ICT Academy has been organizing its flagship Conference BRIDGE since 2011 in various parts of the country.The conference addresses the pressing issues faced by the academia and the industry in striking a balance with the talent demand-supply chain. ICT Academy has organized the 45^th edition of ICT Academy BRIDGE on 25^th and 26^th of February 2020 at IITM Research Park Chennai. The event was attended by more than 1000 academic leaders Industry experts and Government officers from across India.

ICT Academy conducts 45^th Edition of BRIDGE ndash; An High Impact Industry-institute Interaction of India at Chennai

L-R:

• Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan Emeritus Vice Chairman Cognizant and Chairman ICT Academy

• Mr. Hans Raj Verma IAS Addtional Chief Secretary (FAC) - IT Government of Tamil Nadu

• Dr. V Shanta Chairman Adyar Cancer Institute

• M Sivakumar Chief Executive Officer ICT Academy

M Sivakumar Chief Executive Officer ICT Academy set the context for the conference emphasizing the need for augmenting skills to accelerate growth of the nation. He thoughtfully thanked all the stakeholders of ICT Academy who have been with the Academy in building this vibrant platform. He said that ICT Academy has been a strongest bridge between Industry and Academy with more than 10 years of service to the Nation.

Addressing the conference Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan Emeritus Vice Chairman Cognizant and Chairman ICT Academy spoke the role the Government is playing in the nation building taking special interest by encouraging the deployment of the latest technologies within the Government departments. Further he pointed to the serious indulgence of the Government in using the block chain for the transactions. Moreover the Government has also brought drones into serving the state. Finally he pointed to the fact that the State of Tamil Nadu is at the top in terms of healthcare and education utilizing the latest technologies. He also emphasized on the work done by ICT Academy in building talent of India.

Inaugurating the conference Mr. Hans Raj Verma IAS Addtional Chief Secretary (FAC) - IT Government of Tamil Nadu said The transformative power of ICT makes a tremendous transformation in the lives of the people. On these lines the Government seeks the participation and coordination of the society at large in making its initiatives successful.

ICT Academy organized three pre conference summits. ICT Academy Leadership Summit 2020 was a knowledge sharing and networking meet exclusive for the Chairman Presidents and Secretaries of member institutions of ICT Academy. The conclave brought eminent leaders from Industry Academia and Government together to share best practices and innovation in the development and leadership of world-class institutions. Expert sessions on the theme was delivered by Mr. Jayaramakrishnan - TCS Dr. Viswanathan - VIT University Dr. Arun Kumar - IIT Madras Mr. Arun Bharath IRS - Commissioner of Income Tax Dr. Ashok Korwar - School of Design Thinking Mr. M P Vijayakumar - Sify Technologies and Mr. K. K. Raman - KPMG.

ICT Academy Talent Summit 2020 was a platform for the HR professionals from the industry and Training Placement Directors of academic institutions to discuss on the strategies to bridge the skill gaps that are disproportionately affected by the technological innovation and develop the competencies of students in line with the most rapidly evolving work environments. Two power panel of experts deliberated on the theme. The speakers were senior HR leaders from Industry including ndash; Mr. Krish Ganesan - Tata Consultancy Services Mr. Venkat Viswanathan - Wipro Mr. Murali Padmanabhan - Virtusa Mr. Rajeev Menon - Cognizant Mr. Sreeram Radhakrishnan - Atos Syntel Dr. Subramani Ramakrishnan - IBM Mr. Satish Rajarathnam - Mphasis Ms. Uma Srinivasan - Larsen Toubro Ms. Ayshwarya Srinivasan - Barclays Mr. David Rajasekar - Banca Sella. The panelists emphasized on the skills required by the fresh graduates and listed down action items for industry and academia to work on to develop skilled manpower for the industry.

ICT Academy Research Summit 2020 was a major attraction for researchers academicians and practitioners belonging to various domains of computer science and information technology for sharing their research work and experiences related to theories and applications of technology based frameworks. The experts included Dr. Sainarayanan ndash; HCL Technologies Mr. Aburba Das ndash; TCS Mr. Prasanna Venkatesh ndash; HCL Dr. Mukund Madhavan ndash; CMI Dr. Sethuraman ndash; CSIR Dr. Govindaraj ndash; CSIR and Dr. Viju Ravindran - Mathworks.The speakers pushed hard on the need to research centric academic environment in India.

The main conference featured industry key note speches from Dr. S Prakash ndash; Star Health Mr. Navaneeth ndash; The Hindu Mr. Karaiadi Selvan ndash; Cadd Centre Mr. Christian Fabre ndash; Christian Fabre Textiles Mr. Satoshi Taketani ndash; Komoto Coliving and Mr. Pattabhiram ndash; Author and Public Speaker Mr. Pramod Aggarwal ndash; Automation Anywere and Mr. Sunil PP ndash; AWS. The key note speakers broadly emphasized on various aspects for the industry and academia in preparing for the future world. The role of Industry in talent building was discussed in detail.

MoU was exchanged by ICT Academy with DXC Technologies with an announcement of implementing a CSR project on launching SKILL BUS that is all set to travel across rural parts of Tamil Nadu aimed at providing career guidance to the rural youth. A MoU was signed and exchanged between ICT Academy and NimbleBox a startup that helps data science teams developers and students work and collaborate on their deep learning projects on the cloud to invigorate AI knowledge with the academia.

An expert power panel was conducted on Augmenting Skills for the Future Technologies where experts deliberated on the action points for the academia to work on to develop students for the future technologies. The panel was moderated by Dr B Anbuthambi ndash; ICT Academy with experts in panel including Mr. Rajan Sethuraman ndash; Latent View Mr. Naveen ndash; TCS Mr. Bharath Cola ndash; Oracle Mr. Arun Subash ndash; Vmware Mr. Saurabh Gupta ndash; World Assessment Council and Mr. Deepankar ndash; Autodesk.

ICT Academyevery year confers the ICT Academy India Icon Awards to successful leaders who have done some outstanding work and excellence in their domain. This year ICT Academy as a gesture of celebrating Women Leadership conferred upon the ace people who have made a positive impact in their respective industry. The recipients of this prestigious Award for this year included Dr. V Shanta Chairman Adyar Cancer Institute Padma Vibhushan Awardee Dr. Akhila Srinivasan MD Shriram Life Insurance Co. Ltd. Dr. Elizabeth Verghese Chairperson Hindustan Group of Institutions and Dr. Sudha Seshayyan Vice Chancellor The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University.

ICT Academy in partnership with Automation Anywhere announced the BOTLAB for 6 member institutions in partnership with CISCO announced NETACAD for 10 member colleges during the occasion.ICT Academy recognized the national winners of AWS Cloud Literacy Drive conducted in partnership with AWS and the national winners of National Communications Skills Challenge conducted in partnership with The Hindu. ICT Academy also recognized 10 of its member institutions as Partners of the Decade who successfully travelled together with the Academy for a decade actively empowering the faculty members and developing industry ready talent pool for the nation. The details of the winners are published in ICT Academy website

Speaking about the event Dr. Anbuthambi B Executive Vice President ICT Academy said India with its young population is now all set to be a stronger contributor to entire world. Hence we have to work on such vibrant programs to help academic institutions to collaborate learn and educate both their teachers and students thereby making India a stronger talent destination for the nation. We believe ICT Academy BRIDGE is one such event that complements the efforts of Academia and Industry in developing future ready talent pool.

The videos of the keynotes and sessions are available at bridge.ictacademy.inWrite to [email protected] for partnership opportunities.