Team ‘Easy Company’ from IIM Shillong won the sixth edition of YES BANK Transformation Series 2017. The Grand Finale of India’s biggest case study challenge, was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Delhi, on November 9.
In addition to pre-placement interview opportunities with YES BANK and the privilege of working on a case set by the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, the winners received a prize money of ₹5 lakh, while the first runners-up – IIM Bangalore — took home ₹3 lakh and the second runner-up, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad won a prize of ₹2 lakh. In all, prize money of ₹16 lakh was distributed to the 15 finalists.
The grand finale was attended by Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and Shaurya Doval, Director, India Foundation.
Launched in 2010, the YES BANK Transformation Series is platform that offers students across the world an opportunity to work on real-life industry challenges faced by the financial sector. Over the years, the focus has been on various concepts — such as digital financial inclusion and complete digitalisation. So far, more than 75,000 students have participated in this challenge.
This year, YES BANK partnered with 10 case partners for the first round, including the likes of IBM, Nasscom, CISCO, Microsoft, Morph.ai, Numberz, Redcarpet, Rupeeseed, Intellecap and Singapore International Foundation.
This year’s finalists were from IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, XLRI Jamshedpur, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, IIFT Delhi, ISB Hyderabad, FMS Delhi, NITIE Mumbai, IIM Shillong, NMIMS Mumbai, IIM Ranchi and Goa Institute of Management.
The teams presented their ideas to an esteemed jury comprising policymakers, doyens of India Inc. and academia. Members of the jury included: Ramanathan Ramanan; Aditya Khanna, MD & CEO, ART Special Situations Finance (India) Pvt. Ltd; Karan Bajwa, MD, IBM India; Varsha Tagare, MD, Qualcomm Ventures; Nandita Mathur, Editor, Mint ; Satyavati Berera, COO, PwC; and Deepti Dutt, Director- Smart Cities, Microsoft India, among others.
Speaking about the competition, Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK said: “The Indian economy is witnessing a phase characterised by design, innovation and creativity-led entrepreneurship, against the backdrop of supportive government policies and favourable demographics. At YES BANK, it is our constant endeavour to interact with youth and channelise their entrepreneurial spirit in the right direction, with an emphasis on design thinking and innovation. The YES BANK Transformation Series presents a unique opportunity for students to provide innovative solutions to real-life challenges facing India Inc. today, by allowing them to take up the role of business leaders and test their mettle against the world, thereby showcasing their innovative thinking. The sixth edition of this case study challenge, in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, the Transformation Series, provides a unique opportunity for young innovators to be a part of a national challenge and I am looking forward to the solutions shared by them to transform India into a Smart Agri Nation.”
Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, meanwhile, said: “There is a great opportunity to leverage technology in increasing agri productivity, farmer productivity, farmer incomes, reducing costs, reducing climatic dependencies, improving storage and distribution, improving agri-logistics management and supply chain management, food research leveraging technologies such as IoT, big data and analytics, preservation technologies, precision agriculture technologies, irrigation, water management, and so on. The NITI/AIM vision is to accelerate the adoption of these technologies for the growth of farmer incomes as well as job creation. In this regard, the Atal Innovation Mission's synergies with the YES BANK Transformation Series provides a platform for increased collaboration, incentivisation and reach to thousands of potential innovators of this country, addressing the smart challenges posed for the benefit of the nation.
At the event, YES BANK also launched a case study authored by IIM-C on SIMsePAY, a unique innovation that allows any account holder to do money transfers, pay utility bills and other mobile banking services, without the need for smartphones or the Internet.