LATEST NEWS
Insights, commentary, and updates from India Global Innovation Connect.
SOME TESTIMONIALS
Gaurav Vaid
Founding Partner, Venturis Inc
Prof. Sanjiv Sambandan
Department of Electronic Systems Engineering Indian Institute of Science
2026 PROGRAM
The 5th meeting of the India Global Innovation Connect
‘INDIA IN THE AGE OF AI’
8:30 - Ongoing | Registration
9:30 - 10:00 | Official Opening Plenary
10:00 - 11:10 | Surveying the global technology innovation landscape; where does India fit?
An a increasingly multipolar technology innovation landscape is evolving under our eyes, with major economic, geopolitical, societal implications.
- Mapping out the new global landscape of innovation
- How is the balance of technology capabilities evolving between the US and China?
- Where does India fit into this evolving landscape, especially with respect to AI and Deep Tech?
A panel of leading experts scan this moving landscape and assess the next phase(s) of the evolution.
Speakers:
Will Poole, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Capria Ventures, USA
Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Economic Advisory Council Secretary, Government of India
Umakant Soni, Co-founder, Bharat1.ai, India
Arpita Srivastava, Managing Director, GCC, Cushman & Wakefield, Singapore/USA
11:20 - 12:30 | Innovating for the world: From national technology ecosystem to global technology innovator
With its growing talent pool and skillset, a vast market that enables economies of scale, a vibrant technology innovation ecosystem, rapidly expanding digital infrastructure, and targeted public policies, India has what it takes to innovate for the world and is moving towards becoming the next global technology leader.
- Which strategic technology clusters to prioritize for their accelerating potential for becoming a global technology innovator?
- How to develop a Research culture – increasing the share of GDP devoted to R&D, enhancing the capabilities of academic and corporate Deep Tech research, expanding international collaborations on R&D?
- What is required to support the long-term funding critical for the development of fundamental Deep Tech sectors?
- What are the technology domains where India is already leading globally and what are the potential next ones?
- What to learn from success stories from global technology innovator countries?
Speakers:
Anand Anandkumar, CEO & Managing Director, Bugworks Research PVT, India
Padmaja Ruparel, Founding Partner, Indian Angel Network, Co-founder & Senior Managing Partner, IAN Group, India
Satish Shukla, Co-founder, Addverb, India
Moderated by:
Avantika Gode, Vice-President, Startup Policy Forum, India
11:20 - 12:30 | Building cross-ecosystems innovation synergies: Space
Like in some other key sectors, the Modi government is pursuing a policy of technology indigenization and self-reliance in the space sector, with an expanding participation from the private sector and the development of partnerships with foreign space companies.
- The picture: where does India stand today in space?
- How to expand partnerships with foreign players – corporate and startups – to help address some of the challenges still slowing the development of the space sector?
- How to expand further the involvement of startups in the technological leapfrogging of the space sector?
- What next steps in the integration of Indian players in global space supply chains?
Speakers:
Siddham Gaur, COO, Arms 4 AI, India
Joshua Gray, Partner, Covington & Burling, USA
Debashish Sengupta, Director Government Affairs, Pixxel, India/US
Gautam Sharma, Managing Director-India, Viasat, India/USA
Suyash Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, GalaxEye, India
Moderated by:
Baljinder Singh, Senior Director, Aerospace & Defense, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum USISPF, India/USA
12:30 - 13:30 | Buffet lunch
13:30 - 14:30 | Building cross-ecosystems innovation synergies: Semiconductors
- The picture: where does India stand today in semiconductors?
- Which countries can provide the best opportunities for cross border partnerships that will accelerate the development of India’s semiconductors sectors in a context of very fierce and resourceful global competition?
- How to leverage the capabilities of international research institutions to support research and tech entrepreneurs and help move from a technology concept to higher-end chips manufacturing?
- What models for public-private partnerships have proved to be efficient in other countries for developing the semiconductor sector?
- Developing public and private partnership to accelerate India’s fab capabilities
Speakers:
Ruchir Dixit, Vice President & Country Manager, Siemens EDA, USA; Chairperson, The India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA)
Amardeep Punhani, Senior Director & Head of Noida R&D Site, NXP Semiconductors, India/The Netherlands
Rahul M. Rao, Distinguished Engineer, IBM India Systems Development Lab, India/USA
Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, Associate Chair, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering & Project Director, National Quantum Mission-Quantum Computing Hub, India
V. Veerappan, Co-Founder & President, Tessolve Semiconductor Private Ltd, India
13:30 - 14:30 | Building cross-ecosystems innovation synergies: Biotech and Healthtech
- The picture: where does India stand today in biotech and Healthtech?
