IIM Kozhikode’s Growing Global Footprints Eye Destination Dubai for Future Expansion Plans
Dubai : Eyeing to spread its wing further and take the Indian Institutes of Management brand to the world, IIM Kozhikode is all set to expand its frontier beyond national boundaries in the coming years. Prof. Debashis Chatterjee, the two-time Director of the Institute, in a talk with the Gulf based news & media publication house Khaleej Times shared this update as IIM Kozhikode hosted its first-ever ‘Masterclass’ in Dubai (UAE) recently. Masterclass ‘Mindful Leadership in a 4.0 World’ is a hugely popular workshop among corporate leaders and has already conducted three city tours – Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi post-Covid curbs relaxation in 2022. Around 100 participant leaders from corporate world – CEOs, CXOs, Educational Leaders, Health Care Professionals from the GCC countries were part of this exclusive workshop.
Prof. Chatterjee in this interaction with Khaleej Times revealed that India’s top-ranked management school is currently in talks with various stakeholders in the UAE to internationalize the premium management brand with the Indian influence growing on the world stage. “We see Dubai as a place for experimentation and business innovations. So, if you embed a school here our faculty will also get exposed to the global stage. Therefore, it makes sense for IIM to be here. On many counts, one of which is Dubai is a cosmopolitan place from all over. We recognise that the number one foundation for Innovation is diversity. Uniformity is a killer,” said Prof. Chatterjee. Various luminous representatives of IIM Kozhikode believe that for an institute with a global footprint of alumni, it is important to have a physical presence beyond the national borders. Although this may involve practical challenges that require governments’ support, Prof. Chatterjee was optimistic that that with most of the hybrid technologies coming into play, Digital can be the perfect launch pad for IIMs global foray into Dubai.
Further aligning IIM Kozhikode’s motto of ‘Globalizing Indian Thought’ with the ‘Study in India’ programme of the Govt. of India, to make India an educational hub, he added that IIMK has recently added 50 supernumerary seats for excellent foreign students. Besides this, “Currently, there are mid-career bureaucrats and diplomats of 30 different countries under the Ministry of External Affairs undergoing training in Kozhikode to look at how India creates innovation and social capital. This is gaining momentum as India increasingly becomes an aspirational space for many countries. They look to us to guide them as to how to take their country forward.”
Elucidating further on the interconnection between India’s intellectual capability and the country becoming an innovation capital, where the world of the future will belong to creative conceptualisers, rather than people working inside their own silos, he adds: “IIMs are a bunch of schools that compete with the best in the world. So, we want our executive education to take roots here. We are already present here in some way. We want the schools of Dubai to engage with Indian schools to see how the education system of India has altered the fortunes of India, limited not just to higher education. “I would like Dubai to look at India as the number one innovation capital in the world. The force of innovation has just been unleashed by the government. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of making India a startup hub is yielding fruits. India will become a global hub.”
He also shared since the foundational aspects of the economy in the UAE are being run by expatriate community from the state of Kerala, IIM Kozhikode’s entry into hitherto unchartered territory can carve an optimistic path for other IIMs to follow suit. He also credited the envious reputation of the strong alumni base of IIM Kozhikode and other IIMs for the massive popularity of brand IIM among corporates as well as public offices. Terming Innovation as the key drivers for knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination, knowledge accreditation, knowledge monetization for B-Schools of the future, he expressed hope that schools of Dubai will engage further with Indian schools to see how the education system of India has altered the fortunes of India, limited not just to higher education but the entire education ecosystem.