Yes! It’s that time of year again:  those shiny and vaguely medieval gowns, tassels, chilled champagne in plastic cups, pictures with family, and the solemn and inspiring words of a business luminary.  Class of 2010 - the light at the end of the tunnel might seem dim at the moment, but you’ll be snacking on cheese cubes and bidding farewell to your business school before you know it…

Here’s a taste of the lineup for this year’s MBA commencement keynotes (the links below will direct you to the commencement speaker announcement):

1.  HBS - Ann Moore, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc.

2.  Wharton - Utah Governor John M. Huntsman, Jr.

3.  UC Berkeley Haas - Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report

4.  Kellogg School of Management - Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric

5. Tepper School of Business (Carnegie Mellon) - Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com

6.  McDonough School of Business (Georgetown) - Kenneth I. Chenault, Chairman and CEO of American Express.

Congratulations class of ‘08!

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The international business school INSEAD recently shared news of a major professional services agreement with the Department of Civil Service (DCS) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to deliver a customized Masters of Entrepreneurial Leadership, developed to reflect the overall strategy and objectives of the Emirate.

According to their press release, the agreement, signed April 20, marks the first time that this INSEAD Masters of Entrepreneurial Leadership has been launched anywhere in the world. Beginning in October, as many as 25 participants will start 14 weeks of modular work spread over roughly 18 months. The Masters of Entrepreneurial Leadership will be delivered at INSEAD’s Centre for Executive Education and Research in Abu Dhabi, as well as on the school’s Asia and Europe campuses.

INSEAD Dean J. Frank Brown explained the significance of the agreement by saying “This unique partnership with the Department of Civil Service features an intensive learning experience led by our world class faculty with a Middle East focus, to promote the skills, capabilities and entrepreneurial acumen for Abu Dhabi and, eventually we hope, the rest of the Arab world.”

The integrated curriculum pulls together the key pillars to success, including modules focusing on entrepreneurship, leadership and business skills. INSEAD inaugurated its Centre in Abu Dhabi last September and is already offering executive education programs including both open-enrollment and customized company-specific programs to a number of local and regional companies across the Middle East.

To see INSEAD’s student blogs, check out these links:

Bluey Road to MBA-INSEAD

Le blog hog @ INSEAD

Power Leveling at INSEAD

Since our 2/18 post on the Wharton Business Plan competition (see “Develop Your Inner Entrepreneur“) several other BPCs have proceeded to conclusion. Here are the results to date:

HBS 12th Annual BPC - First Prize ($10K cash + $10K in-kind services) went to teams EyeViewDigital.com and Diagnostics-For-All. EyeViewDigital “enables communication between businesses and customers through cutting-edge video technology,” while Diagnostics-For-All “provides health care agencies and commercial organizations with a new generation of point-of-care tools to address the diagnostic and clinical management needs of the global medical community.”

NYU Stern 9th Annual BPC - Traditional track first prize ($50K cash + $10K in-kind services) went to team Social Bomb, “a game development company which taps into the large amounts of existing social networking data to provide entertainment and reveal unexpected value for players and advertisers.” The social entrepreneurship track first prize ($100K + 10K in-kind support) went to team Naya Jeevan For Kids, “dedicated to providing socioeconomically disadvantaged children in the developing world with affordable access to catastrophic health care,” and The Red Island, which imports and manufactures specialty food products from Madagascar, focusing on importing finished versus raw materials.

Rice BPC - Grand prize valued at over $325K (!!) was awarded to qcue, “a dynamic pricing solution for concert promoters, sports teams, and venues. Its software application transforms existing box offices into electronic markets by implementing elements of airline pricing and NASDAQ trading to provide dynamic pricing based on market conditions, while hosting a secondary market which is seamlessly integrated with the primary market.”

Duke Start-Up Challenge - First place overall and healthtrack winner ($30K) went to Cerene Biomedics, dedicated to developing an “implantable device which delivers localized cooling to the surface of the brain to prevent epileptic seizures.”

Wharton BPC - Grand prize ($20K + $10K in-kind services) was awarded to Solixia, “an early stage radiopharmaceutial company developing products that allow doctors to target radiation specifically to solid tumors.”

Keep an eye out for the results of the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which is scheduled to conclude on May 14th.