Harvard Business School has laid out a series of special events designed to celebrate the school’s centennial in style. Focusing on innovation and achievement, the activities created for the celebration “Will showcase Harvard Business School’s history of innovative research and teaching and the extraordinary impact of our alumni around the world,” said Jay Light, Dean of Harvard Business School. “Our Centennial also will be an opportunity to ask the important questions that will frame our work over the next century. What is the future of business and business education in a global economy? How can we help shape it?”

The school has announced that throughout the year, faculty, students, staff, and alumni will commemorate 100 years of HBS with a wide and global array of activities, including academic and industry seminars, alumni gatherings, and a business summit in the fall. A new website, Institutional Memory, also highlights significant milestones in the school’s history and provides an interactive forum for dialogue on the major business issues of today and the future.

HBS graduates will celebrate the Centennial through the Global Outreach Program, which will bring together alumni and faculty in 30 countries in a series of events and outreach efforts that will benefit nonprofit organizations in their local communities.

A highlight of the Centennial Celebration will be a global business summit, Leading in Business and Beyond, planned for October. More than 2,000 alumni are expected to attend this event filled with thought-provoking discourse, debate, and insight into important topics facing the global community. Business Summit speakers include the Honorable Palaniappan Chidambaram, Finance Minister of India; Jamie Dimon, Chairman & CEO, JPMorgan Chase; Orit Gadiesh, Chairman, Bain & Company, Inc.; Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corp.; Jeff Immelt, Chairman & CEO, General Electric Company; and Meg Whitman, President & CEO, eBay.

For further information on these events and all Centennial activities, please visit www.hbs.edu/centennial

This week’s GMAT challenge from PrepForTests.com is a sentence correction question.

Select the best form of the underlined section of the sentence below from the given answers.

Have a go at answering this and then review your answer.

The Yale School of Management (SOM) has announced that, starting in fall 2008, second-year students will have a chance to live a true study abroad experience by spending a semester at one of four exchange partner schools: the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK; IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain; the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India; and Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Beijing, China.

This announcement reflects SOM’s increased dedication to expanding its international programs. With the creation in 2006 of the Yale Management Integrated Curriculum, first-year students must now participate in an overseas trip known as the International Experience. The SOM hopes that this new, semester-long International Exchange Program will provide students with the option of spending more time in another country in order to pursue their global interests in greater depth.

While shorter trips abroad have their value, this new program offers greater academic and cultural interest by connecting SOM students with a wide range of international students from the exchange partner schools. “Students spend one semester in a leading international MBA program,” said Sherilyn Scully, director of Student and Academic Services. “But in addition to their academic studies, they will be meeting students from all around the world at their host schools, and they’ll bring back those experiences to SOM. Their experiences and interactions with students from our partner schools will enrich all of our students, I think, in a very meaningful way.”

For its launch year, Yale expects that up to 12 participating SOM students–three per each of the four international host institutions–will study abroad through the exchange program, with a reciprocal number of exchange partners attending SOM. The host institutions, the SOM says, were chosen on the basis of academic standing and prior history of international exchange involvement, and that the interests of SOM students, administration, and faculty were also gauged during the selection process. Each exchange partner offers programs in English.

SOM students hoping to take part in the exchange must prepare an essay application, to be submitted to a selection committee for review. Participants will remain enrolled at and pay tuition to SOM while they are overseas.

Calling the initiative a classic study-abroad program, SOM Deputy Dean Stanley Garstka beleives it is one that will add something new to SOM. “After graduating, our students are involved in business transactions all over the world, and this program will be another way of increasing awareness of the global marketplace, cultural diversities, international business norms, and of developing a firsthand understanding of today’s world.”

Last Thursday (2/14/08) Wharton released the results of Phase II of its annual business plan competition. The Wharton BPC, now celebrating its 10th year, provides students and non-student collaborators an opportunity to compete in a three-tiered selection process. In Phase II – the first competitive phase – the top 25 teams are selected as semi-finalists. These 25 teams then compete in Phase III, which requires submission of a full business plan. The best 8 teams are invited to present their business plans to a panel of judges at the venture finals. This year’s venture finals feature a one minute “elevator pitch” competition and a people’s choice award. Grand prize: 20k in cash plus 10k in in-kind services.

