“The Battle for Brains” - a day long moderated discussion involving over 20 leading minds from the domains of government, politics, industry, business, finance, education and people welfare was held at the ICMIS campus on June 1, 2006.

Organized by ICMIS in association with The Evian Group, Switzerland, the program was moderated by Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Professor of International Political Economy at IMD, Switzerland and co-founder The Evian Group. This was followed by a presentation and summation by Dr. Lehmann at a special dinner event involving government and business leaders.

At the heart of “The Battle for Brains” is the reality that by 2010, some 700 million young people will enter the labour force in emerging economies – a number significantly higher than the current entire labour force in the industrialized world. As industrialized countries witness rapid aging of their populations, shortages of skilled labour and contracting markets, the demographic dynamics of developing countries offer tremendous promise for growth. On the one hand, western corporations have engaged in the "battle for brains" as they compete to attract the best and brightest scientists, engineers and managers from India, China, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, etc. On the other, with political systems lacking legitimacy and the reality of fragile institutions in many/most developing countries, the extra demographic burden may cause severe implosions, as has been witnessed recently, for example, in Indonesia.

Widely reported in the press, the event opened up the debate on the management of manpower in India.