Alumni raise Rs 17 lakh for IIMB

BENGALURU: It's payback time for 40 MBA students of the 1995 batch of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB). Twenty-one years after graduation, they all have come together to raise Rs 17 lakh to sponsor a discussion room that was inaugurated at the campus last month.
"We were a batch of 220 students. Years may have passed, but memories of our college days remain quite strong.The plan to give something back to our institute was there for a long time and 40 of us made it a reality this year," said Raghavendra R, senior director at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
He said the institute played a major role in bringing the alumni together. "Every growing organization needs funds. Ours being an interactive and engaging batch, recognized this aspect and contributed how much ever we could. We just wanted to do something that the institute as well we could cherish," he added.
Around 450 former students participated in Anusmaran, the annual alumni meet of the B-school, on Saturday.
"Over the years, Anusmaran has become a part of our lives. We catch up with fellow alumni and share, learn, have fun and enrich our experience. We have tested many formats and reinvented it to make it more relevant and vibrant," said Navin Kumar, convener of the event, organized by the Bangalore chapter of the IIMB Alumni Association.
Prof Vasanthi Srinivasan, chairperson, Alumni Relations, IIMB, believes that there are two aspects that determine healthy relations between the alumni and their alma mater. "The experience that students share when they study in the institute and the connection they maintain with the institute after they graduate are vital to having a good alumni base. We try to bring our alumni back to the institute in every possible way. Sometimes, we get them for interviewing prospective candidates or for mentoring programmes," she added.