Asian School of Business announces scholarships for rural NE students

The Asian School of Business (ASB), a leading B-school in India, is proactively encouraging admission of North East students with rural background for its flagship post-graduate programme. Accordingly, in collaboration with the charitable George M Thomas Foundation, ASB will be offering scholarships of up to 50 per cent on the full-term fee for one student from each of the Seven Sisters.

The new programme will groom MBA students who can meet the rising requirement of specially-trained managers for the burgeoning rural market, which is expected to triple in the next 15 years.
ASB Director Prof. S Rajeev, a 25-year IT veteran who had mentored Indian and Silicon Valley start-ups, is driving the thrust to develop Management Graduates who can drive the marketing thrust of Indian and multinational companies eyeing the booming rural market. The next wave of growth in India is likely to be driven by rural India.

“Every year, thousands of graduate students travel from the North Eastern states to different parts of the country — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata etc. — to pursue post graduate courses. This unique offer provided by ASB gives the students of these seven states to pursue their business administration course in the beautiful state of Kerala,” said Prof. Rajeev.

He also added that students from the North East will find Kerala to be their second home taking into consideration that the weather and greenery which these students feel at their native states will be quite similar in a place like Kerala.

According to Mckinsey, the rural consumption market is likely to triple by 2020 to reach $600 billion from the current level of $190 billion. This is driven both by the increasing income levels and the shifting consumption patterns, hence providing a plethora of opportunities.

He said ASB is proactively encouraging admission of North Eastern students with rural background along with others for their flagship post-graduate programme.

“Students with such rural upbringing in the North Eastern states are better positioned to feel the pulse of the rural consumer. Our training will make them effective marketers who can relate to the rural ambience and this emerging economic segment more effectively,” he said.

For students who are determined to make it big in rural marketing, ASB is offering scholarships and is facilitating bank loans to achieve their career goals, he added.

A unique programme that ASB is promoting, besides offer of free laptops, is a 50 per cent scholarship to one student each from North East Indian states who has completed his/her schooling in rural schools. Two students will be offered 25 per cent scholarship and ten students 10 per cent in a bid to discover and nurture rural talent.

These scholarships are being offered by George M Thomas Foundation. Mr. George M Thomas is the President of Trivandrum International School, Kerala’s first international school incorporating Indian and British curriculum and courses. Mr. George M Thomas, an Oman based businessman is the Patron of ASB.

ASB, whose full-fledged eco-friendly residential campus designed by a well-known Singapore architectural firm, has state-of-the-art class-rooms, seminar halls and Wi-Fi facilities is located near the IT hub of Techno Park in Thiruvananthapuram.

The new courses that Prof. Rajeev is developing at the ASB cover areas such as rural marketing, innovation and entrepreneurship, which are considered pioneering initiatives in MBA programmes that are revamped to meet actual industry requirements.

Prof Rajeev is bringing to ASB his considerable teaching and industry consulting experience from IIMs in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Kozhikode, where he has taught strategy and innovation.

He holds a BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, an MS in Computer Science from Syracuse University and MBA from Stanford Business School.

His technology and marketing background with Sun Microsystems, Siemens and Bell Labs has been leveraged to promote several entrepreneurial start-ups firms, both in Silicon Valley and in India.

He has been active in venture capital (VC) industry, advising several VC firms on their investments