Ghaziabad - PG Campus on  18th April, 2020 on "MINDSET IN CURRENT SCENARIO". In this highly interactive Session, Dr. Goenka addressed about the Challenges & Opportunities in current time and how to deal with this. In his address he emphasized on the importance of Goal as rest of the things follow it. It was a great Session attended by large number of audience from different places. The Session was full of interactions and throughout the Session questions of audiences were addressed and explained by Dr. Goenka.

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Mr. Amit Sinha has discussed that now organizations need to understand that work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully. He suggested that organizations should harness leading practices and catalyze a joint response to mitigate the COVID-19. As the entire market is closed, companies should educate consumers through videos, and chat facility to enable them with self help. Mr. Sinha conveyed students that with increasing stress and rising loneliness, organization’s role in sustaining the well being of employees has become important than ever. 

The speaker conveyed the nitty-gritty pertaining to new requirements caused due to pandemic as more companies need to focus on create transparency on multitier supply chain and assessment on optimizing the production and distribution capacity. Mr. Sinha has further suggested that even E commerce players now need to develop new ideas for contactless deliveries and cashless transactions to ensure safety. He suggested that new circumstances have made it necessary for organizations to mobilize rapidly and set up crisis management mechanisms, ideally in the form of a nerve center. At the end of the corporate lecture a special vote of thanks was given to him.

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Over 500 registration were received from across the world amongst which only 100 participants were given a chance to attend the session. Professor and Faculty from IIM-Indore, Welingkar Institute of Management-Mumbai, BIMTECH, Symbiosis-Pune, N.L Dalmia Institute-Mumbai, Narsee Monjee Mumbai, University school of Management-Nepal, BITS to name a few amongst the esteemed participants list.

Dr. Sheth laid emphasis on many aspect of retail during the pre and post COVID era, future of Agro-products in online retailing, Future of Bricks & Mortars in India, future of Retail without Human Touch,Reinventing of kirana stores in COVID era, change in consumers' behavior post COVID 19, companies aligning their strategy and resources to meet these changed behavior. He also laid emphasis on suggesting that Omni channel, Human less retail, retailing in the pharmaceutical industry in the US as compared to that in India.

 He concluded his session by commenting on roles of shopping malls (which are not fairing good at all across India) in India post COVID era and their possible role in the next gen retailing in India.

The session was highly interactive, Knowledge sharing and overwhelming

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towards our students to solve their queries at the right time when they require answers for it. Our students are ready to knock the door of industry and they require hand holding for effective results. For this Management Department of the Institute organised Alumni Talk in the Human Resource domain on 16th April, 2020.  Speaker for the session was Ms. Roochi (2011-13), Sr. HR Manager. International Walter Bushnell. She answered all the queries of students related to the HR domain and asked students to sharpen their communication skills and personality.

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The speaker started by terming the current situation of the market as “BLACK-SWAN” because it was something unforeseen and beyond usual planning horizons. She focussed on the challenges arisen because of this pandemic. Having said that, first thing that was focussed was “Do we have crisis management team?”

Second most important thing was, “How are retailers going to manage their supply chains?” She said that it can be very upsetting for customers to see empty racks in nearest kiraana stores. She also took up the questions of viewers and cleared the doubts of the participants. She stated that stores should also ensure the hygiene and safety. Further she stated about the fear of touch, home–deliveries etc. The speaker focussed on managing situation which is not normal at all. She suggested to take extra care of old-aged people so that they need not to stand in queues. Further she added business is going to be slow but it will revive gradually and in a healthier manner.

The speaker advised to maintain necessary merchandise, and cut short waiting time. This webinar was conducted to specially focus on managing customers, operations and supply-chain. This webinar was attended by the students of I.T.S and as well as students and professors of the institutes all over India.

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UK - India Affiliate World's Leading Body for Enterprise Risk Management [Level 1 - Level 5] on the 13th of April’2020 with Mr. Alexander Larsan as the key speaker.

Mr. Larsan introduced with the UNESCO report according to which the pandemic is expected to adversely impact 290 million students across 20 countries. Risk management as stated by him seeks to prevent risks from occurring as well as reducing the impact if it does occur and that insurance is an example of reducing impact. In this regard business continuity is another example and a more effective one. Focusing on pandemic planning he elaborated the concept of business continuity. Business continuity management as emphasized by him is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if realized might cause and which provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. Business continuity is neither emergency response planning nor is disaster recovery. Business continuity plans can help reduce the impact of multiple risks.