- What role can cross-ecosystems collaboration play in accelerating India’s biotechnology growth over the next decade?
- What regulatory changes would make international biotech collaboration with India smoother and faster?
- What would make foreign universities and research institutes collaborate more effectively with Indian labs in frontier biotechnology areas?
- How can India leverage cross-ecosystems collaborations to expand its bio-manufacturing capacity?
Speakers:
Manoj Gopalkrishnan, Founder & CEO, Algorithmic Biologics, India
Pankaj Gupta, Managing Partner, EthAum Venture Partners, Singapore
Federico Lauro, Chief Scientific Officer, Luminis Water Technologies, Singapore
Leela Maitreyi, VP – Strategic Partnerships & BD, Bugworks Research India Pvt. Ltd, India
Vivek Mishra, Founder, Director & CEO, Fibroheal Woundcare, India
14:40 - 15:50 | Creating a strategic alignment for innovation synergies between corporations and startups
Corporations, worldwide, are turning to startups to help them keep pace with fast technological changes that need to be leveraged and integrated to maintain competitiveness and meet evolving market expectations. However, many collaborations between corporations and startups fail. Creating innovation synergies and getting optimum benefits from both parties involve more than corporate funding or acquisition of startups.
- What are the key elements of a strategic fit that would increase the chances of success in creating innovation complementarities between corporations and startups?
- How to ensure a full alignment from both parties on what success of the collaboration will mean, how it will be measured and on what will be in it for each party?
- What pitfalls to avoid?
Speakers:
Praveen Kanipakam, President & Chief Technology Officer, SHARP Software Development India/Japan
Amey Mashelkar, Head of JioGenNext, Reliance Industries, India
Sanjiv Sharma, Lead –Key Account & Partnership, Bayer India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka
Moderated by:
Ralph Voltmer, Partner, Head of the India Practice, Covington & Burling, USA
15:55 - 16:15 | Helping High Performers’ Brains work better
Better Sleep. Deeper Attention. Lower Anxiety. Sharper Decisions:
How to combine neuroscience with time tested wisdom for brain longevity and optimal performance.
Presenter:
Kumaar Bagrodia, Founder & Lead Neuroscientist, NeuroLeap and HALE Healthy Ageing Longevity Enhancement, India
16:15 - 16:45 | Networking break
16:15 - 17:45 | Sign-up workshop
IP as a startup critical asset: Assess, protect, manage, monetize.
- Knowing and evaluating the IP you created
- Creating early-on an IP protection strategy and acting on it
- Ensuring to assign all the rights on IP created by anyone in the startup to the company
- Managing IP as a strategic asset and not just as a legal matter
Speakers:
Joshua Gray, Partner, Covington & Burling, USA
Ashish Singh, Partner, Dua Associates, India
16:45 - 17:45 | What changes of approach to go from AI models to business systems
With Enterprise AI spending exploding, there are still many questions about the extent to which these investments are, so far, translating into productivity gains. These gains vary widely from one sector to another. They hugely depend on several prerequisites such as whether or not the organization is AI-ready, the will to change the corporate culture to use AI to think differently and to redesign decision-making processes etc. What is at stake here is the economic future, the prosperity and even the geopolitical positioning of the countries which are devoting critical financial and human resources on what is not just a new technology but a genuine foundational shift.
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- What are the core elements that define an AI-ready organization?
- How will AI reshape the way we think, teach and learn?
- How to leverage AI to re-design decision-making processes to optimize industrial efficiency?
- How to embed Data science/capabilities in business strategies for scaling productivity
Speakers:
Rajiv Desai, Co-founder, 1Point1 Technology Labs, India
Raj Kapoor, Founder of the India Blockchain Alliance and Chairman of the Global Alliance
Suguru Kawashima, Executive Director, Head of Global Expansion, Findy Inc., Japan
Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Aarin Capital, India
17:50 - 18:50 | From an India GCCs ecosystem to one of the world’s top innovation hub
While several countries host a number of GCCs, India clearly dominates this sector hosting about 18% of the world’s global GCCs, with close to 2’200 GGCs mostly located in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad and employing close to 2.5 million people. An increasing number of the country’s GCCs are now becoming dynamic centers of innovation playing a significant role in Agentic and Generative AI development but also in areas such as healthcare technology, semiconductors engineering, automotive R&D etc.
- What are the trends shaping the evolution and expansion of the GCC sector? What about nano GCCs?
- What priority actions to address the widening skills gap creating pressure on GCCs development?
- How to expand and deepen the collaboration with startups and Academia to broaden the opportunities for co-creation of new technologies?
- How do the reforms for the GCC sector announced in the budget 2026 help address the increasing need of GCCs operators for policy certainty and predictability?
- What is the picture for India’s GCCs ecosystem in 2030?
