The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) is preparing to launch its inaugural international campus in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), scheduled for September this year. This announcement was made by IIMA director, Professor Bharat Bhasker, during the institute’s 60th convocation ceremony held at Louis Kahn Plaza in Ahmedabad.

Professor Bhasker noted that IIM Ahmedabad will be the first among the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to establish a presence outside India. He also reported that this year’s placement figures were better than in previous years, highlighting that six students chose to pursue entrepreneurship and enrolled in the Mavericks Fellowship Programme.

Emphasizing the financial challenges of education, Professor Bhasker revealed that 68 students received full tuition waivers, while 128 students obtained partial waivers. He affirmed IIMA’s commitment to increasing the number of tuition waivers, stating that this year, the tuition waiver letters will be sent to students alongside their acceptance letters.

Additionally, Professor Bhasker announced the creation of a new ‘Madan Mohanka Centre of Excellence in Case Method of Learning’, which is supported by Madan Mohanka, an industrialist and IIMA alumnus from the 1967 Post Graduate Programme.

During the convocation, a total of 630 students were awarded degrees, which included 22 scholars from the Doctoral Programme in Management (PhD), 405 students from the two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (MBA-PGP), 45 from the two-year Post Graduate Programme in Food and Agri-business Management (MBA-FABM), and 158 from the one-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (MBA-PGPX).

The Chief Guest, Pankaj Patel, Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIMA and Chairman of Zydus Lifesciences, presented gold medals to five outstanding students for their academic achievements. He emphasized the need for business professionals to adapt to rapid technological changes and embrace new skills to succeed in an evolving business landscape.

Dr. S Somanath, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who was also a guest at the ceremony, encouraged graduates to innovate and collaborate to unlock the nation’s potential. He remarked that the future holds vast possibilities in areas such as space exploration and artificial intelligence, urging graduates to apply their knowledge to tackle real-world issues across various fields.