Cambridge academics showcase expertise at World Economic Forum - India

Navi Radjou, Executive Director, Centre for India & Global Business at Judge and Shailendra Vyakarnam, Director for the Centre for Entreprenuerial Learning at Judge have both been invited to contribute to sessions at the event which will attract business leaders from across the world to discuss India’s next generation of growth.

The World Economic Forum is an independent international not-for-profit organisation committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The Delhi summit will be co-chaired by Chief Executive Officers of PepsiCo, USA; ICICI Bank, India; Accenture USA; Nissan, Japan; Renault, France; Booz & Company, UK; Bharat Forge, India.

Shailendra Vyakarnam co-authored a WEF report published earlier this year entitled ‘Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs’ and had specific responsibility for the chapter on Social Inclusion. On 9th November he will contribute to a workshop at the World Economic Forum on: ‘Redesigning India’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem’. He’ll talk about his own experiences in entrepreneurship education, the social impact of enabling individuals to develop entrepreneurial skills and the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem such as the one that has already been developed in Cambridge. He’ll also encourage novice Indian entrepreneurs to gain international perspective through courses and activities offered in Cambridge, particularly the newly launched Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship. While in Delhi he’ll meet a range of high profile figures, including Dr B K Shukla (Ministry of Science and Technology); Sanjeev Bikhchandani (InfoEdge and Naukri.com) and Sandor Nagy (Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship), to encourage the development of an Asian Advisory Board to support the Advanced Diploma in the region.

Navi Radjou will lead a panel discussion on: “Creating the Next Indovations”. Special Guest for this event on 10th November, is Mr Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Indian Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations. With India having recently completed a moon mission and intending to put their own astronaut in space by 2016, panellists will focus discussion on whether India is poised to become a leading innovation hub.  Specific challenges associated with human capital development, venture capital availability, and academia-industry linkages will be identified and concrete solutions will be offered for overcoming socio-economic obstacles to India becoming a knowledge superpower.  Throughout this three-day Summit, Navi will be blogging daily on various event activities on Harvard Business web site (http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/radjou)