Ratan Tata gifts a classroom to Harvard

Harvard Business School's famous alumnus, Ratan Tata, has gifted a classroom to his alma mater, which has been looking to set up a permanent facility to provide executive education programmes in India.

The classroom at the Taj Lands End hotel, Mumbai, will be an amphitheatre-style classroom,  fashioned after the one at Harvard Business School in Boston. It will have a seating capacity of 82.

"Ratan Tata offered to build a classroom here and the Taj group has replicated the Boston classroom experience for participants in India," said Das Narayandas, senior associate dean, director of Harvard Business Publishing.

"I can think of no greater investment we can make in our collective future than education," said Ratan Tata.

Das said HBS has been conducting these programmes at five star hotels which did not provide a complete experience. HBS will, in the next few years, take its number of executive education programmes from the present three to around 10.

"At present, we conduct programmes on and off. I expect them to be more systematised. Also, other schools at Harvard will naturally gravitate to using this facility," added Das.

A team from India had gone to HBS and spent time with its facilities' team at Boston to review all the schematics. The same is replicated here in Mumbai.

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Image: Ratan Tata