Madras Management Association launches Trichy students' chapter

The Madras Management Association (MMA) that launched its Trichy Chapter in July 2012 strengthened its position in the region by launching a students' chapter on Sunday with the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, one of MMA's latest addition on their client list.

The MMA, which was launched in 1956 with 9,000 members, conducts 800 events a year.

The executive director of MMA, Capt R Vijayakumar told TOI on Sunday evening that the association had chosen Trichy as it was an education hub and it was preparing to give "holistic development" to students, particularly from the management discipline, in the context of emerging paradigms. MMA is the largest affiliate association of All-India Management Association in the country, and has been awarded 'national excellence award' for the year 2007-8 for winning the best local management association in India for five consecutive years.

Vijayakumar said the association would introduce best practices and introduce best international speakers particularly to management students for a nominal fee of Rs 40 a month for a student. The students would be taught in soft-skills improvement, to feel more confident with increased communication levels, so as to make them industry-ready. "We hope to conduct at least 60 events a year in the region," he said.

The MMA has been given some space in the NIT-T to start with, and the student chapter would be managed by the students themselves. The NIT-T has also, it is understood, offered its 1000-member-capacity auditorium for a one-day seminar to all the corporate, entrepreneurs, SMEs, management professionals, and management students under one roof. It would also organise executive development activities including seminar for top managers in the region. "We also plan to conduct book-reading session to the students, as the habit of reading is going down," said Vijayakumar. According to him, all these holistic activities would be imparted without interfering with the academic schedule of the students.

Why seek employment? Rather, the management students should become employers. The idea is to make the management students to become entrepreneurs in their chosen field, and we would provide them all we could with the backing our experts in the region, Vijayakumar said.