Stress management is about the tools and techniques that reduce stress and lessen its negative impacts on one's mental and physical well-being. Dr. Muruganandan, Principal, Swamy Vivekananda College of Pharmacy, Tiruchangodu (TN) spoke on types of stress, causes of stress and effect of stress on body and health at the guest talk organized by the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences on January 19, 2023, at HN campus.

Participants got an opportunity to discuss how individual initiative and businesses can contribute to protecting human rights with Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag, member of Human Rights Protection Foundation. Discouraging corruption, moulding opinion to create awareness, forceful arguments, leading a dignified life and citizen efforts are key components of a framework for business and human rights. Dr. Shanbhag is founder and president of Human Rights Protection Foundation and professor of Pharmacology at Kasturba Medical College, Manipal. The open discussion with Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhag on protect, respect, remedy, a framework for business and human rights as part of CXO talks was organized by the department of MBA at RR campus on January 12, 2023.

Understanding the landscape of startups and startup culture is about differentiating between startups and entrepreneurs, managing mental and physical aspects of a business and knowing the financial implications. Mr.Sathya Prasad Director CIE, PES University and guest faculty IIM’s and IIT’s elaborated on these topics in Parivartana, changemaker series of guest lectures organized by department of BBA-HEM on January 12, 2023 at RR campus.

Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating contracts is a key skill for a lawyer. The week-long workshop on Career Skills: Contract Drafting and CV Building started with an introduction to the nuances of the skill with practical insights. The workshop was presided over by Dr. Shailashree Haridas, Dean, Department of Commerce and management and Advisor, Faculty of Law. Dr. Sujith Surendran, Associate Dean, Faculty of Law introduced the subject and Mr Tanuj Kalia, Founding CEO of Lawctopus, and Ms. Akanksha Mishra, Faculty Head of Lawctopus School conducted the sessions. The first session conducted by Ms. Akansha Mishra highlighted the need for students to inculcate contract drafting skills before graduation by emphasising on the building blocks required for the same. She ignited an interest in making a career through freelancing and upskilling through their law school journey. Mr. Tanuj Kalia, the founding CEO of Lawctopus and Lawctopus Law School spoke about the various aspects of career development in law school. He drew attention to the key competencies that are required to be adept in the field of law, reiterating that "a viewpoint, and not the only viewpoint" thereby motivating the students to find their areas of comfort to further enhance their expertise. The session made the students more eager to sharpen their skills, to make their CV, the one to stand out. The first day of the six day workshop provided an opportunity for the students to personally interact with the expert guest speakers. The workshop on Career Skills: Contract Drafting and CV Building organized by PES University in collaboration with Lawctopus was inaugurated on January 2, 2023.

In the recent event at Bangalore Tech Summit, one of the most reputed tech expos globally, PESU Venture Labs entrepreneurs demystified student entrepreneurship by sharing their journey and experience of becoming an entrepreneur and building a venture.

Pallavi Gopinath of Fond, Abhilash Madabhushi of Consuma, Yousha Mahamuni of Physi.fit, Ananya Mungara of Smart Chakra, Akshay SP of Zeru, Hritin Kedage of Assert, and Ajay Hegde of Greenifly participated in a panel discussion to share their experiences, learnings, and why they wanted to become entrepreneurs in the first place.

The audience was very impressed with the knowledge and passion these young entrepreneurs demonstrated. While each entrepreneur spoke about the problem they are trying to solve and how they are doing it, they also spoke about the immense opportunities present for student entrepreneurship and how pursuing entrepreneurship has positively impacted them. The event saw an extremely positive response from the startup community, academic circles, VC community and was powered by Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM)

Earlier in the day, Suresh Narasimha, Managing partner of PESU Venture Labs and Cocreate Ventures spoke about the need to promote student entrepreneurship, especially in the higher education system in a fireside chat with Suresh B and Prof S Sadagopan. He spoke about how starting entrepreneurship early and the learnings from it is unmatchable. Even if the startup doesn’t succeed, the growth and experience from the startup journey add immensely to the entrepreneur. He highlighted the importance of entrepreneurial thinking in each and every person regardless of whether they are going to be an entrepreneur.