Speakers:
Soumitra Saha, Managing Director & Country Head, Lumen Technologies, India/USA
18:50 - 19:15 | Cocktail Reception
19:20 - 21:15 | Sit-down gala dinner
Featuring a keynote speaker
Baijayant “Jay” Panda, National Vice President & Spokesperson, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India
9:00 - 10:10 | Startups funding: Where is the money coming from now … And on what criteria?
As the scope of funding options for startups is broadening as new financing sources are gaining more importance, we are also witnessing a significant evolution in the traditional sources. VC Funds are for instance increasingly focused on specific technology sectors – notably AI, Deep Tech, Bio-Tech – while corporate VCs are looking more and more at strategic value creation in their collaboration with startups, instead of looking only at financial returns. At the same time, new forms of funding are gaining ground such as blended ones combining different sources of funding, or cross-border crowdfunding with the emergence of global platforms.
- What does this diversification and evolution of funding sources mean for startup founders looking at forms of financing that will best support their development while protecting their long-term interest?
- While some investors are now relying on Data or/and AI to decide on which startups to support, what are the limits of this approach?
- Given wider funding options for startup founders, how is the role of investors evolving beyond being a capital provider?
Speakers:
Naganand Doraswamy, Founder & Managing Director, IdeaSpring Capital, India
Takeshi Ebihara, Founding General Partner, Rebright Partners, Singapore
Vibhore Sharma, Co-founder & Partner, Capital 2B, India
9:00 - 10:30 | Sign-up Private Roundtable
Addressing infrastructure challenges to sustain Data Centers’ expansion
India is planning to devote $200 billion investments to expand the country’s data center capacity and related compute infrastructure, as it is now among the fastest-growing digital infrastructure markets. However, The challenge is not only of a financial nature. Such a rapid expansion cannot be sustained without major infrastructure developments in power generation capacity, and grid upgrades, expansion of cooling and water resources management, new regulatory frameworks, and the creation of the necessary skilled workforce.
Chaired by:
Nivedita Mehra, Managing Director US-India Strategic Partnership Forum USISPF, India/USA
10:15 - 11:15 | Geopolitics in the age of AI
As we transition towards a new global balance of forces and the tremendous potential of frontier technologies keeps expanding, geopolitics and technology innovation are getting ever more intertwined. Technology is increasingly weaponized in the economic and geopolitical domains. Crucial strategic interests are at stake in the battle for digital sovereignty for several countries, including India, whose prosperity, security and standing in the world will rest on their ability to develop a technology capability that will shelter them to a maximum possible extent from technology dependency or coercion.
- What are the implications of the fragmentation of the global technology landscape?
- How to look at digital sovereignty beyond the national ability to control and govern its digital infrastructure, data, and technologies?
- What techno-economic alliances will help strengthen the position of India as a rising technology power?
- What initiatives to secure a place at the tables where rules on the governance of frontier technologies are being discussed?
Speakers:
C Raja Mohan, Professor Jindal Global University’s Institute of American Studies, Korea Foundation Chair on Asian Geopolitics at the Council on Strategic and Defense Studies
Claude Smadja, Chairman, Smadja & Smadja Strategic Advisory, Switzerland
Moderated by:
Simran Singh, Founder, Sakura Advisory, India
11:15 - 11:45 | Networking break
11:15 - 12:45 | Sign-up Roundtable
Corporate perspectives on accelerating the development of India’s semiconductors sector
India’s government has set strategic goals for the development of the semiconductor sector aiming to position the country as an alternative hub in global semiconductor supply chains. Ten projects have already been approved under the auspices of India Semiconductor Mission with a total investment of about US$ 19 billion. The private sector is , from its part, putting the emphasis on specific initiatives – many of them complementary to the government’s approach – to accelerate the development of the semiconductor sector.
- What are some of the priority approaches advocated by the private sector?
- How could they complement the government projects and initiatives?
Speakers:
Tushar Raj, Founder, PhotonSilica, India
Shankar Kumar Selvaraja, Associate Chair, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering & Project Director, National Quantum Mission-Quantum Computing Hub, India
V. Veerappan, Co-Founder & President, Tessolve Semiconductor Private Ltd, Chairman India Electronics & Semiconductor Association, India
11:45 - 12:45 | From startup to company status: Managing the evolution from Pre-IPO to Post-IPO
Moving from startup to corporation status represents one of the most challenging moments in the company’s life. This implies a change of mindset, the blending of the entrepreneurial driven with corporate governance discipline and operational rigor, a permanent attention to financial markets expectations, the acquisition of some key financial knowledge, etc.
- What are the biggest cultural and/or operational shifts startups face after going public?
- How to manage post-IPO development effectively?
