Building a future-ready world now with technology and innovation – Moneycontrol.com

The pace of technology adoption and innovation has been phenomenal since the beginning of 2020. Organisations across different sectors, which faced an unprecedented crisis due to several disruptions, capitalised on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Cloud, Advanced Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), etc., with speed and scale to address challenges at hand.

Besides working on problems of today, businesses also built tech-backed systems and re-strategised their plans for a sustainable and competitive future. Now, the spotlight is on innovating for today and tomorrow, productizing innovation to create business and social impact, and expand to newer markets.

To discuss how technologies can make it possible, Moneycontrol and CNBC-TV18 held a round-table discussion on Driving Innovation to Build a World that Works presented by GE.

During the engaging discussion, experts Dr. Sapna Poti, Program Director, Office of Principal Scientific Advisor, Govt. of India; Mohit Kapoor, Group Technology Officer, Mahindra Group; Kalika Bali, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research; and Alok Nanda, CEO, GE India Technology Centre& CTO, GE South Asia discussed the importance innovation, being future-ready now and how we can work together to solve challenges for 20+ years.

Elaborating on what kind of technologies are important for India, Dr Poti said, There are two large clusters that one can make for the technological development. One is of the emerging technologies which are artificial intelligence, machine learning, it could also have semi-conductors, defence, and quantum is also picking up in the country. Most importantly, all of them dovetail into something call social impact technology which finally needs to make some impact socially for urban and rural poor and pandemics of the nature that we are facing.

Giving insights into how industries across different sectors are adopting technologies, panellists said the pace of innovation is revolutionising operations for building a sustainable tomorrow and the transformation entails responsibility on organisations to stay ahead of their game - for serving their customers while adapting to the changes themselves.

Technology has got accelerated especially in the last two years, pre and post-COVID-19. Changes have been made which will never go back to the old normal. I see four areas- one is customer journeys, they are getting more and more digital. Anything that helps digitise a customers journey is a high priority for us. Equally high-priority is employee journey. We are trying to use data science to make the right decisions. Third is modernising our technology and fourth is data security and privacy, said Kapoor.

Our purpose at GE is to build a world that works, a healthier, cleaner, and a more connected world, which leads to a more sustainable future for mankind and thats what our purpose is and innovation is how we get there. Innovation is the North Star for us to get to our purpose. We have a legacy of finding what the world needs and going ahead and invent it. Whats changing in the current times is that the pace at which disruption is happening is far different because the boundaries between industrial and digital world are disappearing, said Nanda.

Meanwhile, the discussion also delved into designing models that can serve over 20 years.

We have to also move from an urban-centric view of innovation and think of the rest of the country. Most of the country is not living in the urban centre. The kind of healthcare that you get, desire, is available to you and where a lot of innovation is happening is in the urban centres. Now, how can we use AI and all the digital power that we have to make sure similar kind of healthcare and expert advice is available to somebody who is in a village, miles away from a hospital. Those are the kind of projects, thinking, innovation will see us through the next 20 years, said Bali.

The virtual session had insightful conversations on research, collaboration, profitability, disruption and much more.

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Building a future-ready world now with technology and innovation - Moneycontrol.com