PESU Venture Labs has been on a pursuit to help bright students pursue their ideas and build them to scale and promote student entrepreneurship. There are many startups that have successfully reached the market and are generating revenue.

Entrepreneurs have been instrumental in spurring social change and improving the way people live and work while contributing to the economy. Ms. Mythri Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Timbukdo, an on-demand talent platform to enable employment of alternative workforce, shared practical insights about the process of building a startup. He highlighted the significance of internships for understanding new opportunities and financial self reliance. The expert session on entrepreneurship was organized by the department of BBA-HEM as part of Parivarthana, Changemaker talk series on November 10, 2022 at RR campus.

Students of BBA HEM got an overview of the opportunities of international internships, application process, scope of specialization and financial requirements at the session conducted by Palash from PAX on November 4, 2022 at RR campus.

Students of BBA HEM got the opportunity to know about expectations and preparation required to be selected by reputed hotel chains. The session by guest Ms. Meheka as part of Livefully campaign, A Marriott Initiative that covered organizational orientation and career counseling was held on Oct 20, 2022 at RR campus.

ENgenious ‘22 reached out to all the students who are keen on social work, and entrepreneurship, while instilling innovative ideas, and creative instincts. A brainstorming session brought forth problem statements after which the participants got to work on a business model and pitched the value proposition to a panel. The event commenced with all the teams working on their pitch decks that presented the problem statement, the solution, the USP and its relevance in terms of working towards a social cause. In the next round, the teams worked on a business model. The final round provided a platform for each of the teams to propose a budget that they thought necessary for their projects. The finalists advanced the business plan before a panel comprising of club members and faculty advisors, Mr. Madhukar Narasimha, Dr. Lata Pasupulety and Dr Shylaja Sharath. Enactus club organized ENgenious’22 on September 29, 2022 at RR campus.

Building the right skills to anticipate tomorrow’s market and the leadership skills to implement tech-driven changes improves the career prospects of students of management and commerce. Mr. Shreyas Pardesi, guest speaker briefed about the higher studies opportunities and shared insights about industry trends and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math programs at business schools, job opportunities for business STEM graduates, drafting strong applications, and alumni experience. He presented information about Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, the university’s courses, and the application processes. The seminar on higher studies opportunities was held on September 15, 2022, at RR campus.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) offers robust training courses that help students in identifying career opportunities in various fields and growing professionally. The training was filled with learnings and practical experiences of industrial and vocational skills. Mr. Venugopal, Director of NTTF, gave a brief introduction to vocational skills and shared insights about the technical skills required to succeed in the industry.

He spoke about the importance of tools and timing, repetitive actions, and quality along with the quantity and national skill qualification framework. Mr. Indushekar B, VP and General Manager, Volvo India talked about the technological disruptions, outlook on the manufacturing industry, and how they take safety as their number one priority.

He underlined the importance of quality and the PDCA- Plan Do Check Act technique. Ms. Sajana Shankaran, HR head of Mitel related stories from her personal experiences to how every individual can overcome a confused stage with the Golden Circle theory of asking What, Why, and How. Mr. Shankar Ganigi of NTTF outlined the difference between teaching and student learning and made everyone understand how important it is for the student to put in that extra effort and touched upon the technique of 3P’s, Purpose, Progress, and Process.

He spoke about discovery learning as a self-learning concept and highlighted the differences between traditional and constructivist learning. The two-day training organized by the department of BBA, Faculty of Management and Commerce was held on September 6-7, 2022 at the RR campus

It was a great pleasure for PES University students, and faculty members to have Prof/Dr. Derick.H. Lindquist on our campus on August 11, 2022, to address the topic “Stress management at the workplace”. Dr. Derick. H. Lindquist is a professor, Dean of the Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling. He served as a postdoctoral fellowship and research associate at Indiana University and the University of Kansas. He was an assistant professor in the Psychology department at the Ohio State University in 2009. He joined OP Jindal Global University as an associate professor in 2019 and was elevated to professor and Voice Dean of the Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling. He has published more than 25 research review articles and book chapters and is a member of various organizations. He has a passion for teaching and mentoring students.

