The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Think out of the box, Kalam tells students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 02, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Think out of the box, Kalam tells students

Special Correspondent

Become job generators rather than just job seekers Asks them to become job generators rather than job seekers

CHENNAI : It was a dream come true for hundreds of the Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA) students on Thursday when President A.P.J Abdul Kalam came calling.

Not surprisingly, he was greeted with thunderous applause when he arrived to interact with the students of this premier B-school.

In an anecdote-rich speech on `Evolving entrepreneurs' and interaction with students, the President urged them to "think out of the box, be proactive and creative" and become job generators rather than just job seekers.

Recalling his student days at St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirapalli, Mr. Kalam said moral sciences should form an important part of education. Over 10 million educated Indians were being injected every year into society from schools and colleges as "seekers of employment." If entrepreneurship education was made part of the curriculum and the student was given sufficient skills, he could become a generator of employment instead.

The common factor between developed and developing countries was that both had to "produce competitively and market aggressively'' and competitiveness included cost-effectiveness, quality and access to markets. "Students should be competitive when they graduate. Also, you cannot survive without ethics in management," he said.

Recalling the contributions of a few extraordinary Indians to nation building — Space scientist Vikram Sarabhai; C. Subramaniam and M. S. Swaminathan, both fathers of the Green Revolution, and Verghese Kurien, architect of the White Revolution — Mr. Kalam said a visionary would succeed anywhere.

Later, in response to a question from a student on what future managers should do to uplift backward sections, hesaid they had to be competitive and choose the right path. On the role of women in corporate India, he said organisations should make no differences between male and female employees. Women contributed to 25 per cent of the workforce as scientists in top scientific institutions in the country. Women were poised to emerge as winners but they should be competitive and not seek concessions.

To another question, Mr. Kalam said the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology and IT would lead to miracles. Nanotech-driven advancements such as desalination using solar power had assumed tremendous importance, he added.

Among those who participated were Labour Minister P. Annavi, Loyola College Principal Albert Muthumalai and Director of LIBA P. Christie.

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