Sustainability and Digital Transformation Accelerates the Next Wave of Digitization

(From Left to Right): Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Vishal Bhardwaj, Group Head – CSR – Dalmia Bharat Group; Mr Ajay Choudhary, DGM – Marketing ALIMCO; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs; Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group Editor, (VARINDIA & SPO INDIA);  Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head - Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Mr Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India and Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities & Administration, Thomson Reuters

India’s most popular event Star Nite Awards (SNA), popularly recognised as the DNA of the Channel was held last Friday, where 700 CXOs had gathered to discuss and deliberate on the theme ‘Sustainability and Digital Transformation with Simplification’, with the aim of improving client experience for profitable growth. The day-long session was organised by Kalinga Digital Media, the information-communication-technology (ICT) publishing house that celebrated its 18th anniversary and hosted the 16th edition of Star Nite Awards ceremony.

Shri Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources, Government of India was the Chief Guest at the event and he kick-started the event by lighting the ceremonial lamp. The Hon’ble Minister in his keynote address emphasised that CSR is the need of the hour and that it should be promoted for the welfare of the country

The first panel discussion of the day was titled - Technology helping in Sustainable Development and the discussion was joined in by Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Group Editor (VARINDIA and SPO INDIA); Chief Guest, Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India. 


The second panel Discussion was on ‘CSR & Sustainability in Business’, which was moderated by Radhika Ralhan, Head Innovations for Exponential Impact Unit, CAF India. The speakers included Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Dr Angeli Qwatra, CEO, Centre for Disaster Risk and Safety; Mr Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India; Ms. Akanksha Sharma, Head- CSR & Sustainability, Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd.; Mr. Vishal Bhardwaj, Group Head – Corporate Social Responsibility – Dalmia Bharat Group; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation and Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation.

The third and the final panel discussion was on CSR @ Women's empowerment that was Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs. It was joined by eminent speakers like Ms. Laxmi Agarwal, Indian Campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks; Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India; Dr. Vikas Goswami, Head Sustainability - Good and Green, Godrej One; Ms. Rina Dhaka, Fashion Designer; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation; Ms. Mamta Wasan, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, ‎Fidelity National Information Services; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head - Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities & Administration, Thomson Reuters and Ms. Shivani Wazir Pasrich, Theater Personality, TV host.

Three parallel track sessions were conducted during the event - 
1.    Government and PSU Breakfast session being supported by NETAPP, GEMALTO and INSPIRE.
2.    An Industry Round Table that was attended by 45 senior officials of various IT Associations from across the country.
3.    Enterprise CIO Round Table session being supported by VERTIV and CANON.

A number of government ministers, officials, as well as top industry executives from around the world, spoke in all the 5 different sessions. The industry round table was supported by IT associations from across the country - FAIITA, PCAIT, COMPASS, FITDAK, TAIT, ASIRT, FITAG, CONFED-ITA, ITAO, CMDA, RCTA, JCDA,ISODA, UPCDA, AIT, VCMDWA & ADCTA who also attended the Industry Round table to discuss and understand the theme of “Vendors Commitment for the VARs”. The meet was also attended by ACER as the key vendor. The key discussion was on the topic of ‘On-line versus Traditional Resellers’. 

Evening session  
As evening descended, the air at the Ballroom of Hotel The Lalit, New Delhi was pregnant with hope and anxiety to understand this year’s verdict on who are the winners of the Annual Star Nite Awards. But once the awards were announced, the mood changed to one of celebration - with the joy of the winners overshadowing the disappointment of those who did not make it.
Star Nite Awards took the opportunity to recognize the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), Value Added Resellers (VARs) and IT Vendors (Corporates) serving the Indian ICT Industry. The CMO Leadership Awards 2017 saw 15 CMOs being recognised, while VARs from 4 regions namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata were felicitated during the event ceremony. 

There were Technology showcases by 16 Corporates that included Vodafone, Canon, Vertiv, Dell-EMC, HPE, Ingram Micro, Inspira, Acer, Cambium  Networks, eScan, ALIMCO, Digisol, Epson, Gemalto, RAH Infotech, LG and IndiaSoft-ESC that promoted their products and solutions. 

Another attraction of the Star Nite Awards was the Tech Talk session.  The idea behind tech talk is that, within five minutes a speaker needs to tell the audience on the present and future technology that their respective organisations are endorsing. There are a multitude of topics capped, on which Five leaders has shared their ideas and concepts with the audience. These talks were a great source of inspiration to all those who were present in the hall and was a great benefit for their professional growth. The speakers who spoke during the Tech Talk were Ms. Monalisa Sahoo, Sr. V.P-Marketing- Vodafone Business Services; Mr Ruchin Kumar, Business Head (Govt. & Defence) – GEMALTO; Mr. Rajeev Sreedhar, Director – Channels & Alliances (India & SAARC) - McAfee; Mr. Sujit Panigrahi, Co-Founder & CTO- Convergent Technologies and Mr. Sunil Sharma, Managing Director- Sophos India.