News Archive

Durham Business School student wins international business essay competition

(12 February 2009)

Dr Ananya Mukhopadhyay

Ananya Mukhopadhyay, a current DBS distance learning MBA student, has won the latest Japan Foreign Trade Council (JFTC) ‘International Business Article Contest’.

The JFTC contributes to the prosperity of the Japanese economy through the promotion of trade and the council sponsors this essay contest in order to encourage students, younger researchers and business people to express their opinions on matters of business importance. The subject of this year’s essay was “The Possibility of ‘Japanese-Style Business models’ for Preserving the Earth”. The essay competition is open to anyone in the world regardless of nationality or place of residence. Essays, either in English or in Japanese, are limited to no more than 4000 words. This year the judging panel was chaired by Dr Iwao Nakatani, Director of Research, Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co. Ltd. With 151 submissions from 35 different countries the competition was intense. Ananya Mukhopadhyay, a Durham Business School Student from India, won the ‘award of excellence’ for his essay titled, “Japan’s Environmental and Energy Services Technology – the Dark Horse”. Ananya is the first Indian to in this award; other winners came from as far afield as Poland, China, and Japan, each receiving 200,000 yen in prize money. Further details on the winners and their submissions are available at JFTC’s website: www.jftc.or.jp/english/discourse/index.html Ananya, (aged 41), is from Calcutta, and currently resides in Italy. He works at the global headquarters of Danieli, Italy, at Danieli Automation, heading up their global R&D. Prior to joining Danieli he spent 14 years at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur. In his essay he suggested that rapid population growth and growing economic activities in the developing countries require “the conservation of natural resources, energy, and environment to be done in parallel for sustainable development.” Ananya was the first ‘Tata Scholar’ to receive the Tata Fellowship and, in 1996, undertook a PhD from the University of Sheffield in the UK. In addition he has been recognised for several other achievements, including the Daniel Doncaster Award 1999 (University of Sheffield) and in 2004 a national award for ‘Development of New Process Technology for Steel Industry’. In 2007 Ananya was successful in the Durham Business School / Independent Newspaper MBA Scholarship, winning the Distance Learning scholarship.