Global Impact Summit 2022 Organised By Woxsen University Witnessed Dignitaries From Around The World

The first-ever summit brought together academia, higher education leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs and industry experts from India, USA, Vietnam, Brazil, Germany, Romania, UAE to name a few, along with officials from Government of India & the US Consulate.

Spotlight Desk

Updated on: 21 April 2022 11:03 am

Global Impact Summit 2022 organised by Woxsen University

Global Impact Summit 2022 organised by Woxsen University was held between 11th – 13th April with leading dignitaries discussing important issues towards creating a societal impact and how to integrate important aspect of Ethics, Sustainability & Responsibility within the larger sphere of education delivery.

“Today, we need the Educational Institutions to lead by example, who can embrace United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals as their Way of Life” mentioned Mr. Vishal Khurma, CEO, Woxsen University who opened the Global Impact Summit 2022.

Headed by Dr. Raul Rodriguez, Vice President, Woxsen University, the Global Impact Summit was organised in association with EFMD (EU); Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the world's largest international higher education network, connecting universities, business schools & students; ETS (US), LinkedIN Local, and IMA India.

The Global Impact Summit also witnessed the announcement of 3 Academic Collaborations with Woxsen University – Classavo (USA), Woosong University (South Korea), Department of Design BHU (India).

Classavo a USA based student engagement & analytics platform. This academic collaboration is for research, digital learning, incubation & scholarship. The company announced a scholarship of Rs 3.5 lakh (US$ 5000) as a grant towards incubation and acceleration of student start-up ideas.

Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary I&C & IT, Govt. of Telangana

Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary I&C & IT, Govt. of Telangana, who was the Guest of Honour mentioned “Many years since the formation of the State of Telangana, we have such a Summit which has attracted many global leaders in the higher education space and we are privileged to hear them speak and benefit from their suggestions.” He further highlighted that education institutes must step up and comply to the guidelines of the National Education Policy and focus on Industry-Academia collaboration. Corporates have to play a bigger role by providing the exposure, to make students more employable.

He also put forth the need for today’s youth to take up entrepreneurial ventures to promote innovation and steer growth for the economy. He emphasized on various government-led initiatives such as T-Hub and We-Hub, which places Hyderabad as having the highest number of incubators in India. “We have become a national role model in terms of creating a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurship.” he added.

He further highlighted that in light of the constant comparison between China and India in terms of the GDP growth, education can work as a big leveller to mitigate those disparities and take India to the forefront of economic growth.

The Chief Guest of the Summit, Mr. Ashok Ramachandran, CEO & President Schindler India drove the message towards education institutes taking responsibility of imbibing innovation and transformation in their curriculum design. He further explained “Innovation agenda propagated by Schindler India to create digital screens within the elevators and how it can potentially disrupt OOH advertising industry. He drew attention to the innovative marketing strategies and agility in their operations.”

US Consulate Andrew Edlefsen

Speaking earlier at the summit, Mr. Andrew Edlefsen, Principal Commercial Officer, US Consulate said “Education is the most important bridge between US and India. In 2020-21, 167,000 Indian students studied in the US. Almost one-third of Indian students studying in other countries are in the US. 41% of the students pursue Graduation, 14% Under-graduation, while 44% pursue OPT (Optional Practical Training).” To that he added “We need to strengthen bridges between the two countries and would like to move partnerships with India in education.”

Guest of Honour Mr. Nishit Jain, Senior Advisor Asia, EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development), a leading international school accreditation system said “We as a community representing business schools and cannot play a passive role anymore, we have to partake in the mission towards creating the future work force. EFMD is already on the path of acting as a bridge between the corporate world and academia.” He gave 5Cs as a survival mantra in the new normal—Collaborate, Communicate, Creativity, Compassion, and Conviction.

