BackgroundIndia as a country has focused on inclusive growth, which aims at bridging the divide amongst rural and urban population of the country; among genders; among regions; and among organized and unorganized sectors of the economy. The Eleventh Five Year Plan was formulated keeping this focus and the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan aims at faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth. IMT Ghaziabad as a business school aligned with this societal vision, has the intellectual resources in the form of its faculty and students to contribute to these cherished social objectives. CRICKET (Centre for Rural Innovation, Capacity Building, Knowledge Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology) has been established to facilitate this process.

CRICKET is a multi-dimensional grass-root level platform for engaging in action research. It is focused at vital but often neglected segments of the Indian society, such as rural innovators and micro and small enterprises and provide them professional guidance in managing the commercial aspects of their innovations, developing business plans, refining business processes and thereby nurturing sustainable business.

CRICKET considers technology as the key enabler of innovations and a facilitator of social entrepreneurship.

The lessons learnt through the engagements with the target group would be channelized into action research based case studies and other research publications.

Dimensions of CricketCRICKET is founded on the pillars of:

• Innovationfocusedonbutnot limitedtotheruralpopulationofthe country.

• Capacity building of micro, small and medium enterprises inmanaging their business.

• Leveragingknowledgeresourceofindividuals,organizationsandsociety for growth and development.

• Developing and supporting entrepreneurship as an instrumentof economic growth and particularly social entrepreneurship for promoting inclusiveness.

• Makingintelligentandsmartuseoftechnologyinmakingallthishappen.

Each of these dimensions has a strategic role to play-for the country, for the society and for lMT as a business school which would deliver on these dimensions.

Key Projects Under CricketKellogg CRTI-IMT Peer Learning Internship Programme (KCIPLIP)

IMT Ghaziabad (through CRICKET) has entered into a strategic partnership with CRTI (Centre for Research in Technology and Innovation) of Kellogg School of Management to share best practices, conduct joint research programs and carry out joint student assignments in the US and India. Both the institutes have a firm belief in the philosophy of learning through doing and action research as an instrument of pedagogy. An important manifestation of this partnership was the conduct of a joint Kellogg CRTI - IMT Internship Programme spanning a period of ten weeks in 2011. Under this Programme, six Kellogg CRTI students were paired with six IMT Ghaziabad students on action research projects for specified host organizations in India.

List of Project in 2011

Host Organizaton Project Theme

DrishteeFoundaton Study on Sustainability & Cash Management in Kiosk Banking

American India Foundaton

DesignofMIStomonitorthepro-gressof“DigitalEqualizer”Project

NASSCOM Foundaton Assessing the impact of NASSCOM Social Innovaton Awards

dLightEnergy DevelopingaMarketng&Dis-tribuionstrategyforSolarLightsinWestern Utar Pradesh

IntelleCash Preparing a Road Map for Mergers andAcquisitonsintheMicrofinanceIndustry

I-Farm venture Advisers

Exploring the Potental and Scalability of Micro-collated Services as a Business Model for Farmers

In 2012, a similar program called Kellogg CRTI-IMT Peer LearningInternshipProgramme(KCIPLIP)hasbeenlaunchedtocover10teamsof Kellogg CRTI and IMT Students on 10 projects

Action Research Projects of IMT Faculty, assisted by Students

During 2011, several research projects were taken by IMT FacultyassistedbyPGDMStudents.Theseincluded:

• Feasibility Study for establishing PURA (Provision of UrbanAmenitiesinRuralAreas)inBahraichDistrictofUttarPradesh(Dr.RanianaAgarwal,Dr.SurinderBatra,Dr.NeerajAwasthyandteam)

• Capacity Building at District Level to enhance the performanceof MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment GuaranteeScheme)(Dr.ShaliniKalia;Dr.LipiDasandteam)

• Analyzing theConsumption Pattern for PackagedGoods in theBharat of India--A Case of Mandi District in Himachal Pradesh(ProfessorsKaushikDatta;HarvinderSingh;OmKrishnan,LubnaNafees and team)

