Sri Lanka, sourcing resource speakers for the ACCA National Conferences in the last two years. “Two people who played significant roles in mooting this scholarship from the Cranfield end are the former Director of the MBA Programme Professor Leo Murray who was the Keynote Speaker at our conference in 2006 and has a soft spot for Sri Lankans and Sri Sriskanthan, a Sri Lankan faculty member on the MBA programme.”

Cranfield has produced a distinguished honour roll of MBA alumni from Sri Lanka over the last two decades including Managing Director of Hatton National Bank Rajendra Theagarajah, Senior Vice President of WNS Arul Sivagananathan and Group Financial Controller of Stretchline Hasantha de Silva. Members of ICASL, ACCA and CIMA must apply directly to Cranfield School of Management, for which instructions are available on the Cranfield website ww.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/mba/, marking the application ‘Sri Lanka Scholarship’.

More : dailymirror.lk

A report has suggested that it is likely that British students considering taking MBA courses in the UK will find it increasingly hard to find loans to cover the cost of their post-graduate studies.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the appeal of MBA courses in the US had recently been increasing among British students, thanks to the weak dollar.

However, the paper has now learnt that the credit crunch has dramatically reduced the number of student loans available for those considering such post-graduate courses.

It pointed to research carried out by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators that showed that 50 lenders have suspended their post-graduate student loan deals.

“The cost of loan repayment is particularly high for students from outside the US who apply for loans from US institutions,” the paper explained.

“This is because credit references are not required and also the lenders find it harder to track down students on graduation if they return to their home countries.”

As a result, a British student looking for a post-graduate student loan in the US can expect to have to pay interest of around seven per cent.

With US MBA courses typically costing around $150,000 (£75,000) to complete, the rising price of loans could put many British students off, even though they know they will be able to secure high-paying jobs after graduation.

Source : gaapweb.com

An innovation expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be visiting the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), in November to promote the importance of user-based innovations in creating successful companies.

“India and Indians residing worldwide have a wonderful record as innovators and entrepreneurs. I believe users tend to be the real developers of many important products. Recently, research by my colleagues has shown that many new companies are started by users who become entrepreneurs. Learning about how user innovations foster the creation of successful new companies will be very useful information for IIM students and others in India,” says Eric von Hippel, professor and head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and professor of Engineering Systems at MIT.

It will be his first trip to India, which he also intends to use “to forge closer contacts with my colleagues at IIM-A, who have very similar research interests”.

The lecture is part of a two-week long ‘Inventors of India’ workshop by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A. About 70 inventors and innovators of all ages and technical background are expected to be present at the event. Premier institutes could also be called to participate at the workshop.

“Eric will participate and may give the inaugural address at the workshop. In addition, he will interact with the faculty and students and explore possibilities of collaborative research. Apart from visiting some grassroot innovators, he will interact with our incubatee companies as well. Several things are being planned and we are quite excited about his visit. Also, we may ask institutes like National Institute of Design (NID) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), to pitch in,” says Rakesh Basant, chairman of CIIE and a professor at IIM-A.

An expert in Principle of Developing Economics, Eric has made two of his books available openly on his website at no cost to the reader: Democratising Innovation, published in 2005 by the MIT Press, and Sources of Innovation, published in 1988 by Oxford University Press. Leading companies in the world have used practical methods based on his research.

Hippel is also expected to meet grassroot innovators at SRISTI, an NGO founded by Anil Gupta, a professor at IIM-A. Incidentally, Gupta too would be lecturing at MIT as part of the Amy Smith’s International design and development course on July 16-17.

More : business-standard.com

INDIA could leverage their cost-cum-competence of his great talent of a potential innovation of the race, which is not only the exchange would be made innovation, but also where R & D on the basis of innovation centres, which by Western societies, because scientists defined Dr. RA Mashelkar.

Time, the convocation address in the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), the Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Dr Mashelkar said real and unique, India offers a genuine Global R & D platform has been enormous. He said, to the costs of R & D is the share in the developed world as a whole move of India’s R & D was last year, 5 billion, less than the budget for R & D Companies like Pfizer one.

The assertion of one dollar in India offers much more than anywhere else in the world with Indian world-class technical staff, 250 universities, 1500 units of R & D, several IITS and engineering colleges, said the Dr Mashelkar has been an extraordinary rich resource that has been insufficient within the space of the Indian R & D chance. ”

Dr Mashelkar was proud of indicating that National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) of CSIR has been a pioneer in benefits and recognition of the need to technoglobalism. The process of globalization of R & D NCL began in 1989 and today it has an impressive list of international clients such as DuPont, Dow and Eastman, ICI, General Electric, Cargill, and UOP.

He told NCL: “We believe always ask what the basis of competence, skills and technologies, we must build? Rather than the stereotype question of what products or processes that we need to develop and market? “This change in the strategy, he said, though released, what happens in” NCL important objective for many chemical companies through Today’s World “.