The Global Impact Summit addressed many key topics such as:
•   The Future of Research: Social Impact & Corporate Alignment
•   Innovation and Tough Economics- A Commercial Imperative or an Indulgence?
•   Ethical and Sustainable Academic Model for the Future
•   Emerging Technologies & The Future of Business
•   2030: The Way Forward for Internationalisation in Higher Education
•   There is NO Diversity WITHOUT Inclusion!
•   Will AI make privacy a thing of the past?
•   Happy Souls Change the World
•   Understanding New Opportunities in the Age of Dynamism
•   The Future of Fin-Tech with Disruptions
•   Will AI make privacy a thing of the past?
•   Restorative Justice Session

Sridhar Gadhi, Founder & Executive Chairman, Quantela

Speaking about society impact on a global level, Sridhar Gadhi, Founder & Executive Chairman, Quantela mentioned how his company has pioneered the ‘Outcome-Based-Service-Model’. “At Quantela it is all about making technology that has a meaningful outcome, that is impactful to the society, environment, and the economy.” Citing his company’s focus on Smart Cities, which no longer just a concept, he added “Smart City Development is a Trillion Dollar market with an estimated YoY of 23% and a huge opportunity to explore. It is an industry where every dollar and every minute that you invest will make a huge impact on the society.”

Answering a question on the role of universities Sridhar opined “Many universities are starting incubators and accelerators. Universities play a huge role but much more integration with corporates and collaborative approach is required”. Giving advice to students he asked them to rethink, refocus, and re-strategize every once in a while.

Speaking at the roundtable discussion on ‘Emerging Technologies & The Future of Business’, Mr. Shiv Mehta, Author of Protocols of Money & Alumnus, NYU Stern School of Business, USA said that “ The biggest innovation that blockchain will bring about is the building a social contract i.e. Digital Money. Many countries will legalise it soon. For instance the crisis in Sri Lanka today where it is dependent on IMF. So I strongly feel that blockchain technology is not only important for businesses but also for the economy of a country.”

Mr. Badita Florin, Founder, Corruption Kills, Romania who was a panellist in the discussion addressed how the transformation of Job Markets. “Emerging technology will bring about a lot of transformation, it is in fact disrupting many sectors and by 2030 top jobs will be impacted by emerging technologies.” He further added that “In the last 2 to 3 years we have created more data than we have in the last 50 years. The need of the hour is to have more Data Scientists. I think India can be the front runner and leverage the field of Computer Science to build the talent pool.”

The roundtable was also participated by Mr. Anees Merchant, EVP – Global Growth and Client Success, Course5i, India and Mr. Naidu Darapaneni, Founder, MeraEvents, India and Mr. Huy Duc Pham- Co-Founder, Classavo, Vietnam

2030: The Way Forward for Internationalisation in Higher Education, the discussion witnessed Ms. Tanya Bajaj, Director of Client Relations, ETS India emphasising that “Universities must be able to give a standardised space, where all the students can compete and measure their skills on a global level.”

Mr. Rohan Shah, Founder & CEO, Classavo, USA added “Internationalisation is the need of the hour for students to connect to global educators and Universities cannot ignore that anymore.”

“Collaboration between countries on a global scale is not possible without Digitalization, it is important for developing counties to have advanced digital technology.” said Ms. Jennifer Hossain, Asst. Director, Centre for International Affairs & Cooperation, UIU Bangladesh.

Mr. Frank Hoffmann, Associate Dean & Director – International Relations, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Germany and Dr. Bruno Rocha Fernandes, Dean – School of Business, PUCPR Brazil also participated in the roundtable discussion.

Mr. Amol Maheshwari, Chief Distribution Officer, EarlySalary,

Day 3 witnessed an address by Mr. Amol Maheshwari, Chief Distribution Officer – EarlySalary, India’s largest consumer lending platform for young professionals highlighted about how the advent of technology is changing finance, insurance and healthcare. “Start-ups will boom in the trinity of fintech, insurtech and healthtech (FIH). While fintech empowers affordability to pay for insurance, healthcare; insurtech will help finance expensive treatment and healthtech will protect against ailments”.

Speaking further, Amol said “The $72 billion that Indians spend on healthcare this year, is twice the size of the Indian smartphone market”. It is so easy to buy a smartphone on EMI compared to the experience of paying for healthcare at a hospital. Embedded finance and financial modes provide affordability, agility and access to superior healthcare. High penetration of software and private healthcare and insurance providers can enable seamless and instant credit.” Amol said.
The summit on its 3rd day saw roundtable discussion on ‘Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) make privacy a thing of the past?’ with panellists Dr. Pavan Kumar Damaraju - AI/ML Lead, TCS; Mr. Mayank Vig - Country Manager, Woosong University, South Korea; Dr. Manish Arora -Assistant Professor, Banaras Hindu University and Dr. Ch. Preeti Reddy - MD. Malla Reddy Health City.

