A group of 21 MBA students from Mandalay University were on a business study tour to Bangalore with the aim to learn and take back with them some new ideas on doing business. This tour was a part of their 12 day training programme in India that was initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore and the Myanmar government. Their visit to Bangalore was packed with lectures by professors of IIM on varied topics including management. Field tours were organised to visit prominent Bangalore based corporate campuses like Infosys, Biocon, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Himalaya Pharmaceuticals, 3M and Akshaya Patra Foundation.
The visits to the campuses of these organisations instilled lot of inspiration among the student group. An MBA student, Phyo Myintzu said, “I want to introduce information and communication technology in the retail sector of my company".
Win Aung, was highly inspired by the work of The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Currently a member of the German-Myanmar Friendship Foundation, an NGO that works on education and community development, Win Aung certainly would have experienced a common cord between both the organizations. Win Aung said, "I am really inspired by the whole idea of providing free food to 1.3 million poor children. I want to launch a similar initiative back home".
Akshaya Patra receives Win Aung’s statement as recognition for their decade long efforts of feeding and educating the future of India. The Foundation is happy that it is able to inspire and motivate students across the borders. This incident reinstated further the vision of the Foundation, “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger”; and the mission of reaching out to 5 million children by 2020.
Source: The Times of India, Bangalore, 6th Nov 2012.