Need to bridge academics-industry gap: Experts

RAIPUR: On the inaugural day of the International Conference on Digital Economy (ICDE), experts spoke of the need of establishing a collaborative and comprehensive bridge between academicians and industry.


The Centre for Digital Economy of Indian Institute of Management Raipur (IIM-R) inaugurated the conference in affiliation with the India Chapter of the Association for Information systems in Raipur.

The discussion topic of the panel discussion was ‘Governance in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.’ Disruption is a way of life and only thinking differently can open up new avenues. It is only by allowing oneself to fail that small, but gradual changes can be implemented. The general theme of the address was how India could gain through idea-based value creation. Prof Sumeet Gupta, conference co-chair, IIM Raipur, Prof Bharat Bhasker, conference chair & director, IIM Raipur, Prof Souren Pal,

Nova Southeastern University

and Sanjay Bobde, National Institute of Smart Governance spoke during the event. Another panel discussion was held on the topic ‘Governance in the Era of Artificial Intelligence’.

The participants included Prof Lakshmi Iyer, Appalachian State University, Sanjay Bobde, National Institute of Smart Governance, Rohit Bansal, Group Head of Communication, Reliance Industries Limited and Dr Divakar B Kamath, Associate Director, IBM India Pvt. Ltd. Speakers mulled over how Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is a learning-based method, can never replace human beings. However, the experts acknowledged that the AI revolution has brought about new and emerging opportunities like growing smart cities applications, Internet of Things (IoT), social media, mobile apps, among other sources of big data. New governance structures have emerged that could be harnessed for the collective good in the future.

Parallel sessions were held on ‘Building Digital Organizations, Analytics and Microfinance’. The technical chairs for discussions on building digital organisations in the e-Commerce and m-Commerce spheres, were Prof Lakshmi Iyer, Appalachian State University and Prof Jagrook Dawra, IIM Raipur. The ideas presented in the papers included examining the reciprocal rating system of digital platforms in transportation; how teens are going to be the next generation driving the digital economy; how the share of electronic business is growing rapidly and how supply chains must adapt to the same.

Prof Siddhartha K Rastogi, IIM Indore and Prof. Pradyumna Das, IIM Raipur chaired discussions on ‘The Digital Economy’. The papers presented dealt with intriguing ideas such as the economic aspects of net neutrality with a comparison between policies of the US and India; how sales teams are responsible for closing the gap between the customer’s needs and the products and services that the organisation has to offer while the delivery team develops and delivers the actual product or the required services; the key quality attributes that digital platforms posses; the current scenario of talent aggregation in the digital economy among others.

Digital marketing and social media sections were chaired by Prof. P Vigneswara Ilavarsan, IIT Delhi, and Prof Sanjeev Prashar, IIM Raipur. Papers presented were on an in-depth look at the available literature; the effect of social media on enhancing brand loyalty through consumer brand engagement and value creation; consumer engagement through social media and how social media and digital marketing provide avenues for entrepreneurship.