The conclave facilitated deliberations around the theme “India@75- Being Diverse, Inclusive and Better for all” by senior representatives, Industry leaders, policy influencers, professionals, CHROs, CSOs and various D&I experts from India and abroad. 

With 75 years of India’s independence, we cannot afford to exclude vulnerable sections of the society from the mainstream economy. We want to make every effort possible to ensure that all the diverse sections of the society- women, persons with disability, LGBTQ+ community and others are included in all aspects- be it education, digital, financial, employment, culture or society; leaving no one behind.  Through this conclave FICCI endeavours to ensure that Indian corporate have inclusive organizational policies in their companies with enough gender diversity, inclusion of people with disabilities as well as representation from the LGBTQI+ community.

The conclave was address by Keshav Suri, Co-Chair, FICCI Task Force on D&I, Executive Director, The Lalit Suri Hospitality, Sanjiv Mehta, President,  FICCI and CEO & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever  Limited (HUL), Suhas Lalinakere Yathiraj, District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Rekha M. Menon, Chairperson and Senior Managing Director, Accenture India and many more. 

On day one, the program started at 10:00 am with inaugural session. Mr. Deepak Sood, Secretary General Assocham, delivered the welcome address and gave briefings of the entire program. He also greeted the speakers, delegates and audience of the program. Mr. Ram Rakkappan, Chairperson, Assocham National Fintech Council, discussed the importance of fintech festival for inclusive and sustainable growth of industries and startups in his chairperson address. In industry address, Mr. Ambarish Kenghe, VP Product, Google Pay, elaborated the use and importance of fintech in digital wallet platform and online payment system. Mr. Mihir Gandhi, Partner and Leader Payment Transformations, PWC, emphasised on the importance of fintech in various industries, challenges and technological developments in fintech while delivering theme address. Just after that Assocham PWC report has been launched. In different industry addresses, Mr. Dharmender Jhamb,VP, Paytm and Mr. Nikhil Sahany, Divisional President, South Asia and Country Corporate Officer, India, Mastercard discussed the significance of technological advancements and their implementations in business growth. In the address of chief guest, Shri Pankaj Chaudhary, Hon’ble Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, Government of India discussed the emphasis, programs and schemes of government India for the promotion and development of fintech for social and economic welfare. A fireside chat was commenced after that with Dr. Saurabh Garg, CEO, UIDAI. Mr. Suvendu Pati, Chief General Manager, RBI delivered the keynote address and discussed the growth patterns at various areas due to fintech and technological advancements. In industry addresses, the representatives of PayU and Assocham disseminated the adoption of fintech in their business models. Mr. Sudiip K. Goswami, Director and GM –South India & Start-ups, Dell Technologies discussed various technological developments in the area of fintech. Three presentations on fintech and its impact on the growth of businesses of CredAvenue, BharatPe and Cashfree Payments were made by top management representatives of these companies. In technical session one, representatives of government of India and industries participated and emphasised on the need, threats, solutions related to fintech to reshape digital financial services.

Day two commenced with welcome address of Mr. Deepak Sood, Secretary General Assocham. Dr. Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Government of India delivered keynote address. In his address he presented global growth of fintech, fintech growth in India, exponential growth in digital mode of payment in last few years, drivers of fintech growth etc. In the special session senior representatives of PolicyBazar, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, RenewBuy and PwC participated as panelists and discussed the growth of insurance sector due to different innovative technologies related to fintech. They discussed about speedy cashless settlement of insurance claims have been possible due to fintech. Insurance aggregators business and its dependence on fintech has also been discussed in this session. In CEOs Panel, CEOs and cofounders of various industries such as PayTM, Spice money, Cashfree Payments, Assocham National Council on Banking discussed the importance of fintech in business development in urban and rural areas. Mr. Vikas Verma, COO, South Asia,  Mastercard delivered a keynote address on importance of fintech in debit and credit card related businesses.

