More details to be released soon!
SOME TESTIMONIALS
2024 PROGRAM
8:30 - Ongoing | Registration of participants
Registration of participants.
9:30 - 10:00 | Official opening plenary
Official opening plenary.
10:15 - 11:30 | India as a destination of choice for investment in startups
As one of the world’s fastest growing economy leap-frogging the digitization process and a country with the 3rd largest – steadily growing – startup ecosystem, India is increasingly attracting the attention of foreign VCs, PEs and family offices eager to explore new investment opportunities.
- What answers to the questions still on the mind of some foreign investors about involvement in India’s startup ecosystem?
- What complementarities and synergies can be created between foreign and Indian investors?
- How does India figure in the global startup ecosystems landscape? The Pluses and the minuses?
11:30 - 11:45 | Networking break
Networking break.
11:45 - 13:00 | Digitizing corporate India: The next Quantum Leap
India’s digitization process is on a fast-track mode and this trend is bound to continue gathering pace and deepen in the coming years. With the extensive leveraging of the Digital Public Infrastructure already having a major transformative impact on the country’s society and economic activity, the next quantum leap is coming with the acceleration of corporate India’s digitization.
- How can corporate India use digitization as a booster for innovation capabilities?
- What opportunities do cloud adoption and cloud deployment by India’s businesses create for foreign and Indian startups and corporations?
- How will the accelerated corporate digitization impact on the whole IT, High-Tech industry?
11:45 - 13:00 | The GCCs dynamic and the startup solutions to boost corporate innovation
An increasing number of Indian and foreign MNCs operating in India have been sourcing innovation from startups in various domains to integrate in their global products and services offerings. The driver for this is the emergence of India as a global hub for Global Capability Centers (GCCs). A dynamic interaction is at play between GCCs and startups. The former using the relationship to expand and accelerate innovation processes and the latter benefiting from the support of global corporations in validating and scaling up their products and services.
Adding to the GCCs dynamic, the expanding partnerships between foreign and national MNCs and the startups contributing to source products and service innovation in their global offering is now transforming the overall picture of India’s corporate innovation.
- What conditions for the innovation interaction between startups and corporations to work best?
- How does the rise of GCCs impact on the expansion of the IT sector with respect to product development, innovation, and research?
11:45 - 13:00 | Biotech and Genomics: Navigating turbulences and seizing opportunities
Brainstorming
The biotech and Genomics industry has witnessed remarkable developments in India as well as at the global level. The Indian biotech and life sciences sector is emerging a hub for pharmaceutical innovation.
On the genomics side, The Genome India Project has completed sequencing 10’000 Indian genomes, providing a database for Indian genetic diversity. The biotech and genomics sector is now at an inflection point in India as well as at the global level, with technological advances and evolving market conditions are creating a new paradigm for the sector.
- Adjusting to more difficult funding conditions
- How can startups in the sector leverage in an efficient way AI technology, the CRISPR developments and the increasing data available?
- How to develop the collaboration between biotech and genomics startups and the pharmaceutical companies?
- How to navigate the increasingly complex regulatory and ethical issues involved as the biotech and genomics sector makes new advances?
13:00 - 14:00 | Buffet lunch
Buffet lunch.
14:00 - 15:15 | India’s unique innovation model: Getting to the inflection point
India is emerging as one of the world’s top innovation hubs, thanks to the cumulative impact of the expansion of Digital Public Infrastructure covering payments, identity, and Data management, of the development of engineering and research talent, and of the emergence of a dynamic startup ecosystem, now one of the top three in the world. Adding to that is the complementarity of a top-down and of a bottom-up approaches between the government and the private sector on innovation development.
- The government as an innovation agent
- What factor to add or to strengthen for the sustainability of India’s innovation model?
- Addressing the perennial issue of corporate R&D weakness
- What distinctive role for India in the global innovation landscape?
15:30 - 16:30 | Connect on: IP and innovation in healthtech
An interaction between startups founders and VC executives involved in Healthtech to create mutually beneficial synergies.
15:30 - 16:30 | Connect on: Deep Tech
An interaction between startups founders and VC executives involved in Deep Tech to create mutually beneficial synergies.
15:30 - 16:30 | Connect on: Manufacturing technologies
An interaction between startups founders and VC executives involved in manufacturing technologies to create mutually beneficial synergies.
16:30 - 17:00 | Networking break
Networking break.
