Feature

Memoirs of 'Battle of Minds'

Shabab Ahmed Choudhury

AS I was rounding up my work at office, I checked the bulletin board out of habit. It said 'Battle of Minds (BoM) 2009 road shows have been initiated in various universities. This simple news on the company bulletin board took me through a rush of emotions. As I leaned back on my chair and started recalling the days when I was a participant, I suddenly realised how much I had actually gone through without even realizing it. This was the talent competition, which had taken me through a roller coaster ride in terms of maturity and performance.

I still remember, I was an average hard working student in North South University (NSU), almost on the verge of graduation, going through my midterms and quizzes, absolutely ignorant about what was lying in front of me. Then suddenly Battle of Minds 2008 started. I realized I had satisfied the criterion for participating in this unique inter university competition.

Within a month, I suddenly found myself sitting in a room full of formally dressed students like me and a bunch of very energetic and outgoing people calling themselves British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) management. I still remember the first thing that came to my mind 'if these people are so happy working, I would not mind working in the same place they belong to'. Eventually the road-show kicked off. We were divided into groups and given a case to solve and present within an hour. All of us went through the case and did the presentation in front of a panel of judges. Mine went well as far as I remember. The moment the road show was over and I was loosening up my tie knot, the happy looking people came up and said we now need to go over to their office for a verbal and mathematical test!! Well, eventually we even got that done.

Once the road-show was successfully accomplished, the short listed candidates (I was among the lucky few) were taken to BCDM in Gazipur for quarterfinals. The day long activities over there were an absolute refresher from the stereotype case solving exercises previously experienced by any undergraduate student. The day started off with a treasure hunt game with all the other university participants. Running around in the scorching heat in search for clues really took every bit of energy out of us but this was supposed to be a good team building exercise and thus, we duly complied. Once this 'knowing each other' session ended, we went through a grooming session conducted by BATB management. This was really informative as far as I remember. It helped us understand what level and structure of performance is expected out of us. The grooming session was followed by a delicious lunch. Then we had our quarterfinal round of marketing a product to a super market crowd. The opportunity for bringing in our own innovativeness was so massive that even the day long activities could not tire us enough to under perform. The day ended with that and we all came back to Dhaka. After a very anxious few days, I got a call that our university has qualified for the next round.

The qualifiers were taken to hotel Lake Shore for semi-finals. I remember each of us was given a product earlier and we were told to articulate a business case around it. Today while sipping my coffee, I can still clearly recall the excellent quality of business cases and presentations the other teams had come up with. The playing ground was suddenly filled with opponents who were better prepared then me. One of the biggest realizations of my life occurred to me that day: Never be satisfied with status quo, always keep pushing for the extra mile, a key learning which I still practice in my professional life. The presentations and cases of other universities were so good that my efforts fell short. NSU got dropped out in the semi-finals. My BoM journey had ended.

'I sincerely hope the candidates can make the most out of it as my experience of it is still adding value in my life' was my friend and ex BoM partner's immediate reaction when I informed him about this year's Battle of Minds. As I walked out of office I realized BoM was my first gist of corporate world and the memories of it will be cherished for a long time. I offer all my best wishes to each of the participant of Battle of Minds 2009 and waiting to see which team gets the glory!