Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics

Noted entrepreneur and businessman, Co-founder, and Chairman of Infosys and Founding Chairman, UIDAI, shared his thoughts on ‘Dealing with Disruption’

Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics (MDAE), India’s top institute for post-graduate Economics, recently had the privilege of hosting a session from noted entrepreneur and businessman, Nandan Nilekani. Titled ‘Dealing with Disruption’, the lecture from the founding chairman of India’s UIDAI and the chairman of Indian technology giant Infosys, left the audience captivated by his reflections, musings, and advice on dealing with the changing market and economy. The lecture was hosted in association with World Trade Centre Mumbai at its premises.

Massive data boom, spread of cashless economy and the crisis of urban mobility were some of the many themes discussed during the session. Nandan explained how the rise of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning technologies has moved on from the threshold of laboratories and research facilities to become an integral part of our reality. On the cashless economy front, Nandan said that the overall scenario is bullish as India has the best infrastructure to migrate from cash to cashless economic transactions without creating a monopoly.

“India has leapfrogged to directly adopting digital payment platforms. UPI has been a massive enabler as well in encouraging all sections of the society to get onboard the digitization drive and the amount of innovation happening in the online payments’ domain further raises the hope of India becoming a truly cashless nation in the long run,” Nandan said. He has also predicted that Indian roads will feature a high number of EVs within the next two decades.

Commenting on the session, Karan Shah, COO, MDAE, said, “At MDAE, our focus is on providing our students unique and effective learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom and into the real world. We were privileged to host someone as illustrious as Nandan Nilekani and have him share his experiences with our students. We are grateful to him for his time and to the World Trade Centre Mumbai for their support.”