17:00 - 18:15 | Building the champions of the AI revolution
India produces 16% of the world’s AI talent pool, making it one of the top three AI talent markets in the world. The number of Gen AI Indian startups has doubled in 2023 and the country’s start-up ecosystems is moving ahead developing AI-powered tools in the development and delivery of their products and services. This is providing a huge addition and complementarity to the AI drive of the country’s public and private sectors.
- How does India’s AI landscape compare with global top players AI capabilities?
- What AI innovation partnerships can create win-win synergies?
- What kind of quantum leap would Generative AI bring to India’s innovation capabilities?
18:30 - 19:30 | Reception
Reception.
19:30 - 21:30 | Seated gala dinner
Seated gala dinner.
9:00 - 10:15 | Learning from 2023: The trends shaping the evolution of VC/startup ecosystems and their implications
- From a focus on valuation to creating real value
- Focus on capital efficiency
- Greater investor prudence
- Continuing to do more with less
- Focus on adaptation and resilience
- ……
10:15 - 10:45 | Networking break
Networking break
10:45 - 11:45 | What time for exit?
There were almost no IPOs in 2023 and M&As involving VC-backed companies were also severely hit. However, the context seems to be changing, with a number of public companies and PEs awash with cash to invest. So, the time for a revival of IPOs and M&As may have now come back. And, for many startup investors, the questions might be:
- How, and at what precise moment?
- What does it take to go public at time of uncertainty and volatility?
10:45 - 11:45 | Assessing the impact of the wave of new legislations on innovation and on companies' activities
While the AI Act, the Digital Services Act, and the Digital Markets Act in the EU get implemented, the wide-ranging Executive Order signed by President Biden last October enacts increased transparency and new standards for high-tech companies. The same trends for more controls on the applications of technology and the direction of high-tech developments are at play in other key countries: India has its draft Digital India Act 2023, and China its August 2023 law on AI governance.
And legislators and regulators worldwide are expanding the application of existing laws and regulations.
- How does the wave of new regulations impact on innovation and on the activities of high-tech companies – whether startups or corporations?
- What right balance between the need for the protection of privacy and consumers’ rights and the concern for not unduly hampering innovation?
- Are there Dos and Don’ts that startup founders need to follow, about this emerging global regulatory framework on technology?
12:00 - 13:00 | Technology Update: Where is the Fintech sector going?
- What are the technology trends in the sector?
- Where do Indian and foreign players stand?
- What opportunities to leverage and challenges to address?
- How, and at what precise moment?
- What does it take to go public at time of uncertainty and volatility?
12:00 - 13:00 | Technology Update: Where is the supply chain technology sector going?
- What are the technology trends in the sector?
- Where do Indian and foreign players stand?
- What opportunities to leverage and challenges to address?
12:00 - 13:00 | Technology Update: Where is the sustainability tech sector going?
- What are the technology trends in the sector?
- Where do Indian and foreign players stand?
- What opportunities to leverage and challenges to address?
13:00 - 14:00 | Buffet lunch
Buffet lunch.
14:00 - 15:00 | What does it take for India to join the world’s semiconductors‘ top players group?
India has taken significant steps to create the propitious framework conditions to join the world’s top players in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing, research, and development. The country’s semiconductor market is expected to be at around US$ 80 billion by 2028.
- How are the government policies working in terms of developing a top-level chip manufacturing capability?
- How to expand the proven semiconductor design capabilities of Indian engineers? What actions to address the scarcity of cutting-edge infrastructure labs in the country’s universities?
- How to capitalize optimally on the increasing involvement of semiconductors manufacturers giants in India?
15:15 - 16:15 | Cracking the code on scaling up: Listening to those who did it
All startups have to address the challenges of time to market and of cracking scale. They have to make do with internal factors they need to manage and external factors such as market readiness or competitive risk on which they have scant control. And the challenge of time to market and scaling up is made more acute in the present context of the decrease of financial resources available to startup founders.
- Are there best practices to optimize the product development process of fast-paced technological changes and market evolution?
- What to be learnt from the entrepreneurs who have succeeded in cracking scale?
16:30 - 17:30 | Shapers of the future
Meet the pioneers of new technologies, the creators of new business models. They are one step ahead of new social and consumers‘ trends…. There are on the stage.
17:30 - 18:15 | Farewell drinks
Farewell drinks.