Elements Akademia, a chain of schools run by IIM alumni, will fund a part of the fee for the students in Elements Akademia. They will also undertake their mentorship and monitor their progress by connecting IIM passouts living in various parts of the country as well as abroad.

Elements Akademia is a national chain of vocational schools_ conceptualised, funded and run by a group of alumni from IIM Lucknow, Calcutta, Bangalore and Ahmedabad.

These alumni left their high profile and cozy jobs in top companies of India and abroad to take up this challenge, which they believe is part of their corporate social responsibility.

As they officially launched their first centre in Lucknow today, they are targeting at 20 cities all over India in next one year. Next week, another branch will be set up in Kanpur, whereas they plan to target cities like Jaipur, Chandigarh and Bhopal in December.

The six months flagship programme that will be launched in all these centres targeting graduates or final year graduating students aims at helping students to get a job in sectors like Insurance, Retail, Banking, Finance etc by grooming them as per the requirements of the industry, thereby ensuring 90 per cent job placement for them.

"Our target is of 10,000 students in a year in 20 centres across India i.e. around 500 students in one centre. As far as scholarships are concerned, we have planned to undertake it for at least 400 students in the coming year out of the target of total 10,000 students," says Nishant Saxena, the CEO of Elements Akademia.

Nishant is an IIM Lucknow alumni who left his job as head, Mergers and Acquisitions, Proctor and Gamble for Asia Pacific, to invest in this venture.

As for connecting more such alumni from IIMs across India, Nishant said: "Alumni from IIMs across India are working in various parts of the world and feel strongly about contributing to their native land. But major hurdle is that they find it difficult to monitor the use of their funds. As a result, we sat together and thought of this concept of mentorship for students taking admissions in our chain of schools," said Nishant.

He added: "Here at least 50 per cent of the course fee for student in need, will be paid by an alumni among to Rs 7,500. This particular alumni will not only know the name of the student for whom he is funding but will also get the chance to monitor his progress."

As the group launched their first unit in Lucknow today, Devi Singh, the director of IIM Lucknow along with Atul Kumar Gupta, Industrial Development Commissioner and Jayant Krishna, president of the All Indian Management Association were present on the occasion to encourage their efforts.