“Disruptive technologies are often initially met with resistance from incumbent businesses because they threaten to upend the status quo”: Shri B V Gopal Reddy, President, FKCCI at NMIT Bengaluru

The Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology successfully commences ERMA 2022, the first year of its international conference on emerging research in management applications.

Bengaluru, 28th November 2022: The Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology held its International Conference themed ‘Transforming Business Practices through Disruptive Technologies as part of the first year of ERMA 2022, an international conference on emerging research in management applications, on 25th November 2022. The conference was organised by the institute to highlight the need for developing an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset for students from an academic level for global prosperity. The event was inaugurated by chief guest, Shri B V Gopal Reddy, President of the FKCCI, Guest of Honour, Dr. VG Kiran Kumar, S Nagendra NMIT – Professor & Dean, and Dr Nagaraj H.C – Principal of The Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, and Rohit Punja, Administrator, NITTE Education Trust.

The conference kickstarted with an inaugural address by Chief Guest Shri B V Gopal Reddy, President of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry who set the tone for the event by highlighting the importance of disruptive technologies in transforming how industries function.

Sharing his thoughts on the theme, Guest of Honour, Dr VG Kiran Kumar CMD, VGK Global Consulting added, “The pandemic has shown that enterprises, when coerced by crisis, are able to roll out transformation plans, designed to take years, in a matter of weeks.”

Dr. Haseeb J Ahmed, Dean, Kettering University School of Management, while delivering his keynote speech stressed the importance of building academic institutions on the foundation of industry-academia collaborations, co-creation of knowledge, leading on leadership and focusing on becoming a hub of lifelong learning and an enabler of global prosperity.

The conference hosted a series of compelling discussions on disruptive technologies in four core industries, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture. A few notable technological advancements such as the heuristic learning capabilities of bots, AI-powered stylists, and data mining capabilities were highlights of the disruptions in the retail sector. The Healthcare segment unearthed key AI and technological trends in the sector from Data storage, to treatment capabilities. The manufacturing spotlight shed light on emerging advancements in the field enabled by the Industrial Internet of Things. Machine learning, big data, sensor data, cloud integration and machine automation, AR, VR, and 3D printing were also discussed as transformative technologies in the sector.  The session on agricultural technology debated a milieu of exciting new agri-tech like drones, sensors and intelligent robots.

The conference not only acted as a forum to initiate dialogues around disruptive technologies in key sectors but also as a platform for academicians and students coming from diverse streams across the country to participate in academic discourse and have an opportunity to get published in the Scopus or web of Science-indexed journals.