Dr Mashelkar did not share the idea that the real advantage of the expansion in India as a hub of innovation, which is characterized by foreigners rather than Indian companies. He cites a school of thought, prove that gradually reverse the brain drain. Given that India is a large site R & D in the world with the best companies are their biggest challenges of R & D in India - whether in preparing its new Intel chips or GE organization its last reactor manufacturer - it would normal Indian scientists stay here, to meet association and also satisfy his love for his children grow up in India.

He said that outsourcing to India, the objective of R & D as a place in several other areas. He cited the example of drugs and medicines, he said more and more emphasis on diseases for the poor - along with the overall development of social insurance funds say that there are still opportunities that India could become a target for the creation of global knowledge for global good by the overall funding.

He said that the challenge was, as we continue to tap the incredible dynamism of global R & D, so that the institutions and Indian companies might think, managing the creation of highly paid jobs and development of new industries.

This would require, he said, “a sustained commitment to investment in science and technology to strengthen research infrastructure, skills development and ways to quickly integrate new knowledge and technologies into products and the increasing access to sources of innovation, development of technology centres incentives and government, protection, including protection of intellectual property on science-based High-Tech-inventions.

It is that time of the year again when thousands of students across the country appear for a slew of entrance examinations conducted by various business schools in the country.

This year, the examinations begin on November 11 and end on January 6. Unfortunately, Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) and ICFAI Business School Aptitude Test (IBSAT) are scheduled on the same day (December 16).

Speaking to The Hindu, Ajay Arora, Director, Triumphant Institute of Management Education, Bangalore centre, said that the clash in the dates of a few management aptitude tests is not uncommon. “I do not know what the fuss is all about. Every year, something similar happens,” he said.

Last year, the entrance exam for Faculty of Management Studies and Narsee Monjee Aptitude Test were held on the same day. “One cannot blame the institutions for the clash in dates. The best time to conduct the entrance tests is between November and January, as the students will not be over-burdened with mid-term examinations,” Mr. Arora said.

The admission cycle is such that for a programme to commence in June, the entrance test must be conducted between November and January, so that the results may be announced in April. Mr. Arora said that around 20,000 students of the country appear for the IBSAT and 18,000 to 20,000 appear for SNAP. “The question is how many of those students will appear for both the entrance tests. That group is not very big. The number of students ‘affected’ is minimal,” he said.

Information Technology (IT) holds the key to kick-starting a revolution in banking, said Radha Unni, chief general manager, State Bank of India, here.

She was inaugurating a national conference on `Braving new frontiers in banking,’ organised by the ICFAI Business School, here.

She called for standardisation across banks and appealed to them to take the services to the doorsteps of the customers for financial inclusion.

Anoop Narayanan, security consultant, First Legion Consulting, said human fraud, incompetence and errors made the implementation of new technologies difficult. He also spoke on information leaks and the cultural factors involved.

Punjab National Bank senior manager Guru Murthy spoke on the implementation of core banking solution. He provided an overview of the technologies used in mid-level interactions, in the back offices and in internal monitoring and reports.

K.A. Joseph, managing director, Kerala Venture Capital, summarised the session on IT in banking by providing an overview of mobile Internet banking. He said that IT should equip bankers to convert future threats into opportunities.

A.K. Basu, general manager, State Bank of Travancore, spoke on private banking. He highlighted the various challenges faced in private banking.

Ommen Jacob, regional sales manager, ICICI Bank, said the challenge before private bankers was to provide their customers with the best service in the industry. He spoke about the four R’s of private banking: reach, relationship, research and resource. It was only by investing in them in favour of customer needs could the banks achieve their goals.

A.V. Anil, branch manager, Kotak Mahindra Bank, focussed on the services provided by private banking and also gave a brief picture of the challenges faced such as high client expectations, higher fixed costs and so on. Padma Kumar, former chairman and managing director of Federal Bank, stressed the need for private banking. He said that as the interest rates had reduced, people did not just invest in banks; they had more options.

Private banking should aim at providing products for wealth management to all sections of society for financial inclusion.

Cherian Varghese, former chairman and managing director, Union Bank of India, spoke on retail banking and the various norms issued by RBI regarding it.

V.P. Roshan, branch head, IDBI Bank, gave an overview of how banks operated, the importance of retail banking.

NIILM Centre for Management Studies, Delhi, the 11 winners in the National Student Games management held on Tuesday.

ICFAI Business School, Mumbai and the Institute of Management Technology, ghaziabad, the first and second runner. On the PSG Institute of Management, nine teams from different regions of the country, competed among themselves for the final Tuesday. The groups were withdrawn from the semi-finals on Monday.

For finalists, play is serious business. With view on the screen of the laptop, they discussed strategies and action plans developed for business nervenaufreibende problems.

Produced by the All India Management Association (AIMA), the games are very popular among students in management, particularly from the southern region. “We have the most number of participants from the southern region - 169 of 263 participants from countries of the South,” said Vikas Gupta, Deputy Director, AIMA. The game, everything revolves around replicate real work situations.

Each group has been Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Each group receives a company and asked to manage. You must make business decisions with consideration of an economy and fluctuations in market conditions. “Simulation game test the real potential of students. You will have the opportunity of their theoretical knowledge,” says SCTyagi, vice-director of AIMA.

