AIMA conference seeks strategic areas of US-India collaboration

Keeping up with its endeavour to provide a platform for thought provoking deliberations, the All India Management Association (AIMA) organised the 3rd US-India Conference at Berkeley Haas recently.

The conference started with the welcome address by Carol Christ, chancellor, University of California, Berkeley, who stressed on the importance of good and high quality learning for making a positive difference. Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman, Hero Enterprise and chairman of the conference, underlined the need of the world, in particular US businesses, to look at India from the perspective of a large yet complex market.

Addressing the audience, TV Mohandas Pai, president, AIMA and chairman, Manipal Global Education Services, presented the great India story, one of hope and opportunities, on the basis of statistics and facts. In his keynote address, Rajeev Gowda, member of parliament, Rajya Sabha, identified healthcare, infrastructure and education as the key and important areas where technology and innovations associated with them could help India leapfrog into the future.

Ambassador Venkatesan Ashok, consul general of India, San Francisco, gave a special address while Solomon N Darwin, executive director, Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, delivered the concluding remarks.

Earlier, Prof. Catherine Wolfram, acting associate dean for academic affairs and Cora Jane, professor business administration, Berkeley Haas and Rekha Sethi, director general, AIMA also addressed the gathering.

The session of John T Chambers, founder and chief executive officer, JC2 Ventures, and chairman emeritus, Cisco, was the highlight of the conference. While addressing the gathering, he emphasised that it is important for organisations to be agile to the changing needs of the market and also share the fruits of the growth with all the stakeholders.

Participants shared their views on how digital economy fuelled by technology would help countries like India solve a lot of problems.

The panelists of the next session discussed the healthcare sector. The session was chaired by Munis D Faruqui, chair of India studies, director, Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley; and the panelists were Preetha Reddy, vice chairperson, Apollo Hospitals, Eric Goosby, UN Secretary-General’s special envoy on TB and professor of medicine at UCSF School of Medicine, Clifford Samuel, senior vice president,  Access Operations & Emerging Markets, Gilead Sciences.

Catherine Wolfram chaired the panel discussion on globalisation. The esteemed panel comprised of AnnaLee Saxenian, dean, School of Information, UC Berkeley, Sanjay Kirloskar, vice president, AIMA, Sudhir Jalan, chairman, Meenakshi Tea Co and  Sean Randolph, senior director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute.