When Aaron, Anaqat and I were informed that we were to represent our school at the Young Leaders’ Initiative, a part of the Business Conclave being held at the most prestigious commerce college of India, Shri Ram College of Commerce, we were extremely thrilled. The competition was to have three rounds: Marketing, Finance and Case Study rounds. We started preparing with full force. The day of the competition finally arrived. It had been raining since the morning, so we reached at the SRCC campus a little late. A total of 11 schools were participating in the competition. Each school was assigned a company and was required to form a joint venture with another school (company). We were Google Inc. and decided to have a joint venture with Airtel. The teams were required to come up with a product or service and explain how it was innovative, what distinguished it from the products of competitors and how it embodied the philosophies of the parent companies. Our team came up with a service that would add an option of payment by Airtel Money on eBay. It was called AirGoogle. We also had to make advertisements in the form of a skit or presentation to market our service. A faculty member judged the advertisements. After this, the joint venture came to an end and each team entered the Finance round. This round had a slew of challenging questions related to the world of finance. If the team failed to answer the main question, there was a loop question. We were able to answer one main question and almost all loop questions. In the evening, much to our delight, we were informed that we had progressed to the final round, which was to be held the next day. The case study was interesting and involved many aspects of business. We tackled the case systematically. Anaqat handled promotion and marketing of the products, Aaron the finance and human resources and I handled a part of finance. Our business plan was coming out well. We reached the campus well in time the next day. Through draw of lots, it was decided that our team would be going last. Our chance finally came in the afternoon. We presented our business plan with full confidence. Once our presentation was done, the judges said that there was another round ? the Guesstimation Round. We were to estimate the total number of burgers sold by Mc Donalds (Connaught Place) in a day. This sounded like a Herculean task but we started working it out. We took a lot of estimates, incorporating minor and major details alike. The judges said that we were on the right track but due to paucity of time, our endeavour was cut short. The guest speaker for the day was Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Apart from the college students, only the finalists of the competition were eligible to hear him speak. We were really excited. We were extremely disappointed when we could not listen to his speech due to safety concerns. Even though we did not win, we learnt a host of new things and enjoyed every bit of the two days. All in all, it was an extremely enriching experience for us.

Samyak Jain12C