The event provided unique chances for networking, masterclasses and featured insightful panel discussions with prominent figures in the tech industry. It united tech entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and scholars from around the globe to connect, investigate and interact with one another
If we had to choose one word to capture the spirit of New Delhi Slush’D, it would be ‘dynamic.’ This historic event marked a significant milestone as it brought together the largest gathering of AI founders ever seen in India. Over two days, from November 3 to 4, in Gurugram, influential speakers left the audience in awe. This event not only made history but also set new directions for the future of deep tech and AI. The sold-out event was attended by hundreds of proactive members from diverse backgrounds, all united by the theme of Unleashing the Power of Deep Tech and AI.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal at New Delhi Slush’D
Declaring that India’s large talent pool is enough incentive to hold, not just one but three Slush events in the country every year, Union Minister, Piyush Goyal - who was speaking at New Delhi Slush’D, congratulated the participants and the organisers for putting together an outstanding show. He said that the event “showcases India at its very best.”
“There is no other economy in the world which will see such rapid growth in the years to come. For the next 30 years we will continue to be a young population. More than two-thirds of our population will be in the working age group. That today is our strength. They are the ones who will take us from a $ 3.5 trillion economy to a $ 35 trillion economy by 2047,” said the Minister.
The Minister said that the Indian startup ecosystem is poised to grow faster than expected and will become the largest startup ecosystem in the world. He added that the youth of India today believe in participating… “we accept challenges, we welcome innovation, we welcome disruption and we welcome new ideas.”
Speaking on the theme of the event, Unleashing the Power of Deep Tech and AI, the Minister said that AI offers India a never-before opportunity. “It offers us all a huge marketplace to leverage our talent, ideas, and leverage the huge amount of data that India produces,” he said.
“As a nation we have accepted that there will be a huge disruption. AI has come to stay. But how it can be used for public good? If we start reskilling and retraining our minds towards the good parts of AI, it can actually become a gamechanger in our fight against poverty. It can actually provide new ways of delivering goods and services to the remotest parts of the country, so that every single child born in this country can have good childhood, where he can see possibilities both in the country and across the world,” the Minister emphasised.
The Minister lauded the Startup India initiative taken by the government under the leadership of the Prime Minister. He said that such timely initiatives in the last few years have been successful in propelling entrepreneurship in the country. As of October 3, 2023, India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for startups globally with over 1,12,718 DPIIT recognised startups across 763 districts in the country.
“Entrepreneurship is something India was always famous for. We have many Indians who have gone all over the world and charted new territories and captured new markets,” the Minister said. He called upon the industry and academia to nurture the spirit of innovation among youngsters. “That’s an area where we should start engaging with universities and colleges,” he added. Urging participation from industry leaders he said, “we owe it to the nation and we owe it to the young talent in India that we give a little bit of our time for their future.”
The Minister appreciated that “collectively 1.4 billion people have determined that our goal is to become a developed country when we celebrate 100 years of independence.”
Stressing the importance of new technologies, he said that we have to “take prosperity to every child born in this country. Delivering that level of aspiration will require technology, innovation, and will require our young talent to put their best foot forward.”
Appreciating the progress India has made he said, “What changed in India is we finally got a leadership and a government that recognised all of us. We finally got a say in policy matters.”
Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa, GoI, at New Delhi Slush’D
To a room full of enthusiastic startup founders, aspirational youngsters, thought leaders and investors, Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa, Government of India and former CEO NITI Aayog said that Indian startups have done a phenomenal amount of work and they will continue to do so in various sectors be it in education, health, agriculture and more. He added that “disruption is already happening” and “we need to provide the maximum amount of data available for growth.”
Kant was speaking on the theme G20 and India’s Startup Movement at New Delhi Slush’D. “This year two-thirds of the global growth is happening from emerging markets. And according to IMF and the World Bank, in the next two decades, two-thirds of the growth is going to come from emerging markets,” he said. Asked about India’s young talent and their participation in the growth, he said that the energy “these young people bring is really vibrant. They are the transformational agents,” Kant added.
“We have to transform our IITs and IIITs into great centres of excellence in AI. India needs to create a large number of AI engineers for the future. India must become the provider of AI skilled manpower to the rest of the world,” Kant emphasised. On the subject of AI’s role in different sectors, he said, “Usage of responsible AI is needed.”
Talking about India’s G20 accomplishments, the G20 Sherpa said it was a ‘people’s presidency’. “It reflected PM Modi’s clarity of vision that India’s G20 presidency must usher in a new era of human-centric globalisation. His guidance, vision, and global standing have been crucial in driving our presidency towards a consensus.”
Kant said the team of Indian diplomats took over 200 hours of non-stop negotiations to deliver a consensus on the G20 declaration. “The 200 plus meetings in 60 cities made the Indian G20 presidency truly people-centric and we used G20 to improve the core infrastructure of various cities,” he explained.
“With the inclusion of the African Union as a full member of the G20, we have added the voices of 55 additional countries to G20, making it more inclusive and representative,” Kant said.
Dubbed as ‘the most founder-focussed event on earth’, New Delhi Slush’D saw raw energy in the meeting halls together with an electrifying atmosphere. The occasion that featured exclusive networking opportunities and thought-provoking panel discussions with leaders across the tech space, brought together founders, investors, policymakers and academicians from across the world to discover, explore and engage with each other. They discussed AI and its role in shaping the future. And what emerged was the right conversation around the emergence of AI as a gamechanging technology.