In a workshop on Finsec- Securing Financial Transactions, Panelists from NIC, Assocham National Council of Cyber security, SWIFT SC, Visa and Mastercard put the focus on cyber frauds, malwares for data theft etc and discussed the techniques and way outs to have safe financial transactions online. In a industry address Mr. Rounak Maheshwari, ED, Extreme Internet Exchange elaborated the business model of largest internet exchange in India. In the featured session a panelists of Perfios, Cashfree Payments, FACE, Rupifi and Spice Money made deliberations on role of fintech in financial inclusion and India stack success story. In the last special session of the day, panelists discussed the need and importance of streamlining digital payments for Indian consumers.

 The third day of the India International Fintech Festival was commenced by plenary session in which welcome address was delivered by Mr. Ram Rakkappan, Chairperson, Assocham National Fintech council. In his address he discussed the importance of fintech for service and financial organizations. In the industry address, Ms. Medha Girotra, Co-Chairperson Assocham National Fintech council addressed the gathering about the role of the fintech in sustainable growth. The fintech excellence award ceremony was performed and awards were distributed to the winners. In the panel discussion, leading management executives of  Micrsoft, Dell Tecnologies, Extreme Internet exchange, Microhost and PWC exchanged their views on implementing most creative digital solutions for fintech domain. They discussed emerging technologies such as quantum, AI, cloud, 5G, IOT and AR/VR and their roles in Fintech. Mr. Arpit Sharma, VP, BFSI discussed the role of modern technologies in Fintech. In two keynote addresses emphasis was made on adoption of modern technologies and their implementation issues in the industries. In the special session for women, top management executives of Visa, American Express, Ikigai Law, NPCI, WhatsApp discussed the role of women in financial sector.

This has been a wonderful learning and networking experience and interactions with corporate people and shared the views on various themes related to Fintech.    

 Online Faculty Development Program (Workshop) on "Inculcating Universal Human Values in Education”. The program was organized under the series of Value Education cell, AICTE. The objective of the program was to make participants aware and enrich the with need of value education and their holistic development.

The Faculty Development Program focused on the ways to propagate human values to the student fraternity through faculty and thus creating sensitization amongst students for a better, value driven behaviour and self-development.

The sessions were full of enthusiasm and self-exploration along with fruitful learning.

The FDP was very informative and discussed about the knowledge of contemporary developments that are taking place in various dimensions of research to enhance the abilities of participants to carry out independent research, successful research projects and finally to enable them for technical communication national, international journals/conferences. The entire FDP was focused upon fundamentals aspects of relevant research topic selection, literature review, research proposals writing, Data Analysis & Interpretation and writing a quality research paper. The sessions were conducted by eminent experts as resource persons.

The participants also learned through hand-on practices to enable and write the content methodologically. It was full of learning to use the research tools and helps educators in research and enriches learning experiences.

The sub themes of the program were Fulfilling Nation’s Aspiration through New Education Initiatives, Redefining Skill Ecosystem to Harness Demographic Dividend and Future of Higher Education in the Digital-first Economy. The program started with the welcome address by Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Education followed by Special Address given by Mr. Piyush Nangru, Co-Foundeer, Sunstone and Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, UGC. Smt. Anandiben Patel, Hon’ble Governor, Uttar Pradesh was the Chief Guest of the day. The discussion was focused on infrastructure, skills, innovation, startups, ecosystem, digital economy, aganwari workers specially women workers, self resilience, technology, and collaboration with both academia and industry. The main dialogue was based on new education policy which is ready to implement at large in different aspects of education and development in the interest of stakeholders of the system. Overall discussion was focused on orientation in the areas of research, technology based education. The latest development at UGC was shared by chairman on inculcating the program structure at rural ground with the help of online education to migrant and poor persons. It was highlighted that the gap between academia and industry should be reduced with latest techno oriented apps and software in the system. The speakers and delegates were from academia and industry like bureaucrats, technocrats, policy makers and regulators in the summit.

Mr. Raghav Gupta, Managing Director, Coursera India & APAC presented his company’s new programs and structure with growth based on upcoming requirement of the market and new education policy. Dr. Prem Maheshwari, Business Director –South Asia D2L, presented his company profile on technology based products and software as per need of the new education policy and campuses for their growth at students and faculty level.

