IWSB E Week’09 in association with NEN Day 3 - Shodhyatra

The Shodh yatra started from our hostel in Greater Noida to Dhankaur at 8:30 in the morning. There were a few experts from NIF,Honeybee Network who joined us for the day long journey. Representatives from AID, YUVA,Sristi Gyan Kendra,Sristi also joined us. Dhankaur was the first stop for us which was around 12 Km from Greater Noida. The first meeting took place at Vidya Mandir High school where there were around 500 kids waiting for us from different schools. We had Mr. Rajbir Singh, renowned Organic Farming Scientist who spoke with the kids for some time explaining them about the benefits of organic farming and why the farmers should depend less on chemical fertilizers. The kids participated well in the meeting asking questions intermittently, sometimes leaving the Rajbir Singh totally stumped. Sonia Suryavansi, Honeybee Network Collaborator from Uttranchal explained the purpose of Shodhyatra. Mr Kamaljeet from Sristi Gyan Kendra(Collaborator of Honeybee Network,Harayana) then spoke with the children for some time before asking them if there were any ideas they had which they would like to discuss with all of us, 2 kids came forward. The first kid said that he wanted to make a machine which would clean the walls covered with algae inside the wells. He said that he had seen his father struggling to clean the walls sometimes and felt he would design a hand held motor device with a cloth on one end which would clean the walls with less effort. The other kid said that he wanted to make a rubber coated bumper in front of the car as he saw his father’s car getting scratches on it sometimes. There were 2 other competitions taking place at the same time, recipe contest and bio diversity contest. The most interesting recipe came from a student who prepared a dish out of the skin of peas. It is said that the skin has a lot of nutritional value and gets wasted sometimes while cleaning the peas, so this innovation makes use of the skin and gives nutritional value at the same time.

We then moved towards our second destination, the S.D.S Senior Secondary school at Nevada, located around 5 Km from Dhankaur. Mr. Rajbir Singh spoke with the children and the teachers for sometime before taking lunch in the school. One thing that surprised all of us was the poor awareness level of the children. When Mr. Rajbir Singh asked if they knew who Bapu was, nobody answered, but when he asked if they knew who Munna bhai was, pat came the reply Sanjay Dutt. We got good collection of herbal practices from few students. Around 250 students participated in discussion & most of them participated in the competitions.Our next stop was at Salempur where there were around 500 kids waiting for us. We saw a great innovation from the school principal, Mr. Ashok Singh Bhati, who had devised a formula to translate sentences to English with a 3 step method. He had been teaching this method to the children of his school for the last 5 years and claims that the children in his school know English better than the kids from the other schools. His opinion was that English grammar books were often confusing for children from villages to follow, so he devised this mechanical way of translating sentences to English. We were really impressed with the knowledge this man possessed. We are taking his innovation forward via NIF,DST-Govt. of India.

We then moved to our final stop at Ladhpura, around 300 students of Govt. High school were waiting with several creative art works for us. We also received several practices in the Bio-diversity contest. Then we moved for a village meeting where several farmers who had gathered at the gram pradhan’s home. Mr. Rajbir Singh spoke with the farmers on some of the problems they were facing. He explained the benefit of Organic farming & ways of doing sustainable farming in low cost. The meeting was finally over by 6 pm and from there we started our journey back to sector Pi. The whole day was quite memorable for all the students of Indus World School of Business (IWSB)as it gave a lot of insight on problems faced by the rural poor.

We visited 4 villages & 4 schools, where we touched upon 1500 students & 2000 farmers, villagers life.

We got several sponsors for this event. NIF,SRISTI, Honeybee Network provided us several posters, herbal products of innovators, booklets on best practices, magazines, pamphlets e.t.c.(a total in-kind support of around Rs.25,000). Vaidya Family from Pune has supported us with Rs.10,000.Millennium Girls & Boys Hostel provided us Lunch & Logistical support (a total in-kind support of around Rs.10,000).