• StudyofInnovationinIndianSmallandMediumEnterprises(Dr.VKGupta,Dr.BinduGuptaandteam)

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Project

The GEM Project is concerned with the study of Entrepreneurship in India, jointly with Indian School of Business, Hyderabad andEntrepreneurshipDevelopmentInstituteofIndia,Ahmedabad.Thiswillaim at preparing an India-specific report on entrepreneurship, which would also form part of GEM Global Report, being disseminated globally every year by the GEM Consortium. Collaboratively, two nation-wide surveys would be conducted under the Project to study the nature and extent of entrepreneurship activity in the country and perceptions about how the entrepreneurial framework conditions influence these in the Indian context.

Research Projects by PGDM Students

Besides the above, PGDM first year students are allotted severalshort term live projects as a part of their course on Interpersonal Communication. These live projects are designed to converge with the themes of CRICKET. Key objectives of these projects are to enhance interpersonal skills of the students and sensitize them to the societal needs for nation building.

People behind CRICKET TheinitiativeforestablishingCRICKETwastakenbyDr.BibekBanerjee,Director IMT Ghaziabad and Academic Mentor, IMT Group. Theactivities of CRICKET are coordinated by Dr. Surinder Batra, Dean(Research) andHeadCRICKET.He is assistedbyDr.NeerajAwasthya full time research fellow. Most importantly, the resources driving the activities of CRICKET are the faculty members and students of IMT Ghaziabad. Besides, external experts and research associates provide support for CRICKET activities on a case-to-case basis.

The CRICKET Team

Following faculty members have opted to participate in CRICKET activities:

Dr.SurinderBatra Dr.BhavnaBhalla

Dr.BinduGupta Dr.BikramjitRishi

Dr.DhirajSharma Dr.HarvinderSingh

Prof.KaushikDatta Prof.LipiDas

Dr.LubnaNafees Dr.MrinaliniShah

Prof.RajatGera Dr.RanjanaAgarwal

Dr.RashmiAgarwal Dr.SanjeevPrashar

Dr.ShaliniKalia Dr.NeerajAwasthy(ResearchFellow)

PGDM students engaged in research projectsPassing Out in 2012

BhawnaGirdhar HemanthM

Neha Gupta Nimesh Gupta

Niyoti Jagtap Rajat Udainiya

RishabBucha RohitLaumas

VineetSehgal VishwajeetChopra

VivekGupta VivekSharma

PGDM First Year Students

Ankit Gupta Akhil Gupta

BhavikShah DebopriyaBhattacharyya

Kanika Jabalia Neha Gupta

Megha Bhalla Mainak Basu

Niladri Majumdar Mukul Agarwal

Priya Poddar Pankaj Singh

SaurabhRathi SayanDas

Shilpi Pachauri Simran Preet

VikasMarwaha

CRICKETCOM: Students Committee

Abhishek Kumar Amritanshu Mehra

Anshul Gautam Chander Kr. Singh

GouravMukherjee HarshAjmera

Krishna K Mothukuru Kunal Arora

Kush Agarwal Manchit Kalani

Manish Pruthi Mrigank Shankar

Nupur Gurbuxani Pranjal Gururani

RitwikVijayan ShilpiPachauri

Shubhi Tripathi Sukriti Tayal

VSParasaran VinitaChoudhary

Contact Us

Dr. Surinder Batra

DeanResearch&Head(CRICKET)

Phone : +91 120 3002241

E-mail : sbatra@imt.edu

Dr. Neeraj Awasthy

Research Fellow and Coordinator (CRICKET)

Phone : +91 120 3002306

E-mail : nawasthy@imt.edu

Kellogg-CRTIandIMTStudentsalongwithDirector,CRTI;Director,IMTGhaziabad;VicePresidentSevayatra and Faculty of IMT Ghaziabad coordinating the Kellogg CRTI-IMT Internship Project 2011