The game is not only for students of management. MCM and engineers can participate. For Suvidh Arora Tripti Agarwal and the Institute of Technology Management, ghaziabad, the game is even more demanding. Two of his teammates could not do, and they are moving toward the battle. “This game is all about handling situations. We are dealing here with a problem, and we are confident of handling,” said Suvidh.

“Each phase of the game is a challenge,” said Vishal Agrawal of ICFAI Business School, Mumbai. Vishal and his friend Abhay Jain participate in this game for the second consecutive year. Sumeet Tiwari and Hitesh Bhagchandani same part of the Institute for the first time. According to them the game is a great learning experience.

St. John’s University conferred 2,146 undergraduate degrees at three graduation ceremonies held over the weekend.

The Rev. Donald J. Harrington, president of the university, gave the keynote address at all ceremonies for the 122d commencement exercises.

Addressing the students at the campus in Jamaica, Queens, yesterday, Father Harrington told the students that “the quality of life in society rests upon the quality of education in our grammar and high schools and in our colleges and universities.”

Referring to the rioting in Los Angeles, he said, “Regardless of how we interpret the events of the past month, regardless of where we seek to place the blame, I submit to you that an essential part of any solution must be the renewal of the educational system of our land.” Industry, Health, Banking

At the first ceremony, held in Alumni Hall in the morning, an honorary doctor of commercial science degree was awarded to Michael E. Maher, an alumnus of the university who is chairman of Maher Terminals Inc. in New Jersey, one of the largest independent container terminal operators.

Sister Irene Kraus, president of the Daughters of Charity National Health System in St. Louis, received an honorary doctor of letters degree.

In the ceremony held in the afternoon, also in Alumni Hall, an honorary doctor of commercial science degree was awarded to Richard T. Greene, president of Carver Federal Savings Bank, one of the largest black-owned financial institutions in the nation.

Edward Mercado, director of the Office of Civil Rights for the Department of Health and Human Services, received an honorary doctor of laws degree.

On Saturday, a commencement ceremony was held on the Grymes Hill campus of the university in Staten Island. An honorary doctor of civil law degree was awarded to Josephine L. Gambino, president and senior member of the New York Civil Service Commission. Cornell University

Cornell University’s 124th commencement took place yesterday in a cold rain with temperatures in the 30’s, prompting the university’s president, Frank H. T. Rhodes, to cut short his prepared remarks to the 5,900 graduates. University officials said it was the first time in 17 years that it had rained on commencement.

Each of the graduates of Cornell’s 11 schools and colleges at the ceremony, which was still held outdoors on the campus in Ithaca, N.Y., was given a red rose. Mr. Rhodes used the occasion to remind them to “take time to smell the roses.”

Darice Paula Grippo, a vice president in the investment-research division of the Putnam Management Company in Boston, was married yesterday to Robert Leonard Wareham, a senior trust officer with the Old Colony Trust division of the First National Bank of Boston. The Rev. David Drew Rose, a United Church minister, performed the nondenominational ceremony at the Houghton Memorial Chapel at Wellesley College.

The bride, who will retain her name professionally, is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Milo Paul Grippo of Orange, Conn. She was graduated from Wellesley College, where she was a Wellesley College Scholar, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. Her father, who formerly owned the New London (Conn.) Seaplane Service, is a consultant to the Avco Lycoming Corporation in Stratford, Conn., from which he retired as superintendnent of research and development quality assurance. Her mother was formerly a pilot with Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven, Pa.

Mr. Wareham is a son of Harry Percival Wareham of Chapoquoit Island, West Falmouth, Mass., and the late Mrs. Wareham. He was graduated from the Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., Boston University and the National Graduate Trust School of Northwestern University. His previous marriage ended in divorce. His father is retired and was a manufacturer’s representative in F.N. Burt Company, a packaging concern in Rochester.

The National Academy of Sciences, a private organization established by Congress in 1863 to advise the Federal Government, has elected 60 new members. The election brings the number of active members to 1,683.

The academy also named 15 nonvoting foreign associates, bringing their total to 298.

Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded an American scientist or engineer. The academy said election recognized “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Following are the new members and their affiliations at the time of the election. New Members

Yakir Aharonov, professor of physics, Tel Aviv University, Israel, and University of South Carolina, Columbia.

Paul G. Ahlquist, professor, Institute for Molecular Virology and department of plant pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Bishnu S. Atal, head, speech research department, A.T.& T. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J.

Bruce S. Baker, professor of biological sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.

Ransom Lee Baldwin Jr., professor of animal science, University of California, Davis.

Denis Baylor, professor and chair of neurobiology, Stanford University.

Malcolm R. Beasley, professor of applied physics and electrical engineering, Stanford University.

Klaus Biemann, professor of chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Claude R. Canizares, professor of physics, head of the astrophysics division and director of the Center for Space Research, M.I.T.

Charles P. Casey, Helfaer Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin.

C. Thomas Caskey, chief of medical genetics; professor of medicine and biochemistry; director, Institute of Molecular Genetics; Henry and Emma Meyer Chair in Molecular Genetics, and investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.