The Boston Pledge presents our Annual Conference with emerging leaders, renowned thinkers and progressive minds like you

Saturday December 4, 2010 | 2:30 - 5:30pm

As humanity struggles through the current global recession, characterized by high unemployment rates, shortsighted leadership and deteriorating ethics in corporations and governments, we at The Boston Pledge view  the future with a reasonable degree of optimism. From crisis come opportunities for change. Funds raised will serve the various initiatives The Boston Pledge is serving at the base of the pyramid in different communities.

Who do you think would benefit the most from this conference? What would the conference specifically offer?

This conference is focused on motivating professionals, young and seniors irrespective of their professional inclinations to engage with the challenges of imbalances of the 3Es _ Equity (widening gap between rich and poor), Ecology (melting ice on top of the mountains and glaciers) and Ethics (erosion of moral and civic values), which might stifle the progress civilization has made in the past 50,000 years. In the process it is my hope like- minded people will come together to deal with these challenges.

The conference seems to play on the word Micro. What is the significance of that word?

Microscopic forces are pure and most powerful. In physics, chemistry and biology we have
been continually inspired by the wanders of these powers. It is our belief in communities also
when small group of people come together with the purity of purpose however microscopic
they may be when they gel they scale rapidly. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity is an
excellent example how a large organization with base in 160 countries was built with humble
beginnings on streets of Calcutta.We want to share with our supporters in the conference that however micro may theircontributions be we should feel not handicapped by the size of the contribution, but beinspired by the creative and imaginative forces that such offerings might unleash.

It is often felt that the techniques taught in top Business Schools are designed address the needs of the top one percent. Yet many argue that these techniques work for transforming the world of the bottom of the economic pyramid. Any comments?

Excellent point. I think business school education is increasingly oriented to serve Wall Street requirements, which rewards the process of how you could speedily multiply the wealth of the investors. That approach does not work at the so called “Bottom of the Pyramid”.

First we do not use the term “bottom” as it sound elitist as if people from the top have to reach to the bottom to bring about social change. We call that area of the pyramid as the base of the pyramid. Now for any building if the base is weak it does not matter how strong the top is, the building is fundamentally fragile. Unfortunately we have reached that point in our development, all our economic equations as result of business school curricula is focused on serving institutions at the top of the pyramid. Why shouldn’t they, as business schools have become places where students go to improve their economic standing in society. The economics of top schools are such, – that to afford good teachers, for the campuses to provide corporate like teaching environment they need to charge high tuition fees which only rich students can afford – leading to what I call the “cycle of elitism”

If business schools are focused on serving students coming from the base of the pyramid not to graduate a few to go to the top, but to help them inspire the base for bottom up economic progress we have to fundamentally recast the curriculum with fundamental emphasis on

(i) compassionate leadership,

(ii) economics of inclusion as opposed to economics of exclusion,

(iii)personality development which can bridge the base the and the apex of the pyramid,

(iv) who will find ways to solve problems at the base to create jobs, not eliminate jobs at the middle,

(v)create wealth where purchasing power is small or near zero. Business schools in contrast end up teaching how to take coal to New Castle and or take sand to the sea beach. Business school graduates must learn how to build oasis in the middle of deserts, not just how to build another high-rise in Manhattan.