IWSB and DISHA E-Cell Make an Impact at The Global Conference of E-Cell's IIT Bombay 7-8th Feb'09

It was IWSB all the way at the E-Cell Summit on the 8th Feb'09.From being regarded as one of the fastest growing E-Cell's in the country to accepting the daunting responsibilty of mentoring other growing E-Cell's in the NCR to immense appreciation of our teaching methodology, the IEL course, we were well and truly everywhere.

Testimony to our efforts being recognized is the fact that we were asked to share our experiences as panel members with representatives of other E-Cell's from across the country.

8 institutes were asked to man stalls where participants and our newly alloted Mentee's interacted with us.

Needless, to say we were amongst one of them!!

There are many more such milestones that we shall add to our already impressive repository.......till then IWSB rocks!!!

ISSUES regarding Marathon of E-Week

E -week started with marathon which was really admirable and marvellous. Though I was the last one but I was very pleased because I was able to finish it. But one thing disappointed me very much; we throw all the plastic glasses (approximately 150) which we used for water, on the road during the marathon while our theme was GO GREEN. 

Were we working on the concept of GO GREEN or it was something else????????????????????

Thanks & Regards

ANUJ GAUR

PGPM 2008-10

Mobile: 09990750254

Day 2 of E-Week-Junkyard Wars Creativity with waste and Role Play Competition "Go Green"

The second day of the Entrepreneurship Week at Indus World School of Business was a fun filled one which saw two more events occupying the day’s activities. The first was the Junkyard competition where the teams were expected to make something creative out of the waste materials they could gather. The participants used all their brains and creative minds to come up with models which were judged based on the proportion of waste materials used, creativity, feasibility to sell the product and response to questions that were raised by the judges. The keenly contested event saw the team from Hindustan Business School emerging as winners. The team came up with an excellent model of Lord Ganapati which was crafted out from glass pieces, marble chips, bamboo sticks, paper plates, disposable paper glasses etc. The team from IWSB who came up with a model of a rural village emerged second.

            The next event was the role play in which the teams were supposed to perform a 10 minute play pertaining to the ‘Go Green’ theme. Hindustan Business School made a grand double by coming first with a play to spread awareness for non-wastage of natural resources. The Role play competition also saw the host team participate by enacting a play depicting environment changes through the theme of Ramayana. The day concluded with the HBS team enlightening the audience with a Business Plan on recycling of waste materials. The next event of the E-Week hosted by IWSB will be the Shodyatra which will be on the 10^th of February 2009.         

Half Marathon and Planting of Tree Sapling as a part of E-Week 2009

The E-Week 2009 at Indus World School of Business, Greater Noida kicked off today with a marathon starting from the campus. 50 odd participants from 8 colleges around Knowledge Park took part in the event, the theme for which was ‘Go Green’. The Marathon was flagged off by Kalpana from NEN. The participants took pledge prior to the start of the marathon promising to work and excel for the development of the society. The 5 Km marathon was run in the right spirit with participants spreading awareness of ‘Go Green’ by means of placards and banners. The finishing point of the event was at the new campus of IWSB where the construction of ‘Green Campus’ of IWSB is under progress. The marathon which witnessed a lot of fun, excitement and enthusiasm saw Ashish Shulk from ITS,Greater Noida coming first, Navdeep Dalal from IWSB securing the second and Pushpendra Kumar from Skyline College bagging the third place. The winners would be felicitated with cash awards worth Rs. 15000 at the closing ceremony of E-Week at YMCA on the 12th of February 2009. A tree sapling was planted by the winners at the new campus of IWSB which marked the end of the marathon event. The next few days of E-Week at IWSB will have the following events where students from across Knowledge Park are expected to participate.

Events Coming up
8th Feb 2009 : Junkyard Wars – Creativity with waste and Role play competition
10th Feb 2009 : Shodhyatra – Grassroots to Global Search and Promotion of Sustainable Green technology and traditional knowledge in rural areas
11th Feb 2009 : Global E-Summit
12th Feb 2009 : Entrepreneurial Boot Camp, Launch of Entrepreneurial museum, Micro Entrepreneur Summit, Prize distribution and Closing ceremony

- Arif Hassan