Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

IIM Ahmedabad Old and New Campus.

In 1962, the IIM Ahmedabad board came to a formal agreement with the National Institute of Design (NID) for the latter to undertake the task of designing the IIM Ahmedabad campus. The National Institute of Design appointed American architect Louis Kahn and B.V. Doshi as architects for the project. Kahn worked on the IIMA project from 1962 until his death in 1974.

Kahn's architecture is characterized by the use of exposed red bricks, the extensive use of geometric shapes in hostels and academic blocks and vast corridors outside the classrooms. He combined Indian traditional and vernacular architecture and modern architecture skillfully. A number of tourists and architecture students often visit the campus for its phenomenal architectural impact.[17]

The library is named after the institute's founder, renowned physicist Vikram Sarabhai. The library was instituted in 1962 and houses over 193000 books and has online subscriptions to greater than 24000 journals. The library provides access to 100+ digital databases relating to scholarly, company and industry information to the IIMA community. The library is located at the Louis Kahn Plaza. In year 2016, Tata Consultancy Services partnered with the university with a grant of ₹20 crore (US$2.8 million) to restore the library for digital learning and collaboration.[18] In 2019, the library received Award of Distinction’ at the UNESCO Asia Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation 2019.[19]

Students are provided single room accommodation in the 33 fully furnished dormitories spread across the campus. Married students can opt to live with their family in married students' hostels. Stay in dormitories is mandatory for students. Basic amenities including washing machines, refrigerators and TVs are available at each dorm.[20]

The logo of the institute has the motif of the ‘Tree of Life’. The logo is inspired by a carved stone latticework jaali in the 16th century mosque of Siddi Saiyyad in old part of Ahmedabad.

• JSW School of Public Policy - Set up with financial contribution from JSW Steel Ltd worth Rs. 50 crore, the school is engaged in research on policy formulation and design, policy choice, and policy impact.[21]

The university has the following sector or mission oriented centres which are staffed by faculty members:[22]

• Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE) – It was originally set up in 2012 as a research institution, with a grant pool from Government of Gujarat, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and IIMA.[23] It now operates as a section 8 non profit company under Companies Act 2013. The centre supports 40–60 ventures every year through its accelerator programs, incubation spaces and seed investment program.[24] The centre has about 20,000 sq ft of incubation space in Ahmedabad, 30,000 sq ft in Pune and is in the process of setting up another one in Pune spread over 10,000 sq ft.[24] The center also has a Young IIMAvericks Fellowship/Internship program[25] for batch of graduating students who decide to take the route of entrepreneurship.[25] In 2015, CIIE was invited to co-host the first India-US Startup Konnect in the Silicon Valley to showcase the strengths of India's startup ecosystem.[26][27] In 2017, Securities and Exchange Board of India gave approval to Bharat Innovation Fund to operate as a Venture Capital Fund and also secured Category – I Venture Capital Fund status.[28]
• India Gold Policy Centre
• Centre for e-Governance
• Centre for Infrastructure Policy and Regulation
• Centre for Management of Health Services
• Centre for Retailing
• IIMA-Idea Telecom Centre of Excellence

IIMA has affiliations with 78 leading business schools across the world. In 2015–16, 140 students from IIMA spent a semester at affiliate business schools across North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Asia Pacific region, while 87 students from foreign colleges spent a semester at IIMA for the same period. The institute has a Dual Degree and one term exchange programs arrangement with a few business schools such as HEC Paris, Bocconi University, EDHEC Business school,[29] University of Louvain,[30] ESSEC Business School in Paris, University of Cologne, ESCP Europe and Emlyon Business School.[31] Some of the students going on exchange receive scholarships from the institute, DAAD Germany, the French Government and participating schools.[32]

