The Technology Committee is one of the committees under the ADMAP (Assessment and Development of Managerial & Administrative potential) bandwagon at SPJIMR. A unique endeavour to teach the participants the use of influence, rather than authority, and to teach the art of management manifests itself in the form of various committees.
At the start of the term, the participants are drafted in any of the 18 committees without any prejudice or preferences. Once they become members of the committee, it becomes their responsibility to drive the committee forward and leave it in a better shape for the next batch to take it over from there.
One advantage that we had as a committee was that the Technology Committee was established for the very first time in the academic year 2016-17. So we literally started from scratch in setting forth the agenda, the mode of functioning, the roles and responsibilities of the committee, so on and so forth.
Speaking about the role, the committee has aimed to play is that of an innovator. So our directive was to bring about changes on campus that could be used for the greater good for all the stakeholders, specifically in the technology domain. Keeping this in mind, we had set forth an initial agenda which is as follows:
1) Turning SPJIMR into a completely non-cash environment
This has remained as our pet project throughout the first 6 months on campus. Converting a campus into a completely cashless ecosystem is no easy task and that has been our biggest target. Coordinating with multiple stakeholders, vendors and admin personnel has brought about a glimpse in to the administrative side of things which is often neglected. As far as the process is concerned, we have recently obtained the permission from the college authorities after a board presentation and are in the process of finalizing the vendor.
2) Come up with a common database for all information, accessible by the entire batch
A repository of sorts, accessed from the cloud where the students can share across information related to academia, competition, committee work, college fests, and much more. Additionally, this can also be transferred down the batches as a rich source of information. This system is already in place using the Google Drive and has been well received by the batch.
3) Organize sessions by industry experts on how technology is changing the face of business
We had invited Mr Arvind Iyengar, the founder CEO of the Sportz Interactive, a firm which deals with digital content management, sports analytics and various other facets of sports management. He delivered a session on how Technology is changing the world of sport, talking about aspects like DRS, ball tracking, hawkeye, hotspot, in stadia fan engagement and much more. This was a thoroughly enjoyable session as most of the batch is keenly interested in every aspect of sport. This is part of our initiative called “TechTalks”.
4) Conduct knowledge transfer sessions for the batch, by the batch
We also plan on conducting sessions by the participants for the rest of the batch about skills that could come in very handy for the B-School journey like presentation making, video making, Photoshop, Aftereffects and various other tools.
5) Improve and maintain the quintessential WiFi services on campus
We also run and manage the campus WiFi in close coordination with the Computer Centre. In doing so, we serve as the first point contact for all WiFi related queries for the batch.
We are currently a team of 12 members from first year PGDM, under the guidance of Dr Anil Vaidya, Area head of Information Management and Prof. Jyoti Jagasiya, Information Management stream.
The details of the team members are as mentioned below:-
Akhil Ahuja – PGDM, Finance
Anadita Mittal – PGDM – Finance
Ananya Biswas – PGDM – Operations
Andrei Thomas – PGDM – Marketing
Ashrith Ananthashayana – PGDM – Information Management
Chetna Gujral – PGDM - Information Management
Divesh Agrawal – PGDM – Marketing
Lakshmi Narayanan L – PGDM – Marketing
Pooja Vadiraja – PGDM – Finance
Prochet Sarkar – PGDM – Operations
Sudarshan Ravichandran – PGDM – Operations
Zehan Arif – Marketing