Ola, a mobility platform, hosted its first ever Ola Campus Connect Challenge. Ten finalists from leading institutions, presented their ideas to the jury, which comprised senior members of Ola’s leadership team. Winners got an opportunity to work at Ola and won ₹3 lakh.
With campus recruitment being an important source of fresh entrepreneurial talent, Ola has been engaging with engineering and management institutions. The challenge offered four real business cases from the company’s current focus areas across verticals such as mobility, self-driven cars, dark kitchens in food business, and financial services. The participants could take their pick on their area to focus on. Mentors were assigned to each team to guide them and make the case solutions implementable. The shortlisted teams were then invited to come down to Ola’s corporate office in Bengaluru, and present their solutions to the jury comprising members of the company’s senior leadership.
Entrepreneurial culture
Rohit Munjal, Chief Human Resources Officer, Ola, said: “Ola strives to create a growth-led, entrepreneurial culture, where employees get to jump in head first and take control of their career paths very early on. They are encouraged to solve the real world business and technology problems across diverse verticals like mobility, financial services, electric mobility, food, skilling amongst others.”
“The response to Ola Campus Connect Challenge has been overwhelming and we are excited to engage with the brightest young minds of our country. I would like to congratulate the winners, and we look forward to making our campus connect challenge bigger in the coming years,” he said.
Ola received over 6,000 registrations. Participants include students from business and technology schools such as the Indian School of Business (ISB), the IIMs, DMS IIT Delhi, Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Management Development Institute (MDI), XLRI Jamshedpur, TISS Mumbai, SIBM Pune, NITIE Mumbai, SPJIMR Mumbai, and NIT Jamshedpur.
The top three slots:
1. Winner: MICA, Ahmedabad — Garima Pandey and Dimple Chandra
2. First runner-up: Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon — Sree Harsha Muvva, Naveen Dhanala and Vikram Challa
3. Second runner-up : Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai — Niyati Satoskar and Aditya Mangal