An Opulent Weekend!
(Reported by Ankit Khanna, Integrated M. Tech. Applied Physics 2010)
Opulence 2008, the annual management festival of IT BHU was held from the 18th to 20th January 2008. This three day long extravaganza saw a spectrum of competitive events, focused workshops, seminars and talks enthrall IT BHU.
Stalwarts in the field of advertisement have adorned Opulence since its inception. The list of ad makers to have graced Opulence already had the names of heavyweights like Bharat Dabholkar, Kiran Khalap and Prahlad Kakkar and Opulence 2008 had something special in store! Mr. Abhijeet Avasthi, our alumnus returned to his alma mater to set the stage sparkling with an aura of creativity through showcasing and analyzing some of the finest ads the Indian television has witnessed in the past decade. Mr. Avasthi (Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy and Mather, South Asia), the brain behind Mentos, Cadbury, Asian Paints, Bajaj Pulsar, Hutch and many more successful ad campaigns, inspired one and all during his workshop. The decibel level of applause in the jam packed Swatantrata Bhawan was deafening during his workshop.
Prof. Debashish Chatterjee culminated the ‘Break Free’ series of leadership workshops meant especially for IITians at IT-BHU with an awe inspiring and motivating exhibit. An out of the box thinking and a radical approach to all aspects of life, is what he professed. Leadership, he said, was not just about striving to achieve the unconquered but also about being able to best utilize that latent part of us which goes unexploited. He concluded on aphoristic note saying that “…fire shall be discovered for a second time in the history of human civilization, only this time the spark shall come from within.” He acknowledged the response of the students here as the best he witnessed in all the IITs.
TIME Education Varanasi presented students with an insight into what it takes to crack the CAT, arguably the most difficult exam in India. A panel discussion which hosted Mr. Anupam Raghuwanshi, the director of TIME Varanasi (a man with years of experience in international projects for the United Nations), and some of the successful candidates of our college, made a great impact on the plans and methodologies of the hundreds of aspirants in attendance.
The competitive events at Opulence were a spectacle like none other. The finalists for Brand-Aid- the Marketing Game- were made to roam around Lanka, looking for ways to promote fictitious products. The new event, Man Handle-the HR Game- was very well received and got more than 150 participants. Tactitude- the Strategy Forecasting Event-and the returning favorite from last year, rose to new heights with more than 500 students participating in the preliminary round. The finalists of Tactitude will forever remember the intense grilling they got at the hands of the judge, Mr. Aditya Sinha from Siksha Training and Consultancy. Evalueserve Manthan tested the analytical abilities of the students with 2 case studies related to intellectual property. As always some innovative B-Plans and some perspicacious business papers were presented in Ventura (business plan contest) and Cognoscenti (business paper presentation) respectively. Opulence also received great outstation participation from many of India’s top B-Schools, like IIM L, XLRI, MDI Gurgaon and IIFT.
Aditya Goel, a student of Metallurgy Part-4, had a particularly good time at Opulence bagging first place in Man-Handle, Manthan, Tactitude and Czar of the War taking home prizes worth more than Rs. 80,000!
 During the Inaugural |  Dr. P. K. Mishra, Chairperson of Opulence |
 Prof. Pankaj Chandra during his talk |  Student Convener Ankit Khanna during the vote of thanks |
For more photos, please click here