Dr. Derick. H. Lindquist started his session by explaining how the brain works. He also explained about the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain which handle reading, writing, and calculations. Some call it the logical side of the brain, the right brain is more visual and deals in images more than words. It processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous manner is what he said.

He stated that Fluid intelligence is defined as reasoning ability, and the ability to generate, transform and manipulate different types of novel information in real-time which will increase the ability to perceive things. He mentioned the 5 key domains and they are the SCARF model.

They are as follows:

• Status

• Certainty

• Autonomy

• Relatedness

• Fairness

He further explained the concept of Stress, it is a feeling of emotional or physical tension & it can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.

Feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cop up due to external or internal demand leads to emotional, physical, and psychological strain.

He said that our bodies are uniquely designed to handle stress. When presented with a threatening situation our most basic survival instinct is to prepare to fight or run away. Stress reactions assist your body with acclimating to new circumstances.

Stress can be positive, keeping us ready, propelled, and prepared to stay away from risk. He gave an instance where, in the event that you have a significant test coming up, a pressure reaction could assist your body with working harder and remaining conscious longer. In any case, stress turns into an issue when stressors go on without help or times of unwinding.

Students were educated on the particular topic Amygdala & stress by Dr. Derick. H. Lindquist. He says too much amygdala activation, inducing chronic emotional arousal or stress, can inhibit the prefrontal cortex and high-order cognitive abilities.

He further stated about Resilience it is an ability to bounce back with a positive capacity to cope with acute and chronic distress and innate resistance to negative events examples are hardness, resourcefulness, etc. 

Whereas coping is an ability to manage stress and also and ability to think rationally and solve problems, it requires conscious effort and the skill acquired through personal experience or learning is called coping.

Whereas the author says that attitude is all about thinking and feeling good about yourself, maintaining a positive attitude, spending time with people you like and admire as it will rub off on you also, keeping your eyes on the prize & Avoid date day distractions & finally Minimize Self-critique to maintain expectations.

Speaker says that the physical coping technique is diet and sleep as a well-balanced diet provides mental energy and clarity of thought. Sleep deprivation impacts physical and mental health. Keywords, stress, emotion, emotion, mental health.

Student entrepreneurs of PESU Venture Labs (PVL), organised a Roadshow to showcase their entrepreneurial skills and start-ups on their campus on July 23 and 24 2022. PESU Venture Labs is a venture studio launched under the partnership of PES University and Cocreate Ventures. PESU Ventures Labs (PVL) was set up with an objective to enable the finest and most dedicated students to become entrepreneurs. Investments in over 24 deep tech startups catering to sectors like cyber security, crypto, weather tech, ed tech, and pet wellness have been taken up.

Prof. M R Doreswamy, Chancellor of PES University said, that PVL was established with the goal of identifying budding entrepreneurs and innovative startup ideas, PVL and Co-Create have established initiatives like ‘Unicorn Launchpad’, which looks for campus-based ideas that have the potential to be unicorns. These concepts would be evaluated by investors and experts and developed into a profitable start-up. A month-long initiative called ‘Venturethon’ allows teams to submit their ideas, which are then evaluated by a panel of venture capitalists and analysts. Funding of up to $200K will be made available to ideas and entrepreneurs with the potential to make a significant impact in Technology, GTM, branding, and any other support they would need would also be given to them. Some of the incubated start-ups from the previous year that have reached interesting market traction include Fond, Assert, Seminar Room & Frizzle.

Suresh Narasimha, co-founder and Managing Partner of CoCreate said, At PESU Venture Labs, we have built a cohesive and strong ecosystem that enables student entrepreneurs to scale their start-ups from an idea stage. The types of concepts and dedication we are seeing from students fascinate us. The level of idea flow we get from students is unheard of outside of PESU and the support system we have built is admirable and inspiring for any startup creator. We want the next batch of students to experience this ecosystem and nurture the spirit of entrepreneurship.