IIMA offers different academic programs and has admission processes and eligibility respectively. The IIMA admission process is based on the course candidate opt for. CAT score is the basic exam to apply for admission in all of the academic programs. apart from that, they accept applications from other entrance exams like GRE, GMAT, GATE, UGC-JRF & ICAR-SRF. The next major aspect for admission is the category (GEN & EWS, NC & OBC, SC, ST, PWD & PWD (ST) ), Total seats are further divided into the category where IIM accept admission on the category basis. Good academic record and percentage score is another major aspect. [33]

IIM also conducts its analytics writing test and personal interview (AWT & PI) in Ahmedabad, Banglore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, & New Delhi cities of selected candidates. Seats in IIMA are reserved, based on government instruction 27% of seats are reserved for NC-OBC, 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST candidates, 5% for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwD), and up to 10% for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).[34]

Worldwide, the Financial Times has ranked IIM Ahmedabad 20 in its Masters in Management Ranking 2019[38] and 61 in its Global MBA Ranking 2020.[37] The QS Global 250 MBA Rankings 2020 ranked it 40 in the world[35] and 6th in Asia.[36] It was ranked 75 by The Economist in its 2019 Full-time B-school ranking, the only institute in India to be ranked.[39]

In India, IIM Ahmedabad was ranked first among management schools in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2020,[40] as well as by India Today,[43] BW Businessworld[44] and in Outlook India's "Top Public MBA Institutions In India" survey.[42] It was ranked first in India in by Business Today in 2019.[41]

The Red Brick Summit or TRBS, named after the red brick walls that the campus is known for, replaced 'Big Four' individual management fests/summits (Confluence, Amatheon, ConneXions, and Insight) as an umbrella management symposium. Instituted in 2017, the mega event – the biggest management symposium in Asia with a footfall of 20,000 students across more than 250 Indian and 30 international universities – sees renowned speakers talking about issues relevant to management and public policy, national-level business competitions, and workshops attended by hundreds. The speakers include Nirmala Sitharaman (Union Cabinet Minister, Defence), Maneka Gandhi (Union Cabinet Minister, Women and Child Development), Hasmukh Adia (Revenue Secretary, Government of India), and Deep Kalra (Founder-CEO of MakeMyTrip).[45]

A ProNite performance at Chaos 2017

Chaos is the annual cultural festival of IIMA.[46] Its yearly editions have been centred on themes like diversity, colour or going green.[46] The cultural festivities draws footfalls of around 50,000 visitors from Ahmedabad over four days and participation from institutes across the country.[47] Pro-nites (events hosted by professional artists) are especially a huge success with a large number of top class artists coming and performing on one stage.[46] In the past, Chaos has witnessed musical performances by Jagjit Singh, Amit Trivedi, Raghu Dixit, Mohit Chauhan and Shankar Ehsaan Loy to name a few.[47][48]

IIMA has been instrumental in influencing the business landscape of the country, with the highest proportion of BSE 500 CEOs (who have an MBA) coming from IIMA.[50] More than 400 students provide live consulting for businesses through the Forum for Industry Interaction annually. 84 projects were undertaken by students in 2015.[51]

IIMA has played a key role in India's monetary policy - four Governors of the Reserve Bank of India have been associated with IIMA (three as faculty - C. Rangarajan,[52] I. G. Patel,[53][54] and Y. V. Reddy, and one as student - Raghuram Rajan). Two faculty members (Ravindra Dholakia[55][56] and Jayanth Varma[57]) have been members of the Monetary Policy Committee (India).

A key study by IIMA on salaries in the private and public sector helped shape the 7th Central Pay Commission's recommendations.[58] Professors from IIMA have been appointed to eminent panels and committees, responsible for shaping key policies, by the government.[59] IIMA's Gold Policy Centre is in the process of publishing a paper on the government's Gold Monetization Policy.[60] The Punjab Prisons Department has signed a MoU with IIMA for a prison modernization project.[61] The Central Vigilance Commission has asked IIMA to come up with India's first index to measure perceptions of graft and corruption, based on the Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International.[62] Key studies on state health indexes have also been released by IIMA, helping to highlight the progress made on the same by various states across the country.[63]