“We are meeting here at a particular turning point of civilisational history,” said Sanjeev Sanyal, Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, Government of India, while observing that “we now engage with technology differently” and emphasising the fact that AI is already a part of our lives in many ways. He was speaking on the theme AI & India at 2047.
On the issue of regulating AI, Sanyal said, “We need a specialist regulator to understand what is going on and who regulates it in real-time.” He added that “We need to have predefined liability protocols,” so that in case things go wrong in the system, the person in charge has to be accountable.
Archana Jahagirdar, Founder & Managing Partner, Rukam Capital and Gaurav Dalmia, Founder & Chairman, Dalmia Group Holdings, welcomed the guests during the inaugural session. Pramod Bhasin, Chairman Clix Capital, Founder & former CEO Genpact, delivered the inaugural address. All three are members of the organising committee for New Delhi Slush’D.
SPIRIT OF SLUSH
“Slush over the years has become one of the largest and globally most recognised startup gatherings. From 300 attendees during its first gathering in Helsinki, Slush now attracts over 30,000 attendees, including 5,000 startups and 3,000 investors from more than 130 countries,” said Kimmo Lahdevirta, Ambassador of Finland to India. “I hope that New Delhi Slush’D will evolve into similar proportions eventually,” he added.
While speaking to the audience, Peter Vesterbacka, Founder, Slush, former CMO, Rovio Entertainment said, “Slush is about entrepreneurial revolution. It is about changing mindsets and most importantly, it is about getting young people excited about things.” On the topic of innovation, Vesterbacka said that all innovations come out of insufficient funds. “You have to think your way out of a challenge,” he remarked.
TECH SESSIONS – Day 1
During the session on AI as a Confluence of Technology, C P Gurnani, CEO & Managing Director, Tech Mahindra said that AI is giving us the opportunity not only to be a producer, but also to be a service provider to the world. He further said that the “current usage we see in generative AI is just the beginning.”
Speaking on Tech Mahindra’s initiatives in this sector he said, “We are building LLM in Indian dialects. We are addressing 37 dialects to start with and are calling it Indus.”
The session titled AI for Digital Public Infrastructure, was addressed by Karl Meheta, Chairman, The Quad, Investors Network. Mehta is an Indian-American serial entrepreneur. In a different session, Raghunath Koduvayur, Head of Asia Pacific Business, IQM Computing, spoke on the subject of building scalable solutions in quantum computing.
Jalaj Dani, Dani Family Office, Chairman, Addverb Robotics; Shanti Mohan, Co-founder & CEO, LetsVenture; Rajat Tandon, President, IVCA were speakers at the session on How to Increase Indian Capital Behind AI. The speakers underlined the importance of the vernacular and agreed that technology and business have to work together.
In terms of the education sector, AI definitely brings in ease of learning. This was the unanimous observation during the session Learning in the AI Age. Chintan Vaishnav, CEO, Atal Innovation Mission; Pankaj Verma, Co-founder Stempedia; Rajesh Vasa, Professor, Deakin University and Mekin Maheshwari, Udhyam Learning Foundation were the panel members.
Sabyasachi Goswami, CEO, Perfios Software, while discussing, How Deep Tech is Building Trustworthy Fintech Future, said that just like “technology is all pervasive, fintech will also become all pervasive.”
NEW DELHI SLUSH’D DAY 2
Enthusiasm at New Delhi Slush’D continued on day 2 as well. Eminent leaders in the AI space shared their views on how to leverage the power of AI to create new opportunities and innovations.
During the first panel discussion of the day, leaders deliberated on the topic AI, the New Frontier - Challenges & Opportunities. Prashanth Prakash, Partner, Accel; Ekaterina Almasque, General Partner, OpenOcean.vc; Umakant Soni, Chairman, AI Foundry, agreed that there is no better place than India for innovation, be it in any sector. The panel said that breakthroughs in AI and robotics are quickly starting to shape other emerging fields.
“India has both diversity and manpower,” was a thought voiced by speakers during the session, How do we Leverage AI for Creating the Next Shift for Bharat?’ Manu Chopra, Co-founder, Karya; Gaurav Aggarwal, Co-founder, Ananas Labs and Subhashis Banerjee, Co-founder and CEO, Al Foundry, agreed that India runs the “risk of virtual extinction if we don’t do AI.”
In a different session, Verghese Cherian, Chief Revenue Officer, Builder.ai - while addressing the audience - made a bold statement saying that “every human being needs software to be successful.” He termed the present economy the “creator and curator economy.”
“Technology can be a tool in the hands of regulators,” said Nirmal Jain, Founder and Chairman, IIFL. Jain was a panellist during the discussion AI and the Indian Economy. The other panellists included Sivasubramanian Raman, Chairman and Managing Director, SIDBI; Bharat Anand Partner, Khaitan & Co. All of them agreed that India has the talent, the ability, the people and the brains, but “we need that ‘patient capital’.”
The session on AI & Deep Tech in Financial Services - VC Lens, saw a packed house where Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, One97 & Paytm was the moderator. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder-Infoedge; Tej Kapoor, MD, Ivy Cap Ventures; Vinod Keni, Founder & Managing Partner, Peachtree Ventures; Pratekk Agarwaal, Founder, Growth Cap Ventures shared the stage.
The closing keynote address was delivered by Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. The day ended with the organisers thanking all the participants for making the New Delhi Slush’D event in India a great success.
Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of the brand by HT Brand Studio.