Opportunity of Lifetime

By Brent Opall

Carlson School graduate students expected to learn much from their two-week study experience in India. They didn’t expect an educational and personal opportunity that few receive—a private conversation with the president of India.

Mani Subramani, associate professor of information and decision sciences, wanted students to understand the growing role of India in the global marketplace. He began leading the trip to India for students from the Carlson Full-Time MBA, Carlson Part-Time MBA, and Human Resources and Industrial Relations graduate programs to study offshore practices firsthand three years ago.

While in the country, students visit with high-ranking business leaders. This time, though, the group benefited from the opportunity of a lifetime. Organized through contacts in the Indian Administrative Service, the visit resulted from a combination of fortuitous planning and good timing.

The Carlson School group met with President Abdul Kalam at the Presidential Palace for a 20-minute visit on January 2, 2007. “India needs to continue investing in educational opportunities for its young,” says Kalam. “Education plays a key role in the country’s plans to increase its status as an industrial world leader.”

Kalam knows the importance of global technology and business. He gained an international reputation as project director for India’s first indigenous satellite launch vehicle, which in 1980 successfully launched the Rohini satellite in near earth orbit. Later in his career Kalam, then chair of the Technology Information, Forecasting, and Assessment Council, led the country with the help of 500 experts to arrive at Technology Vision 2020, a road map for transforming India from developing to developed nation status. In 2002, Kalam became the 11th president of India.

In his talk to students, President Kalam shared his vision of inclusive and equitable economic development, which involves delivering higher living standards to rural populations and improvement in sectors such as agriculture that have not yet benefited from the country’s technology-fueled growth. He also responded to questions that were posed by Carlson School students on topics such as education, agriculture, and loan programs.

Carlson student Lori Lyons-Williams wanted to know if Kalam was concerned about the brain drain that can occur when students from India who study in Europe and the United States decide not to return to India.

Kalam responded by sharing the examples of Nalanda and Taxila, two centers of education that existed in India more than 2,000 years ago and brought together scholars from all over the world. India can use these examples from the past, he says, and develop new centers of excellence to attract the best minds not just from India, but from all over the world. “I am not concerned with the brain drain that so many seem to see as a problem,” says Kalam. “No matter their location, students from India will contribute. Ultimately the problems they solve will better the global community. Other countries have transplanted their citizens throughout the world for many years.”