18 start-ups incubated under PESU Venture Labs presented their start-ups at the event. Which includes Fond, Data Nominee, Frizzle Weather, Language Station, Treasure, TeaminUp, Assert, Consuma, Seminar room Education, Abhaya Secure, Senior Central, Smart Chakra, GoLocal, Laszo, Pebble, Zeru and Physifit.

Complementing academic achievements with awareness of the industry, knowing challenges after graduation, and making the right choice can give a head-start in building a career aligned to one’s strengths. Mr. Karthik BK and Mr. Vishweshwaran and Kannan, students of Sem 8 shared their insights about What’s Next in the industry. Mr. Dhruv Shetty and Mr. Akash Murthy, students of Sem 8 and entrepreneurs talked about What’s Next in the startups ecosystem. Miss Ananya Shivkumar, a student of MBA at IIM, Tiruchirapalli gave a glimpse of the challenges in gaining admission in an MBA program. Ms Shreyanka, a student of MS at RWTH,Germany, elaborated on the documentation and portfolio requirements and making financial arrangements for studying abroad. The So, What’s Next? on-line series on placements and internships was held in March-April 2022.

he workshop made students of commerce and accounts aware of benefits of professional guidance for making the most of learning opportunities in universities abroad. The workshop was conducted by Mr Santosh Neelangatil of MERIT Higher Education Consultants. He felt that education today is the first step towards understanding the global economy, discovering the challenges of the marketplace and identifying themselves with a career that provides opportunities within the country and abroad. Mr Neelangatil is a European Foundation of Psychological Association (EFPA) and Psytech International certified career counselor and psychometric test administrator. Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce organized the online career workshop for undergraduate students of BBA and B.Com from Jan 18-20, 2022.

PES University conducted a 2-day workshop on the approaches to Engineering Research on January 4th & 5th, 2020. The workshop was conducted by Prof. Perumal Nithiarasu, the Director of Research at the College of Engineering, Swansea University, UK. 

The workshop contained eight lectures spread across two days and included two tutorial sessions. It was attended by around 50 academicians consisting of PhD students and lecturers from various Engineering disciplines, and also included a few Under-Graduate and PostGraduate students. 

The workshop started with a brief introduction by Dean of Research, Dr. Sudarshan T.S.B about the workshop, followed by an inaugural address of Registrar, Dr. V Krishnamurthy. Dr. Krishna V and Prof. K N Seetharamulu OF Dept. of Mechanical Engineering also were present on the occasion. 

Day 1 

The first day of the workshop focussed on challenges commonly faced by inexperienced research scholars. After an introduction to general terminologies in research and underlining the need for research that ultimately benefits society, Prof. Nithiarasu built a strong case for the importance of underpinning fundamental research, and highlighted the significance of high-risk-high-reward research. This was followed by examples of a few common pitfalls faced by new researchers and how to identify early symptoms of such pitfalls. 

The next session discussed visionary vs incremental research, the importance of both, and how incremental research should be designed in order to make progress towards a larger, more ambitious goal i.e. the vision. The last lecture for the day gave several pointers on identifying rewarding research areas and prioritizing them. The first day concluded with a group activity, with each group identifying one example of visionary research, and two examples of incremental research, which were then presented to the audience. A total of five groups presented their ideas, and a good discussion of each idea followed, concluding with some excellent insight provided on each idea by distinguished guest attendee Dr. Ramachandra, Director at ADA (DRDO). 

Day 2 

The second day of the workshop built upon the foundations laid before, and progressed towards the importance of planning in research, and contained several examples of three and five year research plans, and how to break up the work into appropriate sized chunks. This was followed by a comprehensive discussion of dissemination in research, covering important topics like selecting the correct conference or journal, the relevance of conference papers in today’s world, identifying and avoiding predatory or fraudulent journals and some pointers on writing a good journal paper. The day ended the proceedings by discussing the importance of supervisors in the duration of PhD research, and finding the correct research group for postdocs and building connections with industry and organizations for collaborative research. 

There were several mentions of general do’s and don’ts for research scholars who plan to pursue research as a career post conclusion of their doctoral studies. 

Both days of the workshop were littered with examples from Prof. Nithiarasu’s past experiences which helped the audience relate better to the topics under consideration. The sessions was largely interactive with each lecture consisting of a Q&A session encouraging the audience to narrate relevant examples from their own research work. 

