In order to support Indian students with financial need in obtaining a MBA degree at Stanford, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has renewed its Stanford Reliance Dhirubhai MBA Fellowship Programme with Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). This project was launched as a five-year pilot in April 2008 and has helped 19 Indian MBA graduates till date.
Under this fellowship, the student will receive full tuition support for their two-year Stanford MBA Programme. Fellows must agree to return and work in India within two years of graduation. Applications for September 2014 scholarships have closed and for scholarships in 2015, interested students will have to wait till April 2014. Complete details about the scholarship are available online. It is a two-stage process.
-In the first stage, prospective fellows complete the Stanford Reliance Dhirubhai MBA Fellowship Programme application. There are fifty applicants, who are chosen on the basis of merit, commitment to developing India and financial need after their financial resources have been reviewed.
-Out of the fifty finalists, Stanford may select five Fellows. In this second stage, the finalists are selected based on the primary admission criteria of intellectual vitality, demonstrated leadership potential and personal contributions by GSB.
These Fellows receive an estimated $1, 40,000 for the duration of two-year programme. The funding for the second year is automatically renewed if the student performs well in the academic standing as well as the community citizenship at Stanford GSB. Under the mandatory norms, these Fellows should return to India, on completion of their course for a minimum of two years of employment in the private or public sector.
Apart from this scholarship programme, RIL is planning to establish a world-class education hub in Navi Mumbai. This education hub will have collaboration with world-renowned universities like Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard.
According to the initial plans, the education hub will be autonomous. A senior executive working with Reliance said, “We will bring western and eastern culture and talent together. We will offer courses in science, arts and professional streams.”
A senior spokesperson of the company said the plan is still in infant stage. “We are still working out the modalities and understanding the nitty-gritty of the revised government policy. However, so far nothing has been fixed yet. The plan will take concrete form in coming future,” said the spokesperson. Reliance has been associated with Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University in Gujarat and is developing this university into a premium world class university.