IIM-A organises annual HR conclave

AHMEDABAD: The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) organised their Annual HR Conclave on March 4 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Director of IIM-A Professor Ashish Nanda said in his inaugural address, “IIMA plans to amalgamate classroom experience with digital technology so as to evolve a blended learning model."
Nanda also spoke of the democratisation of knowledge transfer through MOOCs (massive open online courses), but expressed concerns about the quality.“Executive Education is becoming a key part of the "learn some-earn some" trajectory of most professionals' careers. The IIM-A Executive Education is committed to embracing digital technology to enable effective learning by participants,” Nanda said.
Panel discussions were also held during the event. The first panel discussion titled “Learning Challenges in the Digital World” was chaired by IIMA’s Prof. Amit Karna. The panel discussion focussed on understanding the need for the role of the facilitator, the intrinsic motivation of the participant, the need for blended learning to leverage the advantages and best of both the learning experiences while forming a community of the stakeholders consisting of the learners, designers and facilitators to work together to create a learning experience par excellence in the changing times.
Post the panel discussion, Professor Sebastian Morris of IIM-A unveiled the annual calendar of institute’s Executive Education and introduced the courses IIM-A would be undertaking in the blended learning space, with three courses being offered with Hughes Global Education and two with NIIT Imperia as the digital technology partners.
The second panel discussion titled “Digitization and Future of Organisation” chaired by IIMA’s Professor Sunil Sharma had a panel consisting of Dr Babu Lal, Executive Director Corporate Learning and Development, BHEL; Mr. Manish Chawla, GM, Global Industrial Products, IBM and Mr. Jagdamba Prasad Joshi, HR Business Partner, Schneider Electric.

The panel discussion focused on the adaptability of the organisation to digitization, the future of technology, and technology as an enabler, not a complete solution for training. The discussion revolved around the need to reinvent people, places and practices to embrace digitization and prepare brick and mortar companies for a future world. The panel members discussed the belief that organisations need to prepare for the future age with clear strategy, clarity of the leadership team for embracing technology and enabling stakeholders with right skills, maturity and strategy. The emerging idea in the conclave was that digitization is an irreversible reality and can benefits organisation and people. But for the transformational process to be successful, it is necessary to embrace the idea and accept the change in totality rather than in bits and pieces.