Through its Executive Education programs, IIMA will train key senior officers from Chhattisgarh, as well as state Chief Minister Raman Singh, focussing on key management practices and project management.[64] Officers from the Delhi Jal Board will also undergo training on Project and Risk Management.[65] A MoU has also been signed between the Institute and the Delhi Govt to train the principals of all 1024 schools run by it, with the training to be conducted by the RTE Resource Centre.[66]

The Right to Education Resource Centre (RTE-RC), started by a group of students under the guidance of Ankur Sarin, helps parents fill out forms and get children admitted under the RTE Act, while also raising awareness about the issue of underutilization of the Act. The centre received 1800 application in its first year of operation, raising the number of children admitted under RTE from 30 in 2013 to nearly 600 in 2014.[67]

Launched in 2004, Prayaas impacts the lives underprivileged students by directly providing them a higher quality of education through specially appointed teachers, with classes running out of the New Campus, as also through funding drives that enable students to move to better schools, in a hope for better education and better lives. The IIMA community actively helps the children with their homework and preparation for examinations. Additionally, the children use the campus' facilities and participate in activities like painting, dance, crafts, etc.[68]

IIMA, in association with the Wagh Bakri Group, set up an initiative called SMILE (Student Mediated Initiative for Learning to Excel) to educate underprivileged kids wherein students will conduct classes in their free time. This has been piloted in a space provided by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) under a flyover near the IIMA campus.[69]

Among BSE 500 CEOs with MBA, the highest proportion come from IIM Ahmedabad.[70] IIM-A alumni have garnered 9 Padma Awards – 4 Padma Bhushan awards (K. V. Kamath, CK Prahalad, Mallika Sarabhai and M. S. Banga) and 5 Padma Shri awards (Kiran Karnik, Kailasam Raghavendra Rao, S. P. Kothari,Sanjeev Bikhchandani, and Srikant Datar). Other notable alumni are Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, Harsha Bhogle, Rashmi Bansal, Chetan Bhagat,[71] Ajaypal Singh Banga, Ivan Menezes, Deep Kalra, and Shikha Sharma.

Past and present faculty at IIM Ahmedabad include three former Governors of the Reserve Bank of India – C. Rangarajan (1968–1982),[52] former Director I. G. Patel (1996–2001),[53][54] and Y. Venugopal Reddy (current Professor of Practice). Other notable faculty over the years have been:

• C. K. Prahalad, famous management thinker, exponent of Core competency and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid[72][73]
• Ravi J. Matthai, first full-time Director, management educationist noted for establishing Institute of Rural Management Anand
• Bakul Harshadrai Dholakia, Padma Shri awardee, Director (2002–2007)[74]
• Samuel Paul, Padma Shri awardee, IIMA's second director (1972–78)[75][76]
• Ravindra Dholakia, member, Monetary Policy Committee (India), 2016-20[55][56]
• Jayanth R Varma, member, Monetary Policy Committee (India), 2020-2024[57]
• Vijay Govindarajan, a New York Times & Wall Street Journal best-selling author, Thinkers50 Hall of Fame 2019 & Coxe Distinguished Professor, Tuck School of Business[77][78]
• Anil Kumar Gupta was a professor who was awarded Padma Shri for his contributions to management education.[79][80]
• Pankaj Chandra, former Director, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and current Vice Chancellor, Ahmedabad University[81]
• G. Raghuram, Director, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore[82]
• Shekhar Chaudhuri, former Director, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
• Abhishek Mishra was a faculty member for six years, before leaving to become a member of Samajwadi Party and an elected MLA of Uttar Pradesh.[83][84]
• Dheeraj Sharma, Director, Indian Institute of Management Rohtak
• Jahar Saha, Institute Director 1998–2002
• Rajnish Rai[85]

Other notable faculty include prominent scholars such as Marti G. Subrahmanyam, Ashish Nanda, and T. V. Rao, among others.

N. R. Narayana Murthy, Indian IT industrialist and the co-founder of Infosys, got his first job as chief systems programmer at IIM Ahmedabad.[86]