The seminar was attended by U.S. business executives and an India business delegation, led by CII’s Director General. As part of the International immersion program, Loyola College Chicago arranged for 15 GMP students from XLRI, India to attend the seminar as participants. The delegation of CII comprised of 15-20 senior business executives from major firms in India. The executives had traveled to meet with U.S. businesses and explore opportunities of trade investment and collaboration. Some of the major Indian executives were-
Chandrajit Banerjee
Director General
Confederation of Indian Industry
Arvind Mehra
Senior Vice President –Strategy
Mahindra & Mahindra
Ashutosh Shukla
Vice President, US Office
Mindtree Ltd
Atul Kunwar
President – Global Operations
Mahindra Satyam
Mahendra Agarwal
Managing Director
GATI Ltd
VS Parthasarthy
Executive Vice President-Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate IT
Mahindra & Mahindra
The keynote addresses were delivered by Dr. Sam Pitroda on “A Vision for Innovation” and Dr. Raghuram Rajan on “An outlook on the Global Economy”
The program also included three panel discussions with U.S. and Indian business executives which explored-
• Opportunities for Business Partnerships
• Manufacturing Collaboration
• Green Energy Collaboration
The GMP group got a chance to interact with Dr. Sam Pitroda wherein they discussed the challenges to the Indian education sector.
In his address, Dr. Pitroda talked about his reminiscences of Chicago. He talked about the implications of having a billion connected people in India. The Indian government is implementing the recommendations of knowledge commission which was set up under Dr. Pitroda. He highlighted the fact that in the west, markets drive innovation whereas in the developing countries needs drive innovation. He justified developing a new model of innovation for India as the US model had high cost structures and lacked the mindset to solve needs of people. Dr. Pitroda highlighted how US can partner India in developing and implementing the new model whose features are-
1. Focus on durability and not disposability
2. Nurturing nature and not fighting nature
3. Low cost yet scalable
The keynote address was followed by panel discussions wherein the students got an idea about apprehensions of US industrialists who want to operate in India. The discussion also gave insights into the mantra of successful partnerships between Indian and US firms.
The culmination of the seminar was by the insightful speech of Dr. Raghuram Rajan. He minced no words as he talked about his outlook of the global economy. The impartial and pertinent speech was a clear indication to students as to why he had been especially chosen as the chairman of the committee which is proposing financial sector reforms in India to the Indian Planning Commission.
The key points brought out by his speech were-
1. The initial decline in world GDP was higher as people had feared that the recession will convert into deep depression of 1930s.
2. 2011 will be a crucial year as by then the effect of stimulus package would be over and further growth will depend on corporations and users fuelling the growth.
3. Since unemployment remains high and prices of houses show little recovery, the future is not that rosy.
4. The central banks will face the challenge of controlling inflation while the growth driver
In developing economies will be domestic demand.
5. Many Asian countries might follow China’s move of pegging their currency against the dollar.
6. The manufacturers in emerging markets can empathize with the needs of people of their countries and are thus in better position to solve them vis a vis people from developed countries as was seen in the case of Tata Nano.
The XLRI group was highly impressed with the eloquent speaker who explained the financial condition of the global economy lucidly without even using any difficult jargon of finance. Listening the views of the two prolific thinkers provided a great learning opportunity to the students. The seminar also provided the students an opportunity to interact and learn from the business leaders of India and the United states.
Our group was fortunate enough that we had interaction with eminent persons like Dr Sam Pitroda(Former Chairman Knowledge Commission) & Dr. Raghuram Rajan(Former Chief economist of IMF).
ReplyDeleteDr. Pitroda raised some of the most difficult problems being faced by Indian people,especially poor, and how innovations, that are affordable & scalable, can provide solutions, not only to poor people in India but to people world over.