“With AI taking over, there are privacy concerns around it. Companies and Apps are investing heavily and focusing on their committed to the privacy protection of their customers and users.” informed Dr. Pavan Kumar Damaraju, AI/ML Lead, TCS. He further added that the marriage of AI and Blockchain is important and that blockchain is better to curb privacy issues, ramp up AI technology and provide good solutions. It is important that only relevant data is taken from the data sets to maintain privacy.” Dr. Pavan further added. “So, AI technology does not mean the end of privacy as we know it.”

Dr. Ch. Preeti Reddy, MD. Malla Reddy Health City stressed on the safety and privacy of the data of their patients. “But data is needed to serve the patients like in the pandemic, we had to ask patients details such as bank account numbers, etc. as many feared even coming to the hospital.” she said. Further, Dr. Preeti said that they have deployed AI through a new app to give differential diagnosis for skin diseases. AI is being used for something similar as CT scans. But importance is given to data protection, she said.

Mr. Mayank Vig, Country Manager, Woosong University, South Korea said that “Ethics is important for AI but AI doesn’t follow the ethical way of human beings but data sets. AI can be good depending on data sets.”

Addressing a session on ‘The Future of Fin-Tech with Disruptions’ Mr. Fenil Vadakken of IMA India talked about the changing role of CFOs. “Earlier, the focus was on transaction planning and least of analysis, but in the coming times it will be reversed with stress on analysis. Critical thinking and planning skills will be needed in the future for the financial management profession.” Fenil said.

The power-packed summit also saw following dignitaries, adding immense value to the discussions.

1.   Mr. Ravin Nair – COO, QS IGAUGE
2.   Mr. Manish Tiwari - AGM, Reserve Bank of India
3.   Dr. Ricardo Archbold – Assistant Professor, Khalifa University, UAE
4.   Dr. Glenn Walter Muschert - Professor of Sociology, Khalifa University, UAE
5.   Dr. Manish Arora - Assistant Professor, BHU, India
6.   Mr. Anvith Varanasi - Innovation Consultant, Trade Tower & Alumnus, Imperial College London, UK
7.   Dr. Biju AV - Assistant Professor, University of Kerala, India
8.   Preeti Chaudhary – Founder, PC Advisory and Co-Founder & Director, LinkedIn Local
9.   Major Sunil Shetty - Founder, MyStartup TV (Veteran and Entrepreneur)
10.   Usha Nirmala - Co Founder & Investor, Moolya Platform (Working for Gender Equity in the Startup Ecosystem)
11.   Rachana Mudraboyina - Transgender & Human Rights Activist
12.   Meera Shenoy - Founder, Youth4Jobs (Working for People With Disabilities rehabilitation)
13.   Dr. Manish Arora - Assistant Professor, BHU
14.   Shruti Maheshwari, Founder – Happiness Gurukul and Alumnus – Harvard Medical School
15.   Rohit Khandelwal - Mr. World 2016

Organised by Woxsen University, the Global Impact Summit also extend this platform for students to present and pitch their business ideas. An incredible opportunity to present and learn from a global platform. Five teams pitched their unique ideas:

•   ‘MariaCares’ is an app to book professionally trained caregivers to employ their services to the needy in various settings. Presently there is a gap and some points which Maria Cares addresses.
•   ‘Trans-Bid’ that aims to make transportation easier. It is an online bidding platform that promises to optimise transportation cost for merchants, exporters, and trucking agents
•   ‘Digibrary’, a digital library on finger tips the promises to make reading a fun experience
•   ‘Fanatic Kalakar’ to build gaps in our education system

About Woxsen

Woxsen University, located in Hyderabad, is one of the first private universities of the state of Telangana. Renowned for its 200-acre state-of-the-art campus and infrastructure, Woxsen University provides new-age, disruptive programs in the fields of Business, Technology, Arts & Design, Architecture, Liberal Arts & Humanities. With 60+ Global Partner Universities and Strong Industry Connect, Woxsen is reckoned as one of the top universities for Academic Excellence and Global Edge.