2nd Day update of ConneXions 2014, IIM Ahmedabad's Annual Knowledge Summit
ConneXions 2014, IIM Ahmedabad's annual knowledge summit, continued its second day today. The summit, which is in its 5th year, is being organized by students of PGPX, the 1 year full time MBA programme for experienced professionals. The central theme of today's discussion was "Blueprint for a Digital India".
At the start of the day, the audience was addressed by Ms. Kumud Srinivasan, President Intel India. In a stimulating discussion with PGPX student and alumni, and several other participants, Ms. Srinivasan spoke about how over 85% of deployed electronic systems today were unconnected with each other or the larger cloud. She urged the audience to think about how if we could add connectivity to this equation, the potential would be enormous. This potential combined with two other powerful factors an increasing push from the government to adopt more digital technology and an increasing adoption amongst India's vast population, she said, today we see innovation happening at all levels right from hardware to software, services and business models.
In a panel discussion with eminent panelists such as Mr. Ambarish Dasgupta - Head of Management consulting at KPMG, Mr. Venkatesh Krishnan - Vice President Technology Business at Oracle India and Mr. Vishal Dhar - Co-founder and President Marketing at iYogi , the stage was set to discuss the vision for a digital India. Mr. Dasgupta spoke about how the digital divide in India can be bridged by focusing on certain key aspects such as infrastructure, on demand services in application and services and in allowing people to be digitally empowered. Mr. Krishnan added how several key barriers such as a large number of spoken languages and usability which are inherent in the adoption of a technology was already being addressed by the adoption of affordable mobile computing devices. Mr. Dhar shared further insights on this digital divide in India. He suggested that with several such large scale digitisation projects financing was always a challenge in India and one solution to this could be further encouragement of public-private partnership.
In a second panel discussion comprising of Dr. Praveen Kumar - Head of Technology India at ANZ, Mr. Nalinikanth Gollagunta - MD Commercial Sales for Cisco India and SAARC, Mr. Sudipta Ghosh - India Data and Analytics Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers India and Mr. Ganesh Ramamoorthy - Research VP at Gartner India the focus was on the challenges faced in digitization in our country. While the panelists agreed that every product can be digitized, Mr. Ramamoorthy mentioned that loss of prevention in big businesses, physical safety and compliance monitoring are big opportunities for digitization in India. Mr. Ghosh said that business models should be based on manage, charge, operate and extend. Mr. Praveen Kumar said that the private sector should play a major role in innovation, while Mr. Gollagunta added that in Public Private Partnerships the high initial investments should come from the government.
Mr. Prashant Shukla, GM, Microsoft while providing key insights into SMAC reminded the audience that "the word Bharat if literally translated into English means the Land of Light and if change was possible it was possible only in India". Mr. Arvind Thakur, CEO and Joint MD, NIIT Technologies stressed that such change could be possible if we simply worked on a framework where the growth processes can be balanced by having the government focus on policy and infrastructure while having the industry focus on using the infrastructure and feeding the citizens. This panel was further enhanced by an interesting insight by Mr. Arvind Singhatiya, Vice President Corporate Affairs, Olacabs.com, a company which though known as a cab company was actually a technology company; which has used technology to solve many of the transportation problems of India. Mr. Indranil Das, Vice President & Head, CSI-ADM Ericsson Global Service (I) Ltd offered another key solution in exploring the relationship between the consumer and the
provider wherein if the provider was given enough incentive to create value, a cycle of progress could be started by the consumer latching on to a value delivering product.
~: END :~
ConneXions 2014, IIM Ahmedabad's annual knowledge summit, continued its second day today. The summit, which is in its 5th year, is being organized by students of PGPX, the 1 year full time MBA programme for experienced professionals. The central theme of today's discussion was "Blueprint for a Digital India".
At the start of the day, the audience was addressed by Ms. Kumud Srinivasan, President Intel India. In a stimulating discussion with PGPX student and alumni, and several other participants, Ms. Srinivasan spoke about how over 85% of deployed electronic systems today were unconnected with each other or the larger cloud. She urged the audience to think about how if we could add connectivity to this equation, the potential would be enormous. This potential combined with two other powerful factors an increasing push from the government to adopt more digital technology and an increasing adoption amongst India's vast population, she said, today we see innovation happening at all levels right from hardware to software, services and business models.
In a panel discussion with eminent panelists such as Mr. Ambarish Dasgupta - Head of Management consulting at KPMG, Mr. Venkatesh Krishnan - Vice President Technology Business at Oracle India and Mr. Vishal Dhar - Co-founder and President Marketing at iYogi , the stage was set to discuss the vision for a digital India. Mr. Dasgupta spoke about how the digital divide in India can be bridged by focusing on certain key aspects such as infrastructure, on demand services in application and services and in allowing people to be digitally empowered. Mr. Krishnan added how several key barriers such as a large number of spoken languages and usability which are inherent in the adoption of a technology was already being addressed by the adoption of affordable mobile computing devices. Mr. Dhar shared further insights on this digital divide in India. He suggested that with several such large scale digitisation projects financing was always a challenge in India and one solution to this could be further encouragement of public-private partnership.
In a second panel discussion comprising of Dr. Praveen Kumar - Head of Technology India at ANZ, Mr. Nalinikanth Gollagunta - MD Commercial Sales for Cisco India and SAARC, Mr. Sudipta Ghosh - India Data and Analytics Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers India and Mr. Ganesh Ramamoorthy - Research VP at Gartner India the focus was on the challenges faced in digitization in our country. While the panelists agreed that every product can be digitized, Mr. Ramamoorthy mentioned that loss of prevention in big businesses, physical safety and compliance monitoring are big opportunities for digitization in India. Mr. Ghosh said that business models should be based on manage, charge, operate and extend. Mr. Praveen Kumar said that the private sector should play a major role in innovation, while Mr. Gollagunta added that in Public Private Partnerships the high initial investments should come from the government.
Mr. Prashant Shukla, GM, Microsoft while providing key insights into SMAC reminded the audience that "the word Bharat if literally translated into English means the Land of Light and if change was possible it was possible only in India". Mr. Arvind Thakur, CEO and Joint MD, NIIT Technologies stressed that such change could be possible if we simply worked on a framework where the growth processes can be balanced by having the government focus on policy and infrastructure while having the industry focus on using the infrastructure and feeding the citizens. This panel was further enhanced by an interesting insight by Mr. Arvind Singhatiya, Vice President Corporate Affairs, Olacabs.com, a company which though known as a cab company was actually a technology company; which has used technology to solve many of the transportation problems of India. Mr. Indranil Das, Vice President & Head, CSI-ADM Ericsson Global Service (I) Ltd offered another key solution in exploring the relationship between the consumer and the
provider wherein if the provider was given enough incentive to create value, a cycle of progress could be started by the consumer latching on to a value delivering product.
~: END :~