Vivek Murthy, Arvind Krishna, Sanjiv Goyal Witty Bindra discuss cutting edge technologies for the future.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called upon over 500,000 global alumni of 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to support his ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ mission to make India self-reliant.
Cutting-edge and innovative initiatives are happening across industry sectors in India, with IIT’s brand stronger than ever, he said in his inaugural address to the Dec. 4-5 IIT2020 Global Summit.
Talking upon the impressive tenacity of IITians on the world stage as well as India’s place in the world, Modi touched upon topics such as space exploration, the economy, and technological innovation.
Citing India’s historic reforms in the space sector, he said, the Indian government has been working with various countries in Asia and Europe to ensure that the next generation gets an international platform to solve national and global problems.
The world’s largest virtual conference, “IIT2020: Future Is Now” kicked off with a welcome address by Conference Chair Sanjiv Goyal, founder and chairman of Droisys, a global innovation technology company.
Goyal was joined by Co-Chair Witty Bindra, PanIIT USA President Sundy Srinivasan, and Program Chair Ron Gupta.
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Goyal challenged conference attendees to spearhead global innovation, citing Apollo 11 and the second quantum revolution as key to driving humanity’s future.
Modi’s opening keynote was followed by an address from Vivek Murthy, Co-Chair of the Biden covid-19 advisory council and former US Surgeon General, who discussed handling of the pandemic.
In a thought-provoking speech from IBM CEO Arvind Krishna discussed AI and Quantum in the 21st Century. Sanjiv Goyal, Witty Bindra, and Sundy Srinivasan interviewed Raj Subramaniam, CEO of FedEx.
Piyush Goyal, Indian Minister of Commerce and Railways spoke of potential cooperation between IIT alumni worldwide for global development keeping India as its hub.
Directors from IITs Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Bombay, Roorkee, Guwahati, IIT Varanasi and Indian Institute of Science participated live.
In addition to speakers like Ansys CEO Ajei and Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, the IIT2020 Global Summit featured 12 cutting-edge panels, with speakers at innovation’s forefront.
The panel on Indo-US cooperation in Space Exploration detailed the joint efforts on polar orbital satellite development and its benefits to the scientific community, besides the Indian brand of helicopter for Mars mission.
Second Quantum Revolution: Possibilities for the next generation Qubit / Quantum bit computers with multi billion circuits on a board, interfacing with photon interface data transfer technology were discussed.
It may be noted that Quantum computer developed by IBM, is in operation for the last four years to worldwide researchers to play with.
Green Steel: Limitless Inventions for Global Sustainability: The panel discussed an approach for reuse of waste materials such as rubber, plastic, metals.
This could be done through micro factories designed and developed for product recycle, with innovative technologies to bifurcate materials contents into usable quality raw materials, installed close to consumption areas.