Dr. Bjorn Lomborg visited Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur on 13 December, 2017 for a talk. This was an event that everyone at the Institute was eagerly waiting for given the preeminent reputation of the speaker. Dr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. The event offered an opportunity to discuss the role of Management schools in making managers globally sensitive.

The Copenhagen Consensus Center is an award-winning think-tank that researches the smartest ways to do good, working with 300+ of the world’s top economists and 7 Nobel Laureates. The talk was organized essentially to introduce some of the world’s leading thought leadership work to faculty and students and also to identify areas of commonality between the Institute some of the work being done by Dr. Lomborg. The choice of Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur as the venue was apt given its approach towards creating business managers who are responsible citizens and that the Institute is at the forefront of taking Rajasthan ahead in management education and thought leadership. Moreover, the Institute has entered into 16 MoUs with NGOs for whom students work on projects.

At the onset, Dr. Lomborg began by addressing queries on his first impressions of India, Rajasthan, and Jaipuria Institute of Management. “I love the weather and I love the incredibly friendly people. I do feel there are many opportunities to make India and Rajasthan an even better place,” were the thoughts he started with.

Jaipuria too created a great first impression on Dr. Lomborg going by his words, “I find Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur an amazing place. I had a chance to interact with the students and some of the faculty and it feels like this impressive place where incredible work gets done. I was particularly impressed by the level of engagement the students had during the talk. They wanted to understand how we can actually have better cost benefit analysis for impactful projects looking at what could work for Rajasthan.”

One of the areas the Copenhagen Consensus Center focuses on strongly is making business more sensitive to societal needs. On this, Dr. Lomborg said, “As business managers you should of course be worried about the environment. Prioritizing low costs and high profits only at the cost of environment and society is not just irresponsible but also bad for business in the long run.”

On his Center’s involvement with India, he said, “In India we are initially beginning our involvement with two states, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. We are working closely with Mr. Ratan Tata who wants to see sustainable business practices all over India. When I look at India, I see a country full of hope and full of opportunity.I am most excited to work with some of your most brilliant economists and business people to take this ahead towards achieving its ambition.”

Overall, this was an excellent opportunity for Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur students to hear from and learn from an eminent global thinker to get a better global perspective around pressing issues of our time.