Overall program was very interesting and remarkable in the domain of education, skill, ecosystem and innovation for all the participants.                 

Speakers of the session were:

·         Mrs. LopamudraDewan, Associate Manager, Centre for Teaching and Learning at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

·         Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, A Psychiatrist, and Professor of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in NIMHANS, Bangalore, India.

·         Mr. S. Raghunath, Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy. He is currently the Director at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore.

·         Mr. Chetan Subramanian, Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore.

Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, A Psychiatrist and Professor of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in NIMHANS, Bangalore, Indiasaid that Theatre is Powerful because of its Immediacy. He Quoted the Theatre of Augusto Boal as a great method of Theatre of the Oppressed. Cinema can also be used in the Intend – Content- Method-Process Paradigm. He also stated that he is going to start a Movie Club soon. This is to watch Curated Films but follow it with Discussion and Debate. This is how we Cultivate Taste.

Mr. S. Raghunath, Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy. He is currently the Director at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore. Talked about How management is necessary for Cinema. And Cinema and Literature can certainly be used as a tool of research in the public policy sector.

The session was conducted at AIMA headquarters at Lodhi road. The objective was to launch the book “The Art of Management” written by the famous industry personality Mr. Shiv Shivakumar. Shiv as he is popularly known is one of India's longest-serving CEOs. He is currently the group executive president at Aditya Birla Group. He has worked across multiple industries and categories, and has handled over sixty brands in his career. He was CEO for Nokia in India and subsequently led the company's emerging markets unit; he was also chairman and CEO for PepsiCo South Asia. He is regarded as one of India's leading management and leadership thinkers and speakers. The book was released by a notable journalist Mr Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, The Print.

During the book launch Shiv Shivkumar discussed about how this book had taken this shape. He also discussed about the contribution of various industry experts who contributed to the book through their valuable comments. He also talks about the longevity of job and states that the time has changed. Earlier people join the company and plan to retire from the same company but not a day, the average stay in any organisation is 4 years and in America the average age of any CEO is 18 Months.

He further states that how things have changed over the period of time. According to him “The value of a degree done 20 years back is just a piece of paper” he further reinforces that people should work for their own and up-skill themselves on regular basis.

In the last he suggests young people to develop their abilities in solving complex business problems and developing creativity.

The complete SSP programme had 4 different sessions on the topics of Effective Time Management, Effective Teamwork, Effective Project Management and Career Development Guidance.

Session speaker was Dr. Manu Vora, President and Business Excellence, Inc., USA IIT(BHU)CHE,1968. And moderator of session is Prof Anil Kumar Agarwal Professor incharge, Training and placement Cell, IIT(BHU).

First Session: Effective Time Management: Dr. Manu Vora defined the effective time management through THE EISENHOWER MATRIX. The Eisenhower Matrix, referred to as Urgent-Important Matrix, helps you decide on and prior tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all.

Second Session: Effective Team Management Prof Dr.Vora, explained the 8 steps to become more resilient in today’ scenario - Accept change. He also introduced the five stages of team development.

Third session: Effective Project Management: Dr. Manu Vora and Prof. Anil Kumar Agarwal moderator of the session explained the applications of project management- strategic plan deployment, managing transformation/ change, capital projects deployment, conducting research- academic and applied, improvement project deployment, software development, enterprise resource planning implementation, product development, construction of bridges and roads, building aircrafts and ships and solving the organization problems.

He also defined the project and its characteristics and given the great examples of successful projects by showing some monuments pictures- Pyramid, Taaj Mahal, bullet train etc. He also explained the project goals: performance cost and schedule.

Fourth Session: Career Development Guidance Session

In this interactive session Dr. Vohra discussed on how to succeed at the University and professional career. The following step success pillars were focused:-

·      Focus on planning

·      Focus on strength

·      Focus on softskill

·      Critical skills needed to succeed 21th century such as communication, leadership, team network , time management , problem solving, project management.

Overall all the sessions were very stimulating and motivating for the students.