Dataquest to host 28th Digital Leadership Conclave and Awards on 23 July

India’s oldest and leading IT industry magazine Dataquest is organising the 28th edition of the Digital Leadership Conclave and Awards on 23 July 2021. Keeping in view the COVID-19 protocol and social distancing norms, Dataquest’s annual flagship event of IT decision-makers will be hosted on a digital platform. The one-day virtual forum will see participation from the who’s who of the Indian IT and ITES industry, including business leaders, decision-makers, policy-makers, academia, IT heads, start-ups, investors, and other stakeholders from the ecosystem.

The theme for this year’s Digital Leadership is 'New World Order'. The virtual conclave will bring together 500+ key decision-makers who will deliberate on the forces driving the technology trends in the new digital normal; especially in four key areas – dynamics of the new world order, life and society, enterprises, and economy.  The DQ Digital Leadership Conclave will also deliberate on what India needs to do towards preparing for the 3rd wave of COVID-19 and the initiatives that the IT industry can take.

The illustrious list of speakers at the conclave includes Dr. RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority; Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman and Executive Director, Narayana Health; Ajai Chowdhry, Founder, HCL; Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM; Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman and Co-Founder, NIIT Ltd; Arun Seth, Trustee, Nasscom Foundation; Arun Karna, MD and CEO, AT&T Global Network Services India; Amit Sinha Roy, Global Head of Marketing and Communications, Tata Communications; UB Desai, Founding Director, IIT Hyderabad; Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC; Samar Mittal, Head of Cloud and Network Services, India Market, Nokia; Palash Nandy, CEO, Numeric; Anil Jain, CEO, NIXI; Meena Ganesh, CEO, Portea Medical; Kapil Mahajan, Group CIO, Safexpress; Harnath Babu, CIO, KPMG; Umesh Mehta, EVP & Global-CIO, Jubilant Lifesciences; and Bimal Khandelwal, CFO, STT GDC India among others.

The highlights of the day’s event will also be the announcement of the three prestigious Dataquest Leadership Awards for 2020, including the most coveted IT industry leadership award DQ IT Person of the Year Award, DQ Lifetime Achievement Award, and the DQ AatmaNirbhar Bharat Champion Award. The IT Person of the Year Award for 2020 will be conferred to Rajesh Gopinathan, MD and CEO, TCS in recognition of the outstanding work done by him in the sector and his contribution towards strengthening the IT industry globally during a difficult year.

The DQ Lifetime Achievement Award for the year 2020 will be presented to Som Mittal, Former President and Chairman NASSCOM for his stellar contribution to the ICT sector in India over his lifetime and in their recognition of his commitment, pragmatism, and leadership, as well as his personal contribution to policymaking in the IT-BPM sector.

Dataquest will also be presenting the AatmaNirbhar Bharat Champion Award for 2020 to Sunil Vachani, CMD, Dixon Technologies for enabling Dixon Technologies to meet the scale through business model innovation, perseverance and resilience, and for carving a slot amidst the global manufacturing majors and scripting a Made in India showcase and success story.

The winners were selected through a 3-tier evaluation process, including open nomination, research by the Dataquest editorial team, and an award jury process chaired by Rajendra S Pawar. The Jury was Co-chaired by Prakash Kumar, CEO, Wadhwani Institute for Technology and Policy, and Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia Group.

The other members of the jury included Golok K Simili, Chief of Technology, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India; Kulmeet Bawa, President and Managing Director, SAP Indian Subcontinent; Neeta Verma, Director General, National Informatics Centre; Rajen Vagadia , VP and President , Qualcomm India; Sameer Garde, President India and SAARC, Cisco; Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India; UB Desai, Director, IIT Hyderabad; and Yugal Kishore Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, One Broadband.

With the pandemic confining people to their homes, digital technologies have emerged as the biggest life-support enabling individuals and organisations to remain connected, despite social distancing. The new normal has also unleashed a wave of human-centric innovations and a platform-driven life that is enabling everything at home. The session on Digital Life & Society will deliberate on the new digital lifestyle, the impact of technology on social behaviour, the evolving pedagogy, the new means of healthcare, and technologies that can make life easier.

Leaders at the DQ Conclave will also deliberate on digital transformation, essentials of the new WFH model, the network essentials of a smart and dynamic organisation, and the evolving cloud environment. It will also focus on the needs for the digital economy – policy initiatives, contactless and experiential future e-commerce, technology-driven customer engagement, and innovations for building a resilient economy.

Technology has played an important role in pandemic management and recovery of the economy and the Dataquest Digital Leadership Conclave will deliberate on the steps that India must take to prepare for the economic and social impact of any further escalation of COVID, or the third wave. The session on ‘Preparing for the 3rd wave of COVID-19’ will discuss the role that digital technologies can play in dealing with the crisis and mitigating its impact.