Manogya Prasad From IIM Calcutta Shares His Story To Becoming The National Finalist Of L'Oréal Sustainability Challenge 2021

When I heard about my team being in the National Finalists of L'Oréal Sustainability Challenge 2021, it felt as if all our hard work had paid off. I felt fortunate and thankful to be in the top 10 teams across the nation. Here is a brief of my journey, which might be helpful and inspiring for many out there!

I have always liked to be environment-friendly and actively connected with the progress happening in the sustainability field. Hence, I was aware that Garnier has been doing a lot in this domain, and this was a perfect opportunity to share my ideas with them, which I would have hated to miss.

And that's how discipline took us to the national finals

We as a team spent a lot of time brainstorming and preparing the curated slides. I never kept track of hours because I think it's not about how many hours you spend. It's more about how passionately you spend your time on the problem and whether you are able to have a qualitative discussion or not. The most challenging phase for me personally was the 2nd round, when we had a lot of academic work and other extracurricular activities. Also, one of our teammates had a personal life crisis, but managing all that at once was a real challenge.

If I go back and give it a thought, I must say we handled it quite efficiently because we had just one goal in mind, i.e., to reach the National finals and win it. We used to schedule meetings much in advance and tried our best to stick to the timelines and deadlines. Hence, discipline is something that worked for us.

Also just like any other team, we also had conflicts. Or maybe I should call them the 'clash of thought processes' where we shared different ideas and disagreed on them. But, that was the beauty, as it helped finetune the solution for the team's greater good.

Overall, our strength was that we always thought as a team and never tried to push anything just for individual benefit. Another strength was discipline, which helped us complete our quality work within the deadline even after such hectic academic and personal life!

Catch up on the latest news feed:

Team Monday Blues - IIM Calcutta

2020-2022

Burning curiosity, passion, and a willingness to create a difference in the world through whatever they do - this is what defines them perfectly!