- What lessons do companies typically learn within their first year post-IPO?
Speakers:
Piyush Jhunjhunwala, Founder & CEO, Stockify Fintech Pvt. Ltd., United Arab Emirates
Amarjeet Singh Makhija, Partner and Leader, Startups and Unicorns, PwC India, United Kingdom
Sudhir Rao, Senior Partner, Celesta Capital & Founding Managing Partner, IndusAge Partners, India
R.M. Subramanian, Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Cyient DLM Ltd, India
11:45 - 12:45 | Building cross-ecosystems innovation synergies : Defense and Security
- The picture: where does India stand today in defense?
- What models of international defense R&D collaboration have proved to be effective without compromising nation security imperatives?
- Which dual-use technologies applications (AI, robotics, cybersecurity) present the most realistic opportunities for cross-border innovation in the defense sector?
- How is the “Make in India” policy being translated into actions when it comes to the defense sector?
Speakers:
Nikhil Mallavarapu, Joint Managing Director, Centum Electronics, India
Tanuj Mittal, Senior Director India, Dassault Systèmes India/France
Gautam Nanda, Partner, Ernst & Young- EY, India
Aruna Schwarz, Co-founder & CEO, Stelae Technologies, India
Moderated by:
Kabir Bogra, Partner, Khaitan & Co, India
12:45 - 13:45 | Buffet lunch
13:45 - 14:10 | A Humanity-centric AI city
Presenter:
Umakant Soni, Co-Founder, Bharat1.AI, India
14:15 - 15:15 | One-on-One conversation
Keynote speech
14:15 - 15:15 | Building cross-ecosystems innovation synergies : Sustainability Tech
- The picture: where does India stand today in sustainability?
- How to leverage open innovation ecosystems to boost sustainability technologies innovation?
- What role can cross-ecosystems collaboration play in accelerating India’s sustainability transition over the next decade?
- What initiatives would most effectively promote international R&D cross-border partnerships in sustainable technologies?
Speakers:
Hyerin Park, Founder, Enomad Corp, Republic of Korea
Avinash Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, ElectricPe, India
15:20 - 16:00 | Looking ahead: Will Shipbuilding be India’s next “big thing”?
With the world’s top three shipbuilding players – China, Japan and Korea – fully booked until the end of 2028, India is now trying to seize the opportunity to emerge as a top shipbuilding destination. This new strategic goal is also driven by the ambition to be recognized as a major maritime power by 2027, defense imperatives and the need to sustain the country’s increasing global trade. The government has set-up plans for developing eight mega shipbuilding and repair clusters. An eight billion dollars investment scheme has been adopted to run over the next five years.
- What assets can India mobilize to overcome the competition of the established giants?
- What can be done to bridge the technology gap with China, Japan and Korea?
- What action to scale up infrastructure faster?
- What role can international Joint-Ventures play for accelerating India’s shipbuilding development?
Speakers:
Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Economic Advisory Council Secretary, Government of India
16:10 - 17:10 | India’s place in the global AI order
As it entered the AI race later than the US and China, India is facing the challenge of catching up and asserting its position in a critical strategic domain dominated by two powers able to mobilize bigger financial and skills resources. The country’s AI drive has been accelerating, with the country’s total investment on AI above the US$ 20 billion mark, and with the India AI Mission created in May 2024 focused on developing sovereign AI capabilities. There are, however, significant challenges to be addressed for bridging the gap with respect to foundational AI models, to cutting-edge research, to Data Centers capacity, to public and private funding, compared to where the US and China now stand. In this position of still asymmetric competition in which it finds itself, what next actions from academia, private sector and government will allow India to join the AI global leadership league in the coming years?
- How to leverage optimally the open digital innovation model to accelerate India’s AI catching-up momentum?
- What actions to maximize the impact for AI development and innovation of some of India’s specific assets?
- What partnerships between Academia, Industry and startups to develop a strong research-to-product dynamics?
- What targeted collaboration schemes with foreign partners (business, academic or institutional ones) should India prioritize at this stage of AI development?
Speakers:
Navin Bishnoi, VP & India Country Manager, Marvell Technologies, USA
Natarajan (Nat) Ramamurthy, VP, Data Engineering, Target, India/USA
17:20 - 18:20 | One-on-One conversation
What key features should characterize India’ positioning in the world by 2030?
18:20 - 19:00 | Farewell cocktail
2026
SPONSORS & CONVENER
SPONSORS
PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
RESEARCH PARTNER
CONVENER
ADDITIONAL SMADJA PLATFORMS
3 – 4 February 2026
Jakarta, Indonesia
17 – 18 February 2026
Tokyo, Japan
28 – 29 October 2025
Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China
To be announced
Tucson, USA