Global Tech Advocates (GTA) – the world’s first truly international grassroots tech community – successfully brought forth its annual week-long GTA Festival Summit for the first time in India along with Tech India Advocates this November. Titled ‘Namaste, New India!’, this second iteration witnessed an international delegation of 30 seasoned tech leaders, investors and entrepreneurs convene for the GTA Summit in Bengaluru.
GTA is an open and inclusive community of tech leaders and experts from 27 of the world’s fastest-growing tech cities and regions, working for the betterment of the tech industry globally. The GTA Summit is an extension of this thought process, designed to bring together a global delegation of tech leaders and unlock a floodgate of opportunities to share insights and learn from a city or a region represented in the GTA community. The ‘Namaste, New India!’ Summit was in line with this.
The anchor event of the week, this Summit, took place on Tuesday, 8th November 2022, at the Bangalore International Center in Bengaluru under the umbrella theme of ‘Decoding New India.’ Featuring a range of Indian and International tech perspectives through a number of panel discussions, the Summit unpacked the key ingredients of emerging New India. It gave attendees a chance to deep-dive into the extraordinary Indian start-up ecosystem through learnings from personal stories of notable start-up founders present as well as understanding the industries prime for tech disruption. The role of diversity and inclusion in a tech-enabled workspace for creating exciting opportunities, besides the evolving Venture Capital ecosystem, emerging investment models and its pursuit of diversity, were also discussed. Furthermore, the Summit also explored how academic commercialisation is fuelling India’s innovation economy, the talent behind it, as well as investment and innovation opportunities that can be seized in India’s next Techade.
Prominent entrepreneurs and tech leaders attending the event were Aprameya Radhakrishna (Co-founder of Koo), Dimple Parmar (Co-founder, ZenOnco.io), Dr Aravind Chinchure (CEO of Deshpande Start-ups), Jaya Dhindaw (Program Director – Integrated Urban Development, Planning and Resilience at Word Resource Institute India), Leslie Sarma (Co-Lead, Tech Singapore Advocates), and many more.
Russ Shaw CBE, Founder of Global Tech Advocates, said, “I am pleased that the Summit was an exciting networking experience connecting tech voices worldwide. Meanwhile, engaging in a series of events and tours alongside meeting the entrepreneurs and investors behind some of the country’s most successful companies offered us a deeper insight into India’s thriving tech community and its overall growth story. This year’s edition also proved to be a mutual learning opportunity for the GTA delegation, which, I am sure, will go a long way in further supercharging the global tech economy.”
Ani Kaprekar – Co-founder – Tech India Advocates, commented, “India is a crucial tech hub internationally. And with a dynamic generation of entrepreneurs and 100 unicorns – 40 of which were born during the COVID-19 pandemic alone – its tech ecosystem is experiencing prolific growth. The GTA summit was a great experience for a global tech delegation to go behind the scenes “decoding India” and understand key drivers of success.”
In addition to the ‘Namaste, New India!’ Summit, the 3-day tour in Bengaluru encompassed an interactive session on ‘New India’ with the CEO of Action for India, a visit to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) with an introduction to their cutting-edge Centre for Nano Science and Engineering as well as an evening reception hosted by the British Deputy High Commissioner to Bengaluru.
The GTA Summit was, indeed, a giant step that further nurtured a global tech community by celebrating the growth driven by some of the leading tech companies across the world.
The GTA Summit has been supported with contributions from Penningtons Manches Cooper, Tech Nation, London Stock Exchange Group and Globalization Partners.
