Arjun Nair, MBA ’11

IAP and 2010

It has been a while since my last post, I apologize. The last month was IAP( Independent Activities Period) at Sloan. Students participate in various treks, travel, externships and recruiting. I ended up spending  time in the Bay Area as part of the E&I trek. The trek was probably the best experience of my first semester. We visited a bunch of companies and my portfolio included Nodality, Zynga, Billshrink, 360Fresh, Kiva and Apple. If ever you want to work for a start up as part of your experience at Sloan, the E&I trek is a must. There is a high chance that you find a company interesting and the company also finds your background and interests to be a great fit. 

There were over 90 first year students on that trip! It was not only a fantastic opportunity to meet the founders of successful startups, learn from VCs and understand the founding process, it also turned out to be a great opportunity to network and get to know your classmates better. Finally, some of us kept in touch with the founders and have opportunities to go work for them over the summer.

I am in the process of evaluating my options between start ups, operations, general management , consulting and venture capital :). But as they say, being at Sloan is really a rich man's problem. There are plenty of fantastic opportunities, the problem is really about figuring out what is it that you really want to do!

So 2010 and the second semester is here. The coursework in the 2nd semester is different. You are probably just as busy, but now you are taking classes and projects that you really want. So even if you are working just as hard or harder than the first sem, it feels better! 

Finally one more note about Spring break. I am off to Japan in a month on a tour to visit their facilities. More about that later! 

Legatum Conference and SIP

A few weeks ago I went to the Legatum annual conference, which featured entrepreneurs who started social enterprises, VCs who want to fund social enterprises and students and professionals aspiring to be social entrepreneurs. It was one of the most inspirational settings I have been to in a while. I am not going to comment on the awesomeness of the conference, it can be figured out from here. I'd rather talk about my own experience.

As a Legatum fellow, we were featured through an introductory video at the beginning. Since most people present at the conference already saw our faces, it was a great opening to start talking to people. I met with VCs, potential mentors and others who were interested in what I wanted to do. I have their business cards and the opportunity to reach out to them in the future, once I have developed my business plan further.Even if you werent a fellow, it would still have been a great opportunity to build a network of potential partners and mentors.

Moving on to a different topic, this week was SIP at MIT Sloan. SIP stands for Sloan Innovations Period, which is an opportunity for students to register for workshops that are not offered during the year. I had an incredible experience with two workshops. Once was on Inclusive Leadership, which was about how as a leader you should be aware of the diversity issues that are part of every global team. It was really deep and profound. Instead of a lecture, we witnessed a real drama being enacted in front of us by professional actors.

I also signed up for a workshop on improvisation and leadership. An awesome opportunity to figure out how to influence people under different settings and understand different styles of influence. I also found that it is a great opportunity to realize some of my own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to influencing others. This is why I came to do an MBA. Take stock of my life, understand and apply strengths, identify weaknesses and work on them. Sloan has been great so far.

Of Presidents and Conferences

I met the former President of Ghana, John Kufuor, before he talked during the Legatum lecture series at MIT last week. It was interesting to hear of a success story where the government encouraged grassroots entrepreneurship and coupled that with good governance and ended up with incredible economic and GDP growth. A great model for other governments to follow and citizens to encourage their governments to follow.

Last week I also went to a very interesting panel discussion on Communication and Human Development. The panel included Dr. Amartya Sen and Dr. Michael Spence among other eminent scholars. It was interesting how the panelists talked about ICT (information and communication technologies), mainly cellphones, transforming the developing world and improving productivity. However, they also recognized the need for more; ICTs have been an incredible instrument to human development in developing countries, yet we have not fully explored all dimensions of how they could do more. The conversation should continue.

My own interest is to explore how ICTs could improve healthcare from a for profit angle.

Moving into Sloan and Boston

Alright, so today was officially the first day of preterm. It was interesting that more than 50% of the incoming class registered for preterm. Stats, Accounting, Economics and Finance were the four courses for which preterm was offered. 

I arrived in Boston about four days ago and over the weekend before preterm various treks were organized. There was a camping trek, a hiking trek and a rafting trek. I went on the camping trek to Vermont and it was awesome fun and a great way to meet new classmates. 

We went hiking, swimming and kayaking in VT. Man, it is beautiful up there. I would highly recommend the next years incoming class to sign up for a trek. A great way to begin your school year. :)

I picked up an on campus studio apartment. It was fully furnished and hence easier to move in.  You would get nicer places off campus but they are on the expensive side if you dont want to share with anyone.

Ill talk more about my orientation experience next week. So far, moving into Sloan and Boston has been very easy. Knock Knock!