NAGPUR is gradually emerging as one of top technology hubs in the country because of the presence of large IT companies, IT Parks and growing start-up ecosystem that is driving innovation. IT experts participated in Global Nagpur Summit felt that Nagpur will soon be one of the leading IT hubs in the country. “To make Nagpur an emerging technology hub in the country, young entrepreneurs of Nagpur need to change their mindset, attitude and think global,” said Sahil Chawla, CEO and Co-Founder at Tsecond Inc., USA while speaking at the 11th Global Nagpur Summit (GNS) 2024 at Chitnavis Centre, on Sunday. He was expressing his views on the topic ‘Share and Connect: Driving growth in the AI Age – From Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Edge Intelligence (EI)’.

 

Chawla further said that the existing IT companies in Nagpur need to market their products on global scale. Also, young entrepreneurs need to put in hardwork with consistent efforts to create products and services that solve other peoples problems. Already there are numerous examples of city-based IT companies that are expanding their operations all over the world. Chawla was born near Nagpur and began his career in IT and became successful. Today his company has been ranked among the India’s top hardware start-ups. In his wellcome address, Dr Rizwan Ahmed, Chair Technology Track and CTO, Delaplex spoke about the theme for Technology Track - ‘Rising Nagpur – An Emerging Technology Hub of India’. Shashank Rao, International Chair, Nagpur First said, “GNS aims to create ‘Nagpur- A Global City’. With this in mind, GNS plans to create multidimensional ecosystem for industry and academia to collaborate from Nagpur region to promote innovation and commercialisation of emerging technologies to create new jobs”.

 

The technology track witnessed panel discussions with global technology leaders from Nagpur. Ghanshyam Ahuja, Venture Builder, VC, Mentor, Managing Partner - Thinkuvate, Group CEO - vSaaS, Singapore spoke on the topic ‘Leveraging technology to propel business from local to global. Ninad Mairal, Director, International Business, Virtual Galaxy Infotech Limited, Nagpur, India spoke on ‘Providing technology solutions from Nagpur to global clients’. Dhananjay Kumar Das, IP Solutions Head and Centre Head, Sagacious IP Nagpur, India spoke on ‘India’s Innovation Engine: The power of IP in driving tech growth.’ A panel discussion was held on ‘Technology impact on various industries and establishing Nagpur as global technology hub’ which was moderated by Ghanshyam Ahuja. Participants were Sahil Chawla, Vineet Dhawan, CEO, DCT Inc. and dcafé digital Inc., USA, Ashish Kulkarni, Chairman of AVGC-XR Forum - FICCI and Founder - Punnaryug Artvision Pvt Ltd, Pune, Vinod Deshmukh, CIO, Haldiram Foods International Ltd, Nagpur, and Shailesh Awale, Centre Head, HCL, Nagpur. The second panel discussion was on ‘Use of technology for environment and SDG goals’.

 

Nidhi Bawashe, Project Manager, Delaplex, Nagpur moderated the session. The panellists consisted of Rajendra Inani, VicePresident and Segment HeadWater and Smart Cities, Tata Projects, Mumbai, Tanish Shewani, Founder and CEO, Bharat Carbon, Pune, Dr. NitinLabhsetwar, Chief Scientist andChair, Environment ResourcePlanning and Management, CSIR-NEERI, Nagpur, Dr. Prasanna Deshpande, EnterpriseArchitect, TCS CTO Group, Nagpur, Aditya Bhatia, CentreHead Tech Mahindra, Nagpurand Dr. Nitin Rakesh, Director, Symbiosis Institute of Technology, SymbiosisInternational DeemedUniversity, Nagpur. Accordingly, the GNS StartupShowcase 2024 was also conducted session on‘Founders andFunders Mixer: FutureOpportunities for Startups’. Theparticipants were GhanshyamAhuja, Rahul Narvekar, CEO andFounder, The India Network, Delhi, Poonam K Khandelwal, 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts++, Angel Investor, Nagpur, Sahil Chawla, and Yashwant Budhwani, Founder and CEO, Hoora, Nagpur.