Hyderabad, 30 Oct 2023: IKP Knowledge Park (IKP) is organizing the 17th edition of its annual flagship event, the International Knowledge Millennium Conference (IKMC2023), on the 30th and 31st of October 2023, in Hyderabad, with the main theme ”Shaping the Possible: Making Positive Impact In the Anthropocene”.
Anthropocene, the current geological epoch, represents a new phase in our planet’s history, where the collective actions of the human race have become the dominant force shaping the Earth’s ecosystems and natural processes. Centuries of agriculture, industrialisation, transportation, urbanisation and other activities have caused climate change, biodiversity decline, pollution and altered ecosystems in an unprecedented way. The Anthropocene concept serves as a reminder of the great responsibility we have to recognise our impact on Earth, and direct our actions towards creating a sustainable future.
IKP has chosen to focus on this theme given the criticality of climate change and related sustainability challenges we face today and the need for our collective action.
The first day opened with the inauguration of Start-up exhibition by Dr Jitendra Kumar, MD of BIRAC and Dr Uday Desai, former Director of IIT Hyderabad. More than a hundred start-ups across different sectors – including medical devices and digital health, industrial biotech and biopharma, agri-tech and clean-tech – and at different stages of their journey participated.
The keynote addresses, plenary sessions and round table conferences that followed saw visionary thinkers and changemakers from around the world and from different sectors engage in dialogue on the challenges posed by the Anthropocene.
During the inaugural session, Mr Vinod Tahiliani, CFO of Reliance bp Mobility spoke on the critical phase that India is in its energy transition towards its net-zero target; and Mr Sharad Sharma, founder of iSpirt Foundation and member of the UN advisory body on Artificial Intelligence emphasized the importance of ecosystem players such as IKP playing a leadership role in India leveraging AI, especially in areas such as Healthcare.
The plenary sessions that followed focused on three critical aspects of addressing global challenges in the Anthropocene – conceptualizing and creating impact for a better planet, constraints as a source of creativity and the importance of partnerships in finding scalable solutions to global problems.
This was followed by two round table discussions on Biomanufacturing and on One Health. Each round table discussion saw more than twenty experts contributing to the discussions.
This was also a day for IKP to celebrate its longstanding partners and enter into new partnerships. IKP recognized their longstanding partners and innovation ecosystem champions – BIRAC, JSS Academy of Education and Research, RICH, T-HUB and TiE Hyderabad; and initiated a collaboration with Montgomery County, Maryland, USA through an MOU.
This MOU will help IKP affiliated companies and start-ups seeking entry into the US markets in areas such as regulatory, R&D, manufacturing, sales and other activities through partnerships with start-ups, biotechnology companies, service providers, academic institutions and other organizations; and companies in Montgomery County seeking to work with IKP affiliated companies in India as suppliers, customers, collaborators and investors. The MOU was signed by Mr Mark Elrich, County Executive, Montgomery County and Ms Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman and CEO of IKP Knowledge Park.
This was followed by the awards ceremony that was presided over by Sri Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary, Industries, IT&C, Govt of Telangana.
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