The PRME Innovation Challenge, which is part of the PRME SDG Student Engagement platform led by the PRME Secretariat, brings together students from Advanced PRME schools to work with businesses to build sustainable business solutions addressing their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) / corporate social responsibility objectives.

Asian Institute of Management's MBA 2020 team was selected to this year’s PRME Innovation Challenge. There were 34 team submissions from 19 schools from 13 countries. Two teams were selected to work with two companies to develop their sustainability strategy. The first team is AIM’s MBA 2020 team, InnovAsian, which won the opportunity to work with France-based Manitou Group. Manitou is a world-leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and servicing of all-terrain, material-handling equipment for construction, agriculture, mining and industrial application. Dr. Felipe Calderon is the faculty mentor to the InnovAsian team. He is also AIM’s representative to PRME. The second team is from Copenhagen Business School designated to work with Rockwell Automation, one of the largest companies in the world dedicated to industrial automation and information. InnovAsian team consists of Tonie Flores (top left), Rahul Nagaraj (top right), Venghat Swaminathan (bottom left), and Jaganath Taduri (bottom right).

It will be a 3.5 months project that will involve Skype interviews with Manitou’s employees, clients, and suppliers. Originally, the Innovation Challenge was supposed to culminate with the presentation of the two teams' projects in New York on June 17-18, 2020 during the 2020 PRME Global Forum. However due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the online Award Ceremony has been rescheduled to be held in mid-September instead.