Faculty Awards at the INSEAD MIM'27 Commencement Ceremony

All right, this brings us to a section which every year gets me extremely jealous and depressed. I'll explain. Amongst our professors worldwide, it is well known that teaching at INSEAD means being amongst some of the most talented teachers for the most demanding audiences. It is therefore an absolute honor for our faculty to be nominated and win some faculty awards by the students. I get jealous and depressed because I've been at INSEAD for 18 years, let alone win. I haven't been nominated even once, which is why I stopped teaching and became one of the deans. Every year, every class gets to nominate and vote for their favorite faculty member. And this year, I'd like to invite Daniel Barnov, MIM Council member and the academic representative to join me on stage and present the awards. Daniel. Good afternoon. Sorry. Thanks a lot, Death. Dear families, friends, staff, faculty, and mims, I'm honored to have served as your academic representative this year. And today, I will have the pleasure to announce the winners of the faculty awards for MIM class of 2027. We will start with the best faculty award for core courses. The nominees are Miguel Loba for data analysis, Georgina Hall for machine learning and optimization. and Ilian Mihov for macroeconomics. So, it's time for the winner to be announced and the winner is Georgina Hall for machine learning and optimization. Unfortunately, Professor Hall could not join us today and has sent us this video. Hi everyone, just a quick video to say thank you so much for having awarded uh the best core course award from the MIM 2027 to um machine learning and optimization. So every year I really enjoy teaching this course. Um the MIMs are a great public uh I have fun. The classes zip by, you know, I have a laugh. It's a good atmosphere in class, but it's particularly nice when it's reciprocated. So, um I'm really grateful um to have uh this award. I want to make the most of this short video uh to say thank you to a lot of people, well just three in particular. Um so, Agata, the MIM program director who um who's been with the MIM since its very beginning and who's as a consequence uh helped me for every single iteration of this course so far. Um she's my rock every year. Uh she does a phenomenal job. So, thank you very much. I wanted to thank Estelle uh my wonderful faculty support coordinator who does a ton of work behind the scenes that you know you probably don't see but I do and without her the you know the quality of the course would not just not be as good. So thank you still. And then the third person I want to thank uh is Gavin who was the grade and tutor for the course this year. Um I hope you're leaving the course with a good understanding of what machine learning is, what AI is, what optimization is and how these analytical models can be used um every day and also in your future jobs. So that's definitely is a key learning of the class. Another key learning is just how failable these analytical models are. Um you know you can have bad data, models and then the output of the model is is basically garbage. So, it's super important to keep a human in the loop to doublech checkck the output of these models and to think about them critically. So, I hope that you know you apply that um moving forward. Um just wanted to uh

show you that your bonsai has survived up until now. Uh you can see it in the background. This is a bit of a personal record for me. I typically kill plants within a couple of weeks or months. So, you know, I'm seeing that as a good omen for the future that Bonsai is still alive and well. Um, thank you so much for everything. Um, I'm really looking forward to hearing what you're up to next. Um, and what you do after the M. So, do please keep in touch and I wish you all the very best on, uh, your graduation from the program. Thank you, Professor Georgina Hall, for your words and congratulations. Now let's present the nominees for the best faculty award for practicals. The nominees are Laurance Scapon and Olivia Des for build, borrow, buy deals and valuation and Steven Chick and Atallaya Taso for sustainability and business model innovation. And the winners are I need some pressure. Lance Scabon and Olivier Song for build borrow by deals and valuation. Unfortunately, Professor Kapone and Professor Dant could not be with us here today and has sent us the following message which I'm going to read to you. Dear MIM students, receiving this teaching award for our course, build, borrow or buy, value innovation truly means a great deal to us. Thank you for this thoughtful recognition. From the beginning, we appreciated the positive energy and engagement you brought to the classroom. Your curiosity and thoughtful participation made the discussions enjoyable and enriching. We also valued the collaborative spirit within the cohort and the way many of you supported one another throughout the program. Teaching such a dynamic and collaborative group has been a privilege and we hope you continue to bring this same openness, ambition, and team spirit into your future career and projects. Congratulations once again on graduating from the MIM program. You should be extremely proud of everything you have accomplished and we wish you all the very best for what comes next. Warm regards Lance and Olivia. Dear professors, we are very grateful for awards and congratulations to you. Finally, let's present the nominees for the best faculty award for elective courses. The nominees are Ben Charang Wong for investments and asset management, David Dubois for digital and social media strategy and Ardam Danilmas for new business ventures. And our final winner is Unfortunately, I know Professor Ilmas could not join us in this ballroom and he sent us his video. Hello everyone. First of all, congratulations on your graduation. This is a big day for you and for us. And thank you so much for this honor. It truly means a lot to me. It actually encourages me to become an even better teacher and thank you so much for all the beautiful work you put into the class. It was great to learn with you and learn from you. So if you remember a few times during the course I told you that you really need to be lucky in entrepreneurship but also in life more generally. So please try new things, meet with a lot of people, keep asking difficult questions and make yourself a big target for luck. I will see you out in the world. Take care. Thank you, Professor Ilmas, for your words and congratulations. Congratulations to all our nominees and winners and thank you to every faculty member who taught us. This concludes the faculty awards and we will now hand the time back to Dean Hassa to continue our ceremony.

Thank you Danielle for presenting faculty awards and of course congratulations to all the nominees and the award winners and we also have to thank each and every faculty member who teaches in the MIM program. Uh their work is essential for the success of this program.