Belongging (Inclusion Club Case Contest)

Team Vista is proud to present Belongging (Inclusion Club Case Contest) in association with QUEst Society and Belongg.

About QUEst:

QUEst is the diversity and inclusion society of IIM Bangalore. We aim to provide a safe space and foster a supportive environment for the LGBTQ+ community among other groups marginalized based on their identities like gender, race, caste, physical ability, etc.

About Belongg:

Belongg is a social venture that seeks to bring discrimination-free services to people who would otherwise face prejudice and bias on account of their identity (gender, sexual orientation, race, caste, faith, disability). We do this through interrelated initiatives that include the Belongg Literature Collective, the Belongg Research Collective, the Belongg Mental Health Collective, as well as the Belongg Student Program. Each of these programs focuses on complementary problems of inclusion using the tools of literature, research, psychology, and student engagement.

Problem Statement:

These are exciting, though turbulent times, globally. Issues of diversity and inclusion, of historical marginalization, are coming to the forefront and large movements that seek equity – Pride, Black Lives Matter, Gender Equity, Dalit Lives Matter – are making remarkable progress both in civil society spaces and business organizational spaces.

Business, social, and public leaders are being increasingly called to lead with diversity and equity as core values and with a deep understanding of these issues and pragmatic solutions that make real change possible. A lot, clearly, needs to be done since millions of people continue to face discrimination and prejudice on account of their gender & sexuality, their disability, or even their caste and race.

The IIMs are leading business schools in India and the training grounds for future business and social leaders who will play important roles in India, Asia, and globally. It becomes crucially important for not only the IIMs to be a vibrant, diverse community where students with queer and other marginalized identities thrive and feel fully welcome and at home, but also for the entire IIM student cohorts to become better leadership skills when it comes to managing diversity and inclusion topics.

QUEst & Belongg are partnering to design and launch a pan-IIM inclusion club program that would bring high-quality D&I initiatives to the entire IIM community overall (with 20 IIMs and counting), and support services, and create allyship for students from the LGBTQ+ community at the IIMs as well as students with disabilities.

Our current hypothesis is to anchor on “customized toolkits” to set up and run such Inclusion Clubs and then engage with student and faculty volunteers across IIMs to launch these clubs while providing “shared services and shared partnerships” to these clubs based on specific needs. This program would add substantial value since only a handful of IIMs have clubs or cells focused on these intersectional D&I goals and, even these, might benefit from global best practices and partnerships that such a focused program might be able to bring beyond student-run activity at these clubs.

The Case Contest:

We are in the early stages of this journey and through this case, the competition wants to invite applicants to submit well-rounded ideas for this pan-IIM inclusion club program that could be structured as a network, the services it could offer, how it could amplify impact, and also how it could be run sustainability with a viable revenue model over the long term, how should be structured keeping in mind the time constraints for most IIM students. At the outset, the program wants to enroll students, faculty members, alumni, as well as industry partners in this effort.

The contest is structured in two rounds as described above.