Elaborating on the tenfold pandemic plan for businesses he threw light of top concerns of universities and risks involved like fall in student numbers, fall in rankings and financial viability. The risks include change in government grants/ loans policy or funding plans, inability to host exams timely, cyber attacks etc. As for effect of uncertainty on objectives of organizations he mentioned that the purpose of risk management is to manage the barriers and maximizing the opportunities to achieving these objectives.    

He highlighted the importance of understanding risks which help us to understand constraints and boundaries. Towards this he stated “Embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage”.

He further emphasized upon preparing for a post covid world which has opened current opportunities for universities like remote learning, integration of technology such as virtual learning and augmented reality, digital certificates applying technologies like block chain, split class rooms, supply chain within country to name a few. Alternative business models in case of class closures are highly relevant here like catering services, film production company, labs to include virus testing equipment, science schools to develop ability to create hand sanitizers, textile schools to include masks.

He stressed upon the failure situations pertaining to risk management. It fails when the process is overcomplicated, time consuming, too much dependent on paper work and extra concerned about details. It thus needs to be kept simple. He illuminated the steps involved in developing a risk management approach.

The risks involved in going digital according to him include unstable internet connections, lack of connectivity, lack of interactivity in courses, attention lack on the part of students, failure of platform, loss of data hijacks etc.  

A post covid world as per his opinion would entail less travel, continued social distancing, less youth employment, more home working, shift in economic structure, adoption of robotics/ AI, regulation of supply chain. Organizations would require to look at how to diversify, reinvent and transform, the crux being the need to manage and take risk in order to survive and thrive. This is vital since in the absence of risk information one lacks the full perspective to make an effective decision, understand the pitfalls and prepare for them, properly compare options and turn risks into opportunity.

Improved reporting and information for decision makers is required towards managing the current crisis that would cover key risk indicator data for early warning signs. Risk management provides up to date information regarding vulnerabilities across the organizationand key focus areas. Identifying emerging risks or horizon scanning is crucial here that includes identifying trends in relation to education sector, country, region and global level as well as technology trends.

The concept of risk needs to be differentiated from the concept of emerging risk and black swan. Risk which is usually a 12 month horizon is more related to day to day business plan. Emerging risk features a long term horizon. Often a new technology or global change that can be difficult to tell how it will impact the organization, but that will need to be dealt with ahead of time to prepare for the change to come often calling for a change in strategy is emerging risk. Black swan could occur any time with very low likelihood but huge impact which is often unforeseen.

He winded up the discussion citing some successful business continuity examples from Scotland and middle east. The talk was fully loaded with new information relevant to the present state of lull in event of the world wide covid-19 pandemic.  

" Intervention of Technology in Higher Education amid Corona Crisis- Are we Future Ready" by Dr. Pankaj Mittal-Secretary General, AIU, Dr. S S Mantha-Former Cairman AICTE, Dr. Madhu Chitkara-Pro VC Chitkara Univ., Dr. Rajita Kulkarni and Dr. Pratha P Chakrabarty-Professor, IIT Kharagpur and Raghav Gupta- MD India & APAC Coursera. All the panelists share their opinion about effective and efficient online education and changes required in pedagogy for technical and professional education institutions during COVID 19.

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attended the webcast conducted by FICCI and EY on the topic ‘Key Tax Measures and Developments amid COVID-19’ on April 13, 2020. Amidst the current situation in the country of unprecedented lockdown due to rising COVID- 19, the Government of India has made various changes from transaction perspectives related to direct and Indirect taxation, and customs to give effect to relief measures announced by Hon’ble Finance Minister on march 24, 2020. This webcast was organized with an objective to create more awareness about the changes and newly informed deadlines for compliance under the direct and indirect tax and implications on various tax regimes.

The webcast had eminent speakers including Mr. Pranav Satya, Chairman FICCI Taxation Committee and Tax Partner and National Leader, International Tax & Transction services, EY India; Mr. Ravikant P. Kamath, Associate Tax Partner, Knowledge & Solutions, EY India and Mr. Sachin Menon, Chairman FICCI Task Force on GST and Partner, National Head- Indirect Tax, KPMG India. They shared the recent developments regarding extension of Income tax deadlines, customs regulations, and foreign trade policy provisions and incentives schemes from taxation perspective right from promulgation of the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020 (Ordinance) on 31 March 2020 by the President of India and recent issuance of various circulars and notifications by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. The webcast was indeed very informative.

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Mr. Prayag Tripathi (MBA 15-17), Sr. Business Analyst, Ameriprise holds the hands of the students during current situations and guides them through webinar on 12th April, 2020. The focus of the talk was to guide the students in the field of Financial Analysis with practical exposure. He talked about the profiles available in the finance field and how to sharpen the skills for this area.  

