Madhosh Kiye Jaa: Conference

Showing posts with label Conference. Show all posts

Audience Questions

I am talking academic events. Most of these claim they have time for a Q and A, with Q being audience questions. The problem is that speakers don't finish in the time allotted, so the questions remain un-questioned, so to speak.

To be fair, not all questions that do get asked are great. Most are boringly predictable, and answered with lack of imagination. Anyway, it satisfies the questioner's thirst for knowledge, and the answerer's chance to be all-knowing.. or appear to be.

If there's a panel discussion, you can be sure that most will end up being a series of talks. The setup for the Powerpoints eats up a lot of time, and yes, the Questions are given 5-7 minutes, depending on how far lunch is.

The Question is, what is the best way to get good questions. Maybe the speaker can build his own questions and answer them too.

Quantum Conference Hosted by JIS University

We hosted a novel QuantumKol conference at the Park starting December 17th. An Oxford University professor who also runs a company related to Quantum Tech was the Chief Guest.

The Chief Guest's address. Bits vs. Qubits. Physical and Logical.

At the table, with Dr. Mathew, our VC, and Pro Chancellor. Chief Guest also.

Two Events in Delhi

AI featured strongly in both. One was a TechEd Conference organised by AIU, at Park Hotel in Connaught Place. The second was an annual Conference/Exhibition by Didac India, a think tank. That was at Yashobhoomi, in Dwarka, near the airport T3.

One thing stood out for me. Not enough is known about the capabilities of AI.. it's a discovery-in-process. Anyway, we all have our opinions, and so did the speakers. Nothing dramatic, but something about public speaking.. a lesson if you will.

How do you engage an audience? Speak their language- not literally, but something they can relate to. A speaker from the Australian High Commission did that well, by talking about Bahubali and Kattappa- who he looks like! That caught everybody's attention, and we listened to what he had to say about AI and Australian efforts on using it. The others were not so engaging, barring some examples from real life- that's another way to engage an audience.

Some pics from both events..

Things I am Proud of

Work first.

Started a journal, PES Business Review when I was at PESIT, Banashankari, Bangalore. Manasa, Jayasimha and Shahida all played a role. We launched it with some good papers.

A Case conference at Goa when I was Director at IMT Nagpur. It was exotic, fun, and very successful. Harsh Halve was a prime mover.

Successful convocations at IMT Nagpur. The Admin. played a major role. Also the faculty in various organising committees.

Publishing my first book, on Marketing Research. KIAMS staff helped, and students by writing cases for it. Now in its fourth edition, released at IIM Indore.

Alumni meets for IMT alumni. Many were memorable. Some friends made there are forever. Sheetal, Nikita, Anchal, Shuchi, are just some of those.

Ph.D. students I worked with as a Guide, or mentor. Manoharan, Suma and Naveen Das actually were my students as a Guide. Others, I was on their committees.

New courses, like a Seminar on Thought Leadership, or Digital Marketing and Seminar on Tourism Marketing. Taught me a lot.

NIFT at Gandhinagar

I once did a session on Digital Marketing for the NIFT faculty online. Got to know Prof. Bhaskar Banerjee and Jagriti Mishra during that program. Both teach at NIFT Gandhinagar. So when I got an invite to meet them in person at a Conference they were hosting, it was a definite go.

I went there yesterday, and also got to meet the students of a Masters in Fashion Management class, during my visit. We spoke about Personal Branding for employment, among other things. There were a few well-known people among the Keynote Speakers, who spoke about the Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-sufficient India) theme in general, from different perspectives. I spoke mostly about Tourism which can go slow, and a bit about fashion entrepreneurs, among whom I mentioned Rajasthani Rangrez (Aditi Atre is the founder), and Neerya (Swati Sinha is the founder). Both are ex-students from IMT Nagpur.

It was interesting, on the whole, and I also got to meet Manjari, my ex-student who works at Gandhinagar now, with Adani Institute of Digital Management. Some pics-

Mehak Singhi who was also the Emcee, second from left in my row, and Sneha, on the extreme right. Dhanali I think, is on my left, with a few others. Mehak turned out to be from Bangalore, which I just left and we had a chat over samosas after the session.

Prof. Jagriti Mishra.

With Manjari Mundanad, left, and Bhaskar Banerjee, right also in the pic

Sneha joins for a selfie.

Vandita, prof. at NIFT, who co-authored Manjari's paper, during the presentation. With Chhavi, a student volunteer.

On the wall was this photo..

International Conference at NMIMS Mumbai

Our Mumbai head office hosted an international conference for encouraging collaborations between Asian and European Universities. We had participants from Vietnam and Coventry online, and Bangla Desh, Spain and Bulgaria offline.

VIT and University of Hyderabad, who have internationalised themselves significantly were invited to share best practices too. MoUs were signed between various universities present. Some pics-

Tourism Conference at Shillong

This was supposed to have been last year, but happened online this year. GHTC conference, organised by NEHU, a university in Shillong. Missed out on visiting Shillong, but an interesting mix of papers I heard as a Session Chair. Some glimpses.

A presenter from Amrita University Coimbatore (above)

The two moderators from NEHU, below.

A presenter from Bhutan (above), and another from Tirupati below, top left. There were a couple of international participants too- you can see one below.

Conference at Bhubaneswar

To close the year, I attended a conference at Bhubaneswar organised by IIM Sambalpur (our mentee as an institute in its early stages) to present a paper on Tourism Destinations and their Marketing. One or two highlights were that I met a couple of former colleagues, one of whom and I had worked at XIM Bhubaneswar in the early 90s. Also met a first batch student from XIM who I had not taught.

But, surprisingly (or maybe not), ran into an IIM Indore alum, Rohit Kumar, at a cinema hall where both of us had gone to watch different films. It was a multiplex, and we exited at the same time. Anyway, a couple of meetings over coffee and dinner happened. In the process, I rediscovered an old haunt of ours Dawat, which was one of the few restaurants back in 1991. I also remember I saw Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar while I stayed in Bhubaneswar. Lots of memories..remember attending the Konark Dance Festival too..