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Some very incisive presentations, technology insights, leadership talks, inspiring speeches and policy briefings, interactive sessions, engaging workshops, collaborative knowledge sharing—along with loads of fun, ethnic food, glimpses of local culture and literally a very ‘royal’ experience for its participants marked the 18th CIO&Leader Annual Conference held between 4th August and 6th August 2017 at the luxurious Ananta Resort at Udaipur, Rajasthan.
The conference, with a theme CIO@2020, had participation of more than 100 top CIOs in India and was supported by more than 20 technology companies as partners. The conference also included Agenda 2020, a collaborative authoring of a strategic agenda document for Indian CIOs by the participating CIOs. The other highlight of the conference program was a keynote address by the Minister for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha. Some personal time with the king of Udaipur was a unique experience for many participating CIOs.
Minister of Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha delivering a Keynote Address
The conference began with a welcome note by Kanak Ghosh, Founder & Director, 9.9 Media. It was followed by a talk on creating a human enterprise by futurologist Steve Wells. After a keynote by presenting partner HPE, the participants were briefed by CIO&Leader editors on the Agenda 2020 exercise. Presentations by other partners, engaging panel discussions an innovative speed-dating aimed at introducing participants to each other in a short time completed the first day’s agenda.
The pre-conference workshop on innovation by Ashvin Vellody, Partner, Deloitte Digital & Abhinav Chaturvedi, Director, Deloitte Digital saw enthusiastic participation from the attending delegates.
After the formal sessions, it was time for some wine and cheese sessions by partners.
And finally, it was time to unwind. With traditional Rajasthan food on their plates and safas on their heads, the CIOs and partners had an immersive experience of the local Rajathani culture.
Day Two began with some interactive breakfast sessions with partners. A series of technology and solutions presentations, Ideas Café—a session where CIOs sit across a table to discuss a topic with a moderator for 10 minutes before moving to another table with another topic was enjoyed by the delegates. The day also had the new Agenda 2020 item, where groups of CIOs sat together to create a draft strategic agenda around a topic. Apart from technology topics, it included management, leadership, talent topics as well. They created presentations based on their deliberations. CIO&Leader is compiling all those to create a strategy book for Indian CIOs.
Panel Discussion on Realizing the Full Potential of IoT
After a few more wine & cheese sessions by the partners, the day culminated in a visit to the City Palace—the heart of Udaipur. But it was no ordinary visit. The Maharaja, Maharana Arvind Singh Mewar, himself was there to greet the guests. A dinner at Maharana’s Shiv Niwas Palace within the palace and a Sound & Light show rounded up the evening.
The last day of the event had two keynotes—one by Akshaya Patra UK CEO, Bhawani Singh Shekhawat and the other by Civil Aviation minister Jayant Sinha. In his speech, he explained how the reforms initiated by the NDA government are accomplishing structural changes in Indian economy. Labeling the current round of reforms as Reforms 3.0, he claimed that the changes are the most profound this time. He listed six buckets of reforms and explained how the government is initiating major changes through each of those.
Microsoft Session at the Conference
The conference ended with presentations by groups of CIOs on Agenda 2020 topics, who were acknowledged with trophies and certificates by CIO&Leader.
Agenda 2020 Presentation by a CIO Team
More than 20 leading technology companies supported the event as partners, led by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) as the presenting partner and Sify as the premier partner. Other sponsors included Microsoft, Schneider Electric, IBM, Qlick, SAS, Aspect, Adobe, Avaya, AWS, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft, Moglix, QlikTech, Samsung, SAS, Symphony Summit, Teradata, Trend-Micro, AudioCodes, STTelemedia and SUSE.
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