The workshop was unique in that it contained a fine balance of both sides involved in research - student and supervisor, and enriched the audience with a holistic view of research in engineering domains. 

On 18th November 2019 Faculty of Law, PES University organized a special lecture delivered by Hon’ble Justice Shri. V. Jagannathan, Former Judge, High Court of Karnataka on “Facets and Paradigms of Legal Profession” in the presence of Prof. Dr. M. R. Doreswamy, Chancellor, PES University and Dr. K. N. B. Murthy, Vice-Chancellor, PES University along with Dr. V. Krishnamurthy, Registrar, PES University and Dr. Sandeep S. Desai, Dean, Faculty of Law. Hon’ble Justice Shri. V. Jagannathan, Former Judge, High Court of Karnataka, His Lordship started the talk with a brief introduction to the profession and focused keenly on the importance of reading and spending time in the library as one of the most important requisites of being a good lawyer. He stressed the necessity of good communication skills for a lawyer or for that matter any professional. He gave various examples, live scenarios, cases of biography and autobiography of famous people amongst others. In conclusion, he posed a question as to why the legal profession is considered a noble profession and answered the same. His Lordship told that it is noble because one confides his complete self to this profession with utmost trust. Dr. M. R. Doreswamy, Chancellor, PES University, while delivering presidential remarks, emphasized on the relevance of integrated five-year law programs and opined that these five years go a long way in creating intelligent and effective lawyers. Stressing on the vision of PES University i.e., professionally superior and ethically strong global workforce, he called upon the law students strive for a life marked by supreme sacrifice and service and told them to pursue litigation in order to serve the last man on the street.

Workshop on clinical research and current regulatory affairs was held on Aug 29 -30, 2019 in association with Samahita Research Solutions under the Biotechnology Skill Enhancement Programme, supported by the government of Karnataka.

The workshop saw the presenters sharing their experience of successfully using the Vedic approach in their own professional and personal lives with excellent outcomes and as a form of service to society, in India and the world over. Dr P.R. Mukund Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, RIT, Rochester, New York and Dr. Ananda Gopalan, CTO, VeldonycLidar, USA participated in the event. Dr. Veena S, Chairperson, Dept. of Computer Applications, PES University was present on the occasion. The three traits of human being were compared to sathva, rajhasa and tamasa to induction, resistance and capacitor. Process of learning was demonstrated by shravana, manana and nidhi dhyasana. The speakers talked about DECATRAIT approaches related to knowledge, passion, attachment and detachment, awareness of the self, absorption, confidence, conviction. The importance of balance, vitality and strength for attaining success, position, fame and for personal growth was highlighted. Over 75 faculty, principals and institutional nominees, over 100 students from various institutions and over 100 working professionals attended the workshop held on July 26, 27 and 28, 2018.

Inspire 16 was an opportunity to know more about how entrepreneurship can be a powerful tool that is capable of changing the world for the better by focusing on reducing inefficiencies found in the system. The event featured Mukesh Singh, founder of ZopNow and Siddharth Rao, Legal Counsel of Sequoia Capital India who talked about entrepreneurship as a journey towards creating lasting change in the society. Mukesh Singh spoke about understanding the inefficiencies present in the system and coming up with a solution before competitors can spot the inefficiency. Siddharth Rao shared insights into the thought process of the investors before they invest in a company. He stressed on the fact that the investors look for potential in the founder and the founding team over the product or service idea itself. The speakers highlighted the importance of collaborating with others for a startup. They talked about practical examples of how knowing the market realities saves resources and improves efficiency and operations. They felt the need to get proper legal support for protecting Intellectual Property the team creates. Physical and mental health alongside passion for work was crucial for success according to the speakers. The event held on 4th November at Tech Park Seminar Hall was managed by the team of: Chaitanya Premkumar, Hardik Surana, Gautam Bala, Varun Kotak, Gayatri Anand, Vignesh, Smaran Mahesh, Siddharth Suresh , Chandher Shekar, Shruthi Shankar, Aman Anjan Bhat, Rajath Nandan.