Think you have what it takes to win? You’ll have to compete against teams like Syatsui, which aims to develop a device that harvests energy produced by body movements to charge cell phone batteries. Other semifinalist concepts include a drug that prevents blindness, a technology that embeds particles into plastic or rubber to produce durable product surfaces, and of course, the “brallet,” a combination wallet/silicone breast enhancer.

Although teams may get some mileage out of a particularly innovative concept, participants are required to include detailed information in their submissions, including financial statements, a survey of the competitive landscape, and a risk analysis. While the BPC undoubtedly stimulates the already active competitive drive of the Wharton crew, the competition is not entirely about wild success or crushing defeat. All participants benefit from detailed feedback at every phase of the competition. And who knows…you might meet the folks who will help make your billion dollar idea blossom at some later date.

Several other B-schools currently host business plan competitions, featuring cash prizes ranging from 5k to 100k. Finalists in some of these competitions are given an opportunity to enter their plan in regional contests, such as the DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge, which disburses a hefty $250k in seed money to winning teams. For more on the topic, check out Jeffrey Gangemi’s BusinessWeek article on “The Afterlife Of Business Plan Contest Winners.”

In her post “Why MBA?“, In Search Of…………? wonders whether the silence thus far from the admissions committees will actually save this design consultant from a monstrous B-school debt.

Experiences-My Life chronicles his “NYU Stern Interview experience log” and urges other applicants to convey one important point during each interview question that will stick in the interviwer’s mind long after the chat is over.

MBA Admission—Through an Entrepreneur’s Eyes asks whether he should “Defer?“, since his unique profile may merit a higher-tier B-school than those he’s currently waiting to hear from.

MBA Highway Part II questions how people deal with “relationships and business school” in a post that generated several responses and really got people thinking…perhaps inspired by Valentine’s Day?

Le blog de hog @ INSEAD considers the pros and cons of the “10 month MBA???“, saying that it’s a shame the fees aren’t adjusted accordingly.

With the development of many Asian economies, it’s only natural that international business schools are courting young Vietnamese executives for their MBA programs. An entrepreneurial spirit bubbles on every street corner there, and the nation is known for its intelligence and work ethic. A recent Financial Times article examining the phenomenon pins part of the recruitment boom on the fact that Vietnam has a young population, with more than half its 84 million citizens under 25, and a growth rate of more than eight percent.

“Vietnam is certainly one of those emerging economies that is very exciting and it’s the right place to target,” says Angel Cabrera, Dean of Thunderbird School of Global Management. “But the business world has the lead over business schools in this respect. We’ve only seen the beginning of this.”

An MBA Tour trip to Ho Chi Minh City was part of this beginning. “Part of our goals in these visits is to recruit immediately. But another goal is to develop a better understanding of a western style MBA program,” says Meredith Curtin Siegel, director of the MBA Tour. “Rather than being a direct source of recruitment for our admissions directors, this trip was more of an opportunity to educate the market.”

The country’s skyrocketing economic growth poses unique challenges to recruiters, though. While this energy and entrepreneurship is alluring to international business schools, many Vietnamese may think twice about studying overseas. Prospects for employment and development abound within locally based multinationals, and good careers within these companies are keeping executives rooted at home.

According to the Financial Times story, for those who do want to embark on an MBA or other form of business training, the opportunities to do so locally are increasing. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) has established a presence in Vietnam, and is offering undergraduate and postgraduate education. At the Hanoi School of Business, students can acquire executive MBA program run in conjunction with University of Hawaii’s College of Business Administration. Professionals taking part in the program receive an AACSB-accredited MBA degree from the University of Hawaii. The school also has a relationship with Tuck School of Business, through which students can take the Tuck-HSB International Executive Development Program for Vietnamese Managers.

Perhaps the most compelling anchor for Vietnamese professionals, however, is the fact that executives can now earn in a month what they would have been paid in a year just five years ago, says Warrick Cleine, managing partner in KPMG‘s Ho Chi Minh City office. “If you are a young talented professional in Vietnam, your future is looking pretty good,” he says. “And it’s all happening now so there’s increasingly a feeling that if you’re not here, you may be missing out.”