Dear IIM Alumni in Singapore,
At the outset, a happy 2022 to you and your families.
The year 2021 was tough, with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting us hard and claiming thousands of lives and livelihoods, in Singapore, in India, and globally. While we could not do everything we liked to do given the restrictions, COVID did not stop IIM Alumni SG from giving back to society as responsible citizens.
Most notable was the #BreatheLifeintoIndia initiative, which allowed us to shift IIMPACT from the conference theatre to the hospital theatre. A few highlights of the year are captured below.
As 2021 ended, we saw many alumni finally head home to be reunited with families after 21 months. And the community through the various WA groups also helped out by providing relevant and useful travel info in a crowdsourced model.
We head into 2022 with some trepidation, but mostly hope. Life will not be business as usual, the world has changed too much. It is not just the pandemic with its knock-on effect on mental and physical health, on business, on travel… that has changed the world.
It is very clear that the big problems of the next few years will be the challenges posed by the rise of nationalism and protectionism the world over, the growing power of tech giants on our lives, the clearly visible effects of climate change on our and future generations.
As we enter this changing world, as IIM alumni, we are blessed to have the capacity and the capability to enable better solutions to be found.
We must remake our own IIM alumni community in Singapore to be at the forefront of these issues.
Over the next few weeks, expect to hear more from the dedicated band of volunteers who serve the community.
(PS: that is a call to action we need more of you to volunteer, just write to us). Key aspects we plan to drive are: create a more digitally enabled, democratized community, build more community-level interaction and initiatives at the local and international level, and become a bigger force in the local ecosystem.
Happy New Year. Get involved in making us a bigger and better force for good.
Suresh Shankar
The biggest initiative of 2021 was #BreatheLifeIntoIndia, which was an eight-week-long campaign,the initiative was able to support SGD6 M worth of urgently needed oxygen supplies into India; of this close to SGD 2.2 M was directly raised by Pan IIM Alumni Singapore.
A Deepawali giveaway was organised for 500 foreign migrant workers by the IIMB Alumni in Singapore. With support from Mr. Prakash Hetamsaria (PBM) and Singapore Grassroot organisations, the initiative was extended to include 150 underprivileged Singaporean families and 200 students of Grace Orchard School.
The 2nd Annual Pan IIM Quiz took place in September 2021, virtually after the grand success of the inaugural Pan IIM quiz in 2020. The quiz was organized by Pan IIM Alumni Association and Mr. Rahul Phondke & Mr. Rajiv Rai were Quiz Masters. and the first prize was bagged by #QuizmatkeKhiladi team IIMB Alumni.
The 2nd Annual Pan IIM Quiz took place in September 2021, virtually after the grand success of the inaugural Pan IIM quiz in 2020. The quiz was organized by Pan IIM Alumni Association and Mr. Rahul Phondke & Mr. Rajiv Rai were Quiz Masters. and the first prize was bagged by #QuizmatkeKhiladi team IIMB Alumni.
