Traveling through time has been an overarching ambition for humans from time immemorial. The aspiring entrepreneurs of CMS Business School, Jain (Deemed-to-be University), used this concept in “Cranium”, their annual management fest. “Cranium” of course is not just another management fest, but the most anticipated event in the College Festival calendar of Bangalore. You may doubt whether this is an overstatement, but when you realize that the YIFA (Youth Incorporated Festival Awards) selected Cranium as the best fest in 2014, your doubts are allayed.
The 2015 edition was no less impressive with the theme “Sands of Time”. Unlike other management festivals, a Cranium is a theme-based event and every year a theme is identified and the competitions are designed based on it. This is Cranium’s third edition and the inaugural edition 2013 had “Bubble Burst” as the theme followed by “The Bidders Quest” in 2014. This year’s theme “Sands of Time” enabled the participants to go back and forth in time to eliminate the bad rounds.
If a participating team appeared in 7 rounds out of which 6 are counted for scoring, the team had the power to eliminate one round in which they performed badly. Held in two stages, “Cranium” had 34 colleges participating in the initial stage, which was trimmed to 17 by the second stage. The final round of the festival saw three of the best colleges going head-to-head. It was conducted in Atlantis, The Palm; Dubai.
“Ours is a distinctive festival. We try to promote the team and not the individual in our competitions. If an individual of a team fails, the team sinks with the individual. All the independent cogs of the team have to function together to be successful in our fest,” said Animesh Jain, one of the chief architects of the fest. Animesh is a final year Marketing student at CMS Business School, Jain (Deemed-to-be University). “Cranium must be the only management fest to consistently conduct our final rounds abroad. This year it was Dubai and the contestants and the CMS Business School students who accompanied them had a once in a lifetime experience,” he added.
Six students from three of the top institutes in India – PES University, Bangalore; Xaviers Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship, Bangalore; and Vanguard Business School, Bangalore – qualified for the Grand Finale from the preliminary rounds conducted in Bangalore. Praveen Kumar, one of the finalists from Vanguard Business School was totally in awe, “It is one of the most unique and well-organized management fests to have happened in Bangalore. The execution and planning were brilliant. In addition, the concept of making the colleges participate as teams were spot on. For any endeavor to be successful, we need teamwork,” he said.
Sheril VJ from PES University, had this to say, “Cranium has given me a new dimension as a person. It gave me hands-on experience as a manager.” PES University emerged as the victors of the fest in spite of the tough competition from the Xaviers Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship and Vanguard Business School. The winners received a replica of the Burj Khalifa as trophy plus other cash prizes and goodies.
