SHRM India Annual Conference – Day 2

If you thought Day 1 was good, you’d be blown away by Day 2. The day began with a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence and it’s relevance for organizations today. The panelists made compelling cases for organizations to adopt AI, Machine Learning & predictive analysis, but what I loved best was how the moderator asked some tough pertinent questions. My favorite bit was him asking the panelists the cost of investing in technology. How true! With the high entry barrier right now, adoption isn’t as easy as we would like it to be. In my opinion, one thing the giants must focus on is how to made entry into high tech easier and cheaper. I also loved how he raised the question of validating the accuracy of predictive analysis. After all, outcomes could just become self-fulling prophecies.

The second talk was an address by Amitabh Kant. Amitabh spoke about the transformational journey that India has been through. He touched upon Indian entrepreneurs, the dismal contribution % of women to the GDP of the nation and why India is the world’s favorite FDI destination. He urged the audience to think beyond – to Think Big & Think Large.

In many ways, Day 2 did compel everyone to be inspired and break the barriers that we’ve been working within. Deep Kalra’s session talked about the importance of not giving up on ideas. Failure and the fear of failure can often inspire a person to push harder and that may in turn lead to great success. He also talked about how a strong team is more important than an idea and why ideas must pivot when necessary.

There’s just so much that I want to talk about. So like always, I am going to close with the one session that was different and has my interest piqued. It was a session called – SHRMi16Pitch. This Shark Tank’isk session had budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel. The emerging discussions were interesting as well as revelations. This much I can tell – startups are no easy business.

During the course of the day, I was asked what I loved about the conference. Here is my answer – I love meeting some of the smartest HR minds in the country and outside. There’s never a conference where I go back without having learnt something new or having met some fantastic people. This is one of my favorite social grounds and will always be.

Thank you SHRM India for having me over. I will see you all in April. Until then, there will always be Twitter. 🙂

P.S: You’ll notice that I didn’t mention the closing keynote. I had the pleasure of talking to Gavin on both days but am extremely gutted that I has to miss his session to catch a flight back. I hear it went very well.

P.P.S: That’s the blog squad or the members of it that we could gather in one picture.