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(CEO-Co-Founder of Digital Duniya) organised by Digital Duniya on 11th April, 2020. The speaker threw light on various aspects like digital marketing ,SEO,SEM,Inbound marketing,Affiliate marketing,mobile marketing ,FB marketing and Google Analytics. The speaker also discussed about various aspects of real time Analytics and customer acquisition,customer targeting, career challenges and opportunities in digital marketing.The webinar was very informative and interesting.

Shri Upkar Singh, Director (Information Technology), FIS Global was the key Resource Person for this Webinar. In this session Mr. Singh talked about basic principles, its significance, importance and various terms used in Blockchain Technology. While speaking on the Philosophy of Blockchain, Shri Singh emphasized on the importance of trust. During the session lots of queries of audience were also taken and resolved. The Webinar was attended by large number of participants of the Institute and other guests from different part of the country

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The panellists of the session were:

1.      Dr.Ravi Gupta , CEO & Editor in Chief of Elets Technomedia.

2.      Mr. Umesh Revankar , MD & CEO of Shriram Transport Finance.

3.      Mr. Pavan K. Gupta ,  CEO of Muthoot Housing Finance.

4.       Dr. Puneet Kaur Kohli , CTO of Manappuram Finance ltd.

5.      Mr. Rahul ,CEO of Avanti Finance.

6.      Mr. Bhavin Patel , Co-founder& CEO of Lendenclub.

The issue was - the challenges for the NBFCs for the next 6 month as we know that due to COVID-19 the world is going through the major shutdown. The major challenges were regulatory consideration, stoppage of supply chain, livelihood is also affected, informal workplace, Delay in repayments due to less cash flow in the economy, problem of delinquency, migration of labours, decrease in demand of finance is the major challenge for this sector and more liquidity as people can consume cash for future uncertainty.

The second issue was with respect to the customers that how they interact with the customers in this lockdown situation. As we know that the many of the people in rural areas don’t have smart phones and mail id’s so how the NBFCs interact with them is the main issue for this sector. Customer of NBFCs can delay their repayments as due to less cash flow in the economy. The entire system of NBFCs is working in a close relationship with the customer so now first they have to migrate their customer to the digital platform and then start working digitally is the biggest challenge because people are migrating towards the rural areas and in rural areas they don’t have the proper facilities.

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8th of April- LEADERSHIP Talk with Prof. K Vijay Raghvan, Principal Scientific Advisor Govt. of India by Dr. Abhay Jere, Chief Innovation Officer, MHRD Cell on twitter live.

Prof. K Vijay Raghvan praised India and the government on the ways and techniques used by it to minimize the effect of COVID 19 as compared to many developed countries like Italy and USA. He said that “one of the best measures taken by the government was checking international travelers’ very early which helped a lot and our tracking system for their contacts was very good.  Innovative ideas were being received everyday towards fighting against COVID 19. The government has contacts with the scientists all over the world who also help in checking and analyzing the innovative ideas. These ideas and innovations fall under different categories like easily implementable, complex and innovative but really difficult to implement. On the basis of feedback of group of scientists citizens are responded to and on the basis of that the government receives much better responses from citizens as they take the responses very positively.” To the question of whether he was satisfied with the way Indian scientific community responded to COVID 19, he affirmed that the Indian scientific community has responded in the best way they could have like the scientist of Pune have been working for the drug vaccination along with the scientific community of Bangalore who are focusing on IT inputs along with medical vaccination. Delhi IIT is been helping in the diagnostic tests and likewise all the other scientists are contributing to their level best to fight against this COVID 19. Responding to Dr. Abhay Jere’s question on “In which areas should youngsters focus at this time of COVID 19 and not only at current time but also post COVID 19 which will be a great challenge to India?” Prof. K Vijay Raghvan said that social distancing is one of the major preventive measures of COVID 19 and technology can be used in order to make social distancing successful to the maximum extent. One of the most challenging focus for the youngsters will be how can economy be handled after the situation returns to normal and the life of people will be again in daily routine, companies will reopen and everything will start once again.

