Darrell's India Trip: Day 12 in India

Day 12 In India-January 14, 2013

As our class begins to wind down, we had one more visit to a Mysore Business school today. We visited a school called Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Instittute for Management Development (SDMIMD). Like many of the schools we visited, SDMIMD offers a MBA program for engineers selected from various prestigous Undergraduate programs from all around India.

Today we met with the Director of the Institute, Dr. Parasuraman, and some of his senior staff members. We discussed the institute in general and then shared some of the details of what we do at the University of MD. After our introductory discussion, we met with Professor. M.R. Suresh who gave us a very detailed account of the history of Rural Development in India and how information management & knowledge management are beginning to play a role in the modern era. One great example of how information and knowledge are shared here in India is with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

In today's world, people need access to information quickly in order to make decisions. For example, if a Tsunami were to hit the coastal regions of India, then the Central Government can rely on the information those regions are inputting into the NIC to make decisions even though they may be thousands of miles away. Similarly there are many different areas that researchers can use the NIC to help make positive changes. Recently, data was showing that milk production was down in a particular region. Researchers were worried that Foot & Mouth disease was affecting the milk production in those regions. But after using the data from NIC and doing some field research, they were able to determine that the population in those areas had risen rapidly. This meant that more of the milk was being consumed in the region, leaving little left to be sold to other areas that normally purchased milk from that region.

Since much of the population that lives in rural areas of India has mobile phones, there are new markets being opened up that can benefit those people. Informaiton access has revolutionized how everyone does business, conducts their lives and communicates with each other. This has created unexpected benefits in sharing knowledge. For example, there are services where fisherman can receive SMS text alerts to be alerted to positive fishing conditions. Conversely, they can be told when the conditions are poor so they don't have to travel great distances to go home empty handed. The same can be said for farmers. Most farmers have to load up as much of their crop onto a truck and then travel many miles to take it to a wholesaler who will then tell them how much they are getting paid or if there is no demand at all for the crop. The farmer never wants to take his crop back to the farm because he needs that money for food, etc to take care of his family. Now with information sharing methods like SMS text messages, a farmer can know how much his crop is in demand and how much money he should expect to be paid.

After this informative session, we got a tour of the lovely campus set at the foot of Chamundi Hills followed by an information sharing session with some of the MBA students. And of course we were honored guests so we were treated to lunch with the executive staff.

Upon leaving SDMIMD, we made a short journey outside of Mysore to visit a temple. On the way I finally saw buildings painted with MYCEM cement advertisements. There are many cement plants on the way from Bangalore to Mysore. These companies pay to paint houses and stores with their logos. MYCEM is manufactured by the Heidelberg Cement Group which also owns Lehigh Cement Plant in Union Bridge. MYCEM is the product they make at the Heidelberg India Plant. So I have been on the look out ever since I realized we were in an area with alot of cement plants.

The temple we saw today was the Keshava Temple. It was built in the 1200's and is quite well preserved. The detailed artwork carved in the stone was magnificent. Words don't do it justice and the pictures probably don't do it justice either.

After spending a little bit of time examining the temple, we traveled back to Chamundi Hills for a terrific view overlooking the city of Mysore and the surrounding areas. There was also a temple on top of Chamundi Hills that we photographed from the outside, but decided not to wait for the long line to see inside too. On the way back down the steep roads, we also stopped to see the 2nd Biggest Bull carved out of stone in the world.

All in all, a pretty impressive day.

Random Pics/Items of Interest