Achieving another milestone in nurturing entrepreneurial mindset in Nepal
King’s College, a business school and a leader in education of entrepreneurship in the country held its second convocation ceremony in Kathmandu. A total of 150-plus Business and Management students who had completed their BBA and MBA studies from King’s College were awarded the degrees.
Dr. David McKinney, Provost, Westcliff University, USA, conferred the degrees upon the students, while Narottam Aryal, Executive Director and Principal of King’s College handed over the King’s Awards to the winners for outstanding achievements under various categories.
Paras Upadhyay (MBA) and Prajwol Wagle (BBA) who stood first respectively in MBA and BBA levels were presented valedictorian awards, while Asmita Gyawali (MBA) and Sukrit Pant (BBA) received the salutatorian awards being the second rank holders.
The keynote speaker, Himal P. Karmacharya, President and Chairman, Leapfrog Technology, Nepal shared his three lessons with the MBA and BBA graduates – listening to one’s own voice, working hard and keeping the balance between work and life.
Money is surely important, but one should strive for what they love doing
Mr. Karmacharya mentioned that he succeeded not because he was the smartest, but attributed his achievements to his hard work. Working hard during work hours and learning to disengage is crucial for one’s overall well being.
“Money is surely important, but one should strive for what they love doing”, he added. He also emphasized that it was important to work with the people who inspire and invest in relationships that eventually gives one a sense of fulfilment.
Mr. Karmacharya led large teams at Motorola as well as enterprise applications and supply chain manufacturing at Oracle. He has extensive experience leading the development and delivery of large enterprise software projects. Previously, he was the VP of Engineering at VeriskHealth (division of Verisk Analytics, a publicly traded company) until its acquisition. Then he proceeded to start and gradually led to growth of two most successful software technology companies in Nepal. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) from MIT, USA. Mr. Karmacharya is known for his eternal optimism and his habit of successfully juggling multiple things simultaneously.
Entrepreneurship is a flavour of today’s global economy
Dr. McKinney emphasized on the relationship between global and local education. He underlined how the American education system with its rigour and flexibility can help students to develop competencies in their life. “Entrepreneurship is a flavour of today’s global economy. Remember, every organization is someone’s business. With mammoth traditional companies increasingly getting outnumbered by innovators, the clamour globally is for an education that is skill-based and helps one to adjust to an ever-evolving business need.” He added that the Westcliff system is nimble and accommodates change while infusing the best practices across the curriculum.
At King’s, we went from looking at teachers as “Sirs” and “Maams” to “Dais” and “Didis”
Pravin, our talented alumnus likes to call himself “Gufaddi”. Perhaps this is why his job at the telecom giant NCell suits him so well. Stressing on credibility and humility that he learnt at King’s College, he recalls his time where teachers started to turn into “Dais and Didis”. He said that the homely environment at King’s was the source of learning for him as well his friends.
His speech closed in his own style of humor with an address to all graduates, noting how he feels about King’s College that has made everyone “better students, boyfriends and girlfriends”.
Diversity is something to be celebrated
In his closing speech, the Executive Director of King’s College Mr. Narottam Aryal addressed the graduates. “I won’t address anyone else, because this is your day” he said. He talked about how each of the students present at the ceremony had a dream. Yet, on the other hand, they faced the expectations of the society. He recalled his personal examples having faced the same pressure, adding that diversity is something to be celebrated rather than imposing rules upon each other.