9th of April LEADERSHIP Talk with Prof. Anil D. Sahasrbudhe, Chairman AICTE by Dr. Abhay Jere, Chief Innovation Officer, MHRD Innovation Cell on twitter live show

The talk was about what AICTE expects students and faculty members during this crisis of COVID 19. The first question asked by Dr. Jere was “At this time of crisis of COVID 19, we are receiving large number of messages from students and faculties about colleges being closed down and academic calendar disturbed so in this scenario how do you expect the students, teachers and institutions to react so that there is no long term loss when it comes to academics.” To this question Prof Sahasrbudhe very positively answered that, “Since this COVID 19 crisis is not in the hands of anyone and has come up as an unexpected problem we as citizens of India should not panic first of all and try to fight this crisis as directed by our Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji. We all together should work towards flattening the curve of COVID 19 and get relieved from this problem as soon as possible. For the expectations from students and faculties we expect from them certain things and first of them is learning. Even in the crisis of COVID 19 our learning should not stop.” He stated “In today’s time with the use of technology we can enhance our learning through different sources being provided online like SWAYAM and other MOOC platforms, YouTube and other educational platforms. We all should enhance our knowledge especially in the technologies that are new and emerging like AI, IOT, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Robotics, 3D Printing, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, and Cyber Security with the help of different platforms available today.” On the point of different queries by different students to AICTE about their worries related to their examinations, next classes, future admissions, placements and internships he assured that, “ We should not panic at all and all these will fall in place may be with a delay of one month or so but none of these will be left.”

The discussion was taken forward by Dr. Jere by his next question about the new things that people can take up at this current time of mental health risks due to anxiety being faced by the people and to this Prof. Anil talked about the steps taken by AICTE in the very starting of lockdown which was a competition called IDEATHON an MHRD Innovation and AICTE along with some of the companies like FORGE where they came up with an idea that students will be given a challenge to address COVID 19 and their ideas will be received into thought of products that can be used. He told that this activity was very successful and approximately 5500 students participated in this with brilliant ideas among which top 20 students were awarded also. He also told that they are not going to stop here and soon going to launch the next activity SAMADHAN in which they will be getting the solutions to the problems encountered today by the students in more innovative manner. He told that they are trying their best so that the students at home can showcase their talent to the best they can.

On the view upon the placements and company’s view he responded “It totally depends on the economy which is been hit badly and our GDP is going to come down. There are possibilities that different new ways are going to be found out by the government of India and RBI to bring back the situation to normal and all we have to do is to have faith in the system. The students will get placements accordingly though it can be late by 1 month or 3 months or 6 months depending upon the situation.” Prof. Sahasrbudhe also inspired students by saying that, “With the help of different opportunities provided to the students at this time like IDEATHON & SAMADHAN, the students should think of becoming entrepreneurs and not working in the offices so that they can also give employment opportunities to 20 and more people which will help in growth and development of the country’s economy and GDP.”

Prof Sahasrbudhe on the request of Dr. Jere also explained about the portal being launched by AICTE to address the grievances and distress of students by stating “After the crisis of COVID 19 was announced many students had different problems regarding the colleges, hostels, accommodations, transportations, food, health issues, internships, academics and placements, etc. and looking to these problems AICTE launched a portal called HELPLINE specially for the students. There are two faces of the portal where on one side the students have to post their problems on the portal and on the other side are some 4000+ institutions providing some 15000+ services and we also roping in NGOs, social organizations, voluntary organizations, etc. that are willing to help students in this hour of crisis. It is a type match making of students who need help and people who are willing to help and that too in each district, town and states,” He also thanked his team Dr. Chandra Shekhar Buddha and two of the students who had done this in just one day for which many companies would have charged huge amounts of money and taken too much of time for creating such a helpful portal. Many of the retired persons have also joined the portal to provide pitching and counseling to the students who are in difficulty.

On Dr. Jere’s question about the online platforms like NEAT, SWAYAM as the moocs platform and SWAYAM PRABHA providing 32 DTH channels helping the students in this time of lockdown Prof. Anil said that, “These all three are important platforms each in their respective manner. NEAT is AI based personalized learning platform that provides different future employability options to students. SWAYAM and SWAYAM PRABHA are almost similar one is through internet and one is through TV respectively. For the students living in cities SWAYAM is good but for the students living in rural areas with low network bandwidth SWAYAM PRABHA is one of the best learning opportunities.” Finally talking about other AICTE initiatives Prof Anil told that, “We have different initiatives of AICTE. One of them is a mandatory 3 weeks student’s induction program for refresher of students and also a Course on Human Values and to handle these faculties need to be updated and for these various workshops had been conducted online. We also have ATAL ACADEMY which holds the faculty development program and they are also being made online. We are also receiving the responses in much higher numbers than we expected.” On one of the big step taken by AICTE for the internships made online he expressed that, “This is not the first time that we are making the internships online rather we have been doing since last few years where companies provide different situations to the students as their internship tasks and the process of finding out the best way to cope up with the situation helps the students to get the practical exposure of the market as they do in internships while they face the real market. We have appealed to different companies to give students such challenging statements which they can solve at home and they can also gain the experience of the industries.” He also told students not to believe on any rumors that there will be no internships in the companies and told that as soon as the situation comes to normal and lockdown opens the students can continue their internships in their companies by visiting them.

