To build awareness and interest in the Rural Marketing domain among students and academia, Rural Marketing Association of India (RMAI) and Ayurvet Ltd has recently announced the 10th edition of RMAI Flame Students Award 2016. The awards this year will be held at Hyatt, Ahmedabad on Sep 24th and will see over 200 delegates from the corporate world, as well as rural managers, B School students, teachers and marketing specialists in attendance.

This year RMAI received 210 case studies from 42 B-schools such as IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Kashipur, Kozhikode, Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak, Shillong and Trichy, IRMA, IRM Jaipur, IIFT, XISS, XIMB, XIMJ, Welingkar Institute, Vamnicom, Tripura Univeristy, Tapmi, SIIB, SIBM, SIMS, S P Jain, NID Ahmedabad, Nirma University, NAARM, MIT, MDI, Manage, KSRM, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indian School of Mines, IMT, IIT Kharagpur,IIT Delhi, IIT Patna, Banaras University, IIPM, IIFM, IABM, Gitam School of International Business, Fore School, CUTM, Bulmim, BITS- Pilani, Bimtech and others for the awards.

The competition this year has been judged by a jury panel comprising of Adarsh Sharma, EVP (Sales) at Dabur India; Amal Bhattacharya, retired Marketing Professional from Amul India; Dr. Anup Kalra, Director Ayurvet Ltd; Biswabaran Chakrabarti ,Vice President - Brand & Channel Management, Crompton Greaves Ltd; Mridula Shekhar Head Marketing, Retail Business, Tata Steel; Puneet Vidyarthi, Head Rural Business & Digital Innovations, JCB India Ltd; Punit Chadha, General Manager & Divisional Head - Rural & Commercial, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd; Prashant Mandke, Vice-President heading the Rural Marketing Unit at Madison World; Sanjay Kumar Panigrahi, President - Rurban and Special Projects, Pidilite Industries Ltd; Siddhartha Choudhary, Head - Sales & Marketing, CropIn Technology; and Venkat Ram Vasantavada, President - Agribusiness, Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemical corporation Ltd.

The top 10 shortlisted entrants will present their case studies at the RMAI Flame Students Awards 2016. Concurrent to the awards, knowledge sessions with experts will also be organized by RMAI on three topics; Opportunities and Challenges in Rural, Digital in Rural, and Impact of Govt. Initiatives and Spending in Rural.

Speaking about the event, Sanjay Kaul, President, RMAI says, “The sheer number of summer project entries that we have received this year is a testament of how the youth is taking serious interest in rural marketing and the endless opportunities and possibilities rural encompasses for the Indian marketing ecosystem. We at RMAI, have always believed that rural is the next big destination for marketers and the response that we have received this year to Flame Student Awards not just from students but also from academicians, marketers and industry specialists is truly overwhelming.”

Himanshu Shah, Joint Secretary, RMAI, comments, “The Flame Student Awards since the past 6-7 editions have always been happening in Delhi but this year the idea was to take the property to the next level and create more awareness about it. And since this year we have received case studies from the top B schools of the country, we decided to host the property in the education hub of the country which is Ahmedabad. Interestingly, this time around the awards will not only see participation by students but also by top brand marketers, academicians and industry experts.”

Speaking on the Jury evaluation, Dr. Anup Kalra said, “I appreciate the enthusiasm and the participation of the students towards the award. The inclination indicates that rural businesses would be in the hands of the responsible younger generations and provide excellent opportunities to the management graduates”