GIM Students Bring Home The Flourish Prize For the Second Consecutive Year

Panjim, July 2022: A team of five students from the Goa Institute of Management (GIM) have brought home laurels on a Global platform by winning the prestigious 2022 Flourish prize out of a total of 685 entries from all over the world.

Explained Divya Singhal, Professor of General Management and Economics at GIM. “AIM2Flourish is a project of the Fowler Centre for Business as an Agent of Global Benefit at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. Students from GIM conducted research, identified a business innovation, interviewed a business leader, and then submitted their stories with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mapping their path. The stories that have passed the review process are then published on the AIM2Flourish platform.”

A total of 17 winners are announced every year pertaining to each of the 17 Global Goals set by the UN and students from a plethora of institutions from various countries submit their stories to the AIM2Flourish website.

This year, the winning story named “Every Drop Counts” features ‘Absolute Water Pvt Limited’ which was counted under the Global Goal #6: Clean Water and Sanitation. The students Jatin Tripathi, Kushagra Bansal, Akash Ghosh, Srikaran Shenvi Sursure and Anushkar Chauhan were the authors of this project who were guided and mentored by Divya Singhal, Professor of General Management and Economics at GIM.

“As a facilitator myself, it is fulfilling to come across such interesting innovations every year when we work on our stories. To me, every story is a winning story but it is really great to see our hard work pay off in such a way. AIM2Flourish publications also highlight how businesses are slowly leaning towards environmental protection and preservation and social upliftment which is undoubtedly the need of the hour. The students and the faculty of GIM are proud and thrilled about the results of the Flourish Prize.” expressed Divya Singhal.

The aim of this story was to bring to light Indian business innovations which have contributed significantly towards defeating the global issue of polluted water unfit for human consumption. ‘Absolute Water’ , spoken about in the winning story, is a green tech water company based in Delhi. It has installed the country’s first 100% Green Water Recovery plant. The company works towards converting sewage water into drinking water with a quality approved by WHO. As of recent times, they have also used Ozonation as an advanced disinfection treatment in their plants, which has been proven worldwide to kill/remove viruses such as SARS.

When asked about his experience, Akash Ghond, a student who worked on the project, said “Absolute Water is a company that functions very differently from others. It was extremely interesting to take a deep dive into how they are contributing to the environment through their water management practices.. It was a truly enlightening process as a student, especially under the guidance of Professor Singhal. The team and I are really glad that we were given this opportunity by GIM and we hope our story helps contribute to the betterment of the environment for the future generations.”

Added Ajit Parulekar, Director of GIM, “We at GIM are overjoyed that our students bagged winning place in the prestigious 2022 Flourish Prizes once again. GIM has done a lot of work in the field of sustainable development. We extensively encourage our students to learn more about the environment and work hard to preserve it as well. At GIM, we aim to create socially responsible business leaders of tomorrow. Our institutional values have been built around ethics, values, and corporate governance.”

A total of 4 teams from GIM were selected as finalists out of 685 entries from across countries. Last year too, another team from the B-school worked on “Jaipur Rugs”, a story regarding the artisans’ livelihood in Jaipur which won the Flourish prize for SDG 8.