The festival session in Bihar saw an initiative of a new kind when a few Biharis from across the world converged in Patna to demonstrate the power of knowledge and collaboration in a flat world.

For the first time, students from Patna saw a team of committed and experienced professionals from world's well known organizations and having collective expertise in diverse areas ranging from management to technology coming on a single platform under the One Bihar Initiative. "A New Awakening" was palpable as the sons of the soils came together for sharing their experience of corporate worlds and giving a realistic picture of various career options like IT, Management, Media.

The event was organized in B N College Seminar hall and it was kick started with the inaugural speech of Dr Sukhda Prasad, Principal Magadh Mahila College, who shared her thoughts on the untapped talent pool which Bihar has. She stressed the fact that despite the best of Human Resource talent available in the state, Bihar has not been able to develop up to its true potential. She was enthused by the kind of commitment which the One Bihar team has shown in giving back in terms of helping the students to achieve the potential in the best possible way. Dr. Ramesh Prasad, Principal BN College, also graced the occasion. The One Bihar team acknowledged and thanked him for his kind support.

The first presentation of the seminar was on Careers from Human resource perspective by Ajit Chouhan from Infosys HRD team. He shared some facts and analysis on how our talent pool has not been able to keep pace with the growing demand of IT and ITES professional. He stressed the fact that only 25 % of the total engineering graduates in India are employable. The talent crunch is likely to be serious bottleneck in the growth of Indian economy and the ITES services in the country. And here students from Bihar can tap the opportunity.

The next presentation was on various options available for Management students and this was jointly conducted by Atul Kumar, an IIM Ahmadabad Alumnus, Mayank Krishna, an alumnus of IMT, Ghaziabad, and Rajiv Vidyarthi, an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. The interaction was focused on the different aspects of Management education, the types of institutes, on factors which one must weigh before opting for management as a career. A realistic perspective with focus on practical aspects of management education was discussed in detail. They also spoke about the different streams of management such as finance, marketing and Information systems with inputs on real life job scenarios and practical applications. The team shared its learning as professional working in different organizations and exhorted students to focus on their strengths and work around their weaknesses in their endeavour to strive for excellence.

Samir Mishra, an IT consultant based in Australia, spoke on the various options of Higher Studies which were available for students who intended to go abroad. He spoke about the various processes and steps involved for getting into the top institutions outside India. Samir shared his experience of getting the requisite clearance and his academic experience in Australia. He also spoke about the new trends like open source and usage of IT in acquiring the right information for seeking career opportunities aboard.


A presentation on career opportunities Media was presented by Frank Krishner. The presentation was contributed by Sweta Singh, Program Coordinator with Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication. The talk was focused around the opportunities which media and mass communication provides to the students. Students were informed about the different course and institutes which are offering these vocational courses. Frank used his journalistic experience to demonstrated the realistic aspect of a career in journalism.

Chandan Singh from the One Bihar team and a key proponent of the Patna rice project shared the experience of the group which worked as a virtual team from all over the world .Chandan with other members shared the experience of working as 24*7 team for this event organized under the One Bihar platform. Rahul Barnwal of Seimen's Power, anchored the event with great aplomb. The event was also addressed by Dr. P C Verma, an economist and professor of Patna University. He gave his thumbs up to the new initiative where people of Bihar were coming back to help their fellow Biharis in achieving career objectives. He also stressed on the need for sharing their corporate experience with institutions in Bihar to create more market and industry friendly academic atmosphere in Bihar.

After the program, the charged up students interacted individually with members of the One Bihar team and discussed their individual queries, doubts, and any other thing that was on their mind related to career. The One Bihar team also committed to students that they could seek their help anytime in future through e-mail ( one.bihar@gmail.com) and they would be glad to help students with their career related queries.