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Rajat Gupta, Chairman of the ISB (Past Managing Director of Mckinsey and Senior Partner Worldwide), received the President along with Professor M Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB. In an exclusive meeting, the Chairman and the Dean briefed the President about the history of the ISB, and the remarkable progress that the school has made since the five years of its establishment. “We are delighted that President Bush has chosen a premier management institution like the ISB for his visit. This is indeed a prestigious event for us,” said Rajat Gupta.
“The ISB has emerged as a world-class business management institution within a short span of time. We have highlighted the success of our one year post graduate management programme to the President. We took the opportunity to emphasise our focus on entrepreneurship and cutting-edge research, especially relevant to emerging economies,” said Dean Rammohan Rao.
President Bush was visibly impressed by the ISB campus, and with the ISB students. Two ISB students from the Class of 2006, Rajesh Mani and Ruchi Bansal, had earlier greeted President Bush on his arrival. The President also interacted with other faculty, students, and members of the ISB community.
“One of the reasons that I wanted to come to the ISB is that, as I understand it, it is a Centre of Excellence in education. It is a new school using innovative tools necessary to succeed,” said President Bush on his visit to the ISB on March 3, 2006. “I am honoured to be at the ISB,” he added.
The President then addressed a gathering of the entire ISB community of faculty, staff, and students at the Atrium of the ISB’s
Following are some of the comments the President made during his visit.
On
“Yesterday, I had the honour of standing on the stage with your Prime Minister talking about a new relationship between the
“It is in the interest of the
“It is in the interest of the
“I said something interesting, at least I thought it was interesting, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it, in a speech I gave in Washington, I think that it’s interesting that India’s middle class is 300 million large – as large as the entire United States.”
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On the Entrepreneurship Centre at the ISB:
President Bush reserved some more praise for the Entrepreneurship Centre at the ISB. He said, “It’s hard to teach people to be risk takers, and you have professors here who give you the tools to be risk takers.”
Earlier, he had told Professor V Chandrasekar, Executive Director, Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED), “You’ve got a great thing going!”
Anjali Patel, a student from the ISB Class of 2006 was in the roundtable for entrepreneurs addressed by the President. She is the President of the Net Impact Club at the ISB, and told the President that she runs the social enterprise club with a lot of help from the faculty, the Entrepreneurship Centre, and the student body of the ISB. She also talked to the President about “compassionate capitalism” consisting of “providing venture capital funding to small businesses and social entrepreneurs so that they can sustain themselves.
About the ISB
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