10th of April leadership talk by Prof. Partha Chakrabarty (Chairman, National Digital Library Ex – Director. IIT Kharagpur) with Dr. Abhay Jere as moderator

Prof. Chakrabarty informed that National Digital Library has integrated all their education material from KG to PG and put them together in the portal and any student can get access of that material at any of period of time. 45 millions collection of material which covers Books, Videos, Notes, Simulation, General, Research paper, etc. are categorized in terms of Classes, Teams, User Categories, Classical research, NPTEL Lectures, MI Lectures, etc. All the education Boards provide the text material free of cost. All citizens can access the integrated learning material through mobile app and website. It is a national level platform with currently 25 lakh users. It is an integrated platform and materials are contributed by Khan Academy and others to the National Digital library during the ongoing covid-19 crisis. There is also a filter option where one can filter education board, or types of classes. They also provide material for NET, GATE, UPSC, etc. All the materials are free and there is no need of any IP Address and they can access through the NDL portal itself.

Towards handling the Copy Rights issues they drive the copy right all over the world which also helps to make policies. For those who own material there are no copy right issues while for others they provide the link so that user can directly access with his/her copy rights. If any person using these materials creates a new material, there are rules and norms to be followed. If any person wants to contribute he/she can do so by providing links or content and take patent rights. If a person does not want to share copy rights then they can share at least the abstract. Today they have 20,000+ contributors in National Digital Library. They can share the material in 2 parts. First they can share the Thesis or Reports. Second they can share only the catalog (if they do not want to share the books digitally). Anyone who needs any books/Reports etc. can easily find out about its availability. They share the data with European countries libraries and American library. They are working with UNESCO so that they can provide the facilities to other countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan etc. and are thus cross interlinking worldwide. Currently they are managing in 30-40 languages and 10 Indian languages and others like Spanish, German, etc. are being worked upon. Currently they do not have any support for translation of foreign language and are working on the project.

Students also attended the informative facebook live session by Dr. M.P Poonia, Vice Chairman AICTE on the 10th of April on Personalized and Customized learning for employability skill enhancement and bridging learning gaps. Though this session was more relevant for engineering students our students found the talk interesting.

Overall the sessions were highly motivational, positivity oriented and were a useful and productive learning experience for the students addressing many of their genuine concerns arising out of the ongoing corona crisis that has brought the entire globe to a state of standstill.

One feature common to these talks was the emphasis that learning has to go on come what may and that things will soon be the same as it were before the pandemic onset. The nation’s economy will bounce back, students will find jobs and or create jobs, teachers will continue with their refreshers and impart practical knowledge with the same business as usual spirit to the students. And that all these called for actions on all of us as disciplined responsible citizens in response to the coordinated efforts of the state to counter the present difficult state of 

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Mr. Avinash Srivastava has discussed that the world continues to wage its war against COVID-19. As nations sweep down their streets with various forms of restrictions and lockdowns, the stall on the growth of global economy feels more pronounced than ever. He further said that the India has so far managed to keep a relatively flatter infection curve in its battle against the pandemic; it does appear to have a better chance of pulling off with lesser collateral damage.

Mr. Avinash Srivastava conveyed students that the global economic slowdown will mean that first world economies will be looking out for low-cost outsourcing solutions, so India could be the best outsourcing hub. Globally, buyers have already shifted to India to source ceramics, home, fashion, and lifestyle goods. He said that around a thousand foreign manufacturers want to relocate their production to India, a country they see as an alternative to China. 

Mr. Srivastava emphasized that Future, however is difficult to predict, but anticipating where a single seed can be planted to bear a massive fruit-bearing tree is what we need to do. The COVID-19 pandemic will, undoubtedly, continue to keep us all on our toes until a vaccine comes out. But hope is what we have, so it is what we shall use. At the end of the corporate lecture a special vote of thanks was given to him.

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Sr. Director and Head IT & IS, Incedo was the key Resource Person for this Webinar. In this session Mr. Jackson talk about VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complex, Ambiguous) and need of continuous update and learning of different technologies including AI, Neural Network, Quantum, Computing, 5G, Cyber Security etc. The Webinar was attended by 150 Participants from various places including Chandigarh, Patna, Delhi, Gurgaon, Muzzafarnagar and other places

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