IIM Nagpur’s annual flagship event, Illume’18 kicked off with a welcome note by the Institute Director Prof LS Murty. He talked about the philosophy of the Institute, its highly participative and democratic system and the constant journey towards exploring the truth by self-study and collective discourse.
The first session of Illume was based on ‘Collaborative efforts between academia and industry to enhance agile learning’. Speakers’ insights on the theme stressed upon always stay agile, do not stop experimenting, align yourself towards experiencing real problems, hold on to your belief and encapsulate the learning while getting transformed from a generalist to a specialist.
“Initiatives like ILLUME are going to be the foundation that will build the country in years to come,” said Arvind Bali, CEO Videocon Telecom, who was one of the key speakers in the first session.
Panellist Subodh Jindal, Senior Director, Thermo Fisher Scientific, confessed about the industry’s unpreparedness to accommodate young talent and emphasized on a more consistent and structured interactive approach between industry and institute rather than episodic ones.
Tanay Kediyal, another industry stalwart on the panel, talked about the need to focus on the conversations happening in schools and colleges about choosing a career and focused on agile learning as a key practice to stay updated.
Talking about startups, Chaitanya Vaddi, Founder & CEO of CV CORP, suggested, “You have a startup idea, choose a problem people face & then people will recognize it. This will give you a lot of clarity.”
The afternoon session was majorly focussed on the impact of technology in the financial services sector. Speakers presented an in-depth analysis of the viability of the implementation of crypto-currency and smart contracts in India. They also touched upon application of algo-trading, how data analytics is helping in fraud detection and increasing automation of lending services using CIBIL database and Aadhaar.
Talking about RBI’s reservations on embracing crypto-currencies, keynote speaker Trivikram Kamath, EVP, Kotak Securities, raised a concern about the value that’s backing it. Whereas, panelist Vipul Chandra, Head-Treasury, L&T Ltd, stressed on the increasing tinkering of crypto-currencies with money supply and henceforth, focused on the monetary policy by having a parallel currency network. He also talked about the anonymity and security issues associated. The speakers also emphasized the use of technology for fraud detection and timely action.
Vipul further added the dimension of disruptive technology completely eliminating human judgment in evaluating creditworthiness by the use of technology that doesn’t seem possible in the near future.
“Technological disruption curve quickly shifts to impact traditional industries. But, it also creates new business models to interact for all stakeholders, including banks,” explained Sunil Makharia, President – Finance, Lupin Limited.
Talking about transforming business, Makarand Padalkar, CFO, Oracle Financial Services Software, mentioned that Block chain has incorporated trusted transactions, enabling real-time visibility for the entire supply chain.