The all-virtual Future of Work 2021, India’s largest product, tech, and design summit, is scheduled for February 26 and 27, 2021. It will bring together leading CTOs, CPOs, data science heads, and tech architects not only from India but from across the world, for talks and workshops across diverse subjects with the aim to understand the future of tech and its impact on today’s business.
In its fourth spectacular edition, the event will be entirely virtual in keeping with the new normal. This will make it location-agnostic and open up the conference to a larger audience from across the world. It will bring together entrepreneurs, policymakers, technologists, investors, mentors, and business leaders who are scripting the future of work.
In its virtual avatar, Future of Work promises to be larger than ever before in its scope and dimension, offering participants an all-immersive and truly-global experience.
Day One of Future of Work 2021
The conference kicks off with YourStory’s Shradha Sharma delivering the opening keynote, followed by a keynote by Rahul Chari, Co-founder & CTO, PhonePe, one of India’s biggest UPI Apps that ranks amongst the top 10 most trafficked platforms by Comscore. Rahul will be talking about building a tech platform that is both simple to use and can handle a billion users.
Next up is the fireside chat with Kelly Waldher, Vice President, Marketing, Google Workspace, who will talk about emerging possibilities and the future of work.
Masterclasses to catch at Future of Work 2021
Day One also has an impressive line-up of masterclasses that are sure to be worth your while. We have Viral Mehta, Vice President, Engineering, Pocket Aces, India’s largest digital entertainment company focused on mobile video, who will be talking about building the tech team of the future.
Ranjit Radhakrishnan, Chief Product Officer, BYJU’S will also be delivering a masterclass titled Building Edtech for Billions with great learnings from the world’s most valuable education technology business
Learn from Nabendu Das, Head of Engineering, Tally Solutions – India’s leading accounting software – about how SMEs can operate and innovate in the connected world of the future.
Learn how to accelerate model deployment from years to months powered by HPE Ezmeral in the masterclass by Ranganath Sadasiva, CTO, Hybrid IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Saurabh Godbole, Head Enterprise Business, Unique Solution.
With the second-largest internet user base, India has emerged as one of the most prominent markets globally. As the country prepares to welcome its next wave of digital shopping converts, Prashant Parashar, VP & Head of Technology, Snapdeal, talks about scaling for the big billions, in his masterclass.
As engineers advance to senior positions, they acquire responsibilities like managing teams, projects, and budgets. To reach those positions and perform their duties effectively, they need to have a strong set of business skills. Kanav Arora, SVP – Engineering, Urban Company, tells us how engineers can adopt a business mindset in his masterclass.
Proptech is reshaping the Indian real estate sector at a time when the industry needs a real shot in the arm. In much the same way that innovative technology transformed so many other sectors, like Ola’s re-think of the taxi business and OYO’s colossal expansion in the budget hospitality market. Akhil Gupta, Founder & CTO, NoBroker talks about emerging trends and how tech will power future innovations in proptech.
How to build impactful VR/AR experiences on the web
For over four years now, AutoVRse has been pushing the limit of what’s possible in the immersive media space and consistently delivering path-breaking deployments in the field of enterprise VR/AR. Here to deliver a masterclass on how to build impactful VR/AR experiences on the web are Sahil Singh, Shreya Pidikiti, and Pradyumna Panikker of AutoVRse.
Elements of designing products ahead of their time
CRED is one of the most talked-about startups in India, in part because of the scale at which its valuation has soared and the amount of capital it has been able to raise in such a short period. Harish Sivaramakrishnan, Head of Design, CRED, helps us understand how they do it in this masterclass titled ‘Delivering elements of designing products ahead of their time.’
Roundtables at Future of Work 2021
What’s the new normal for women in tech? If you’re keen on diversity and inclusion, do catch this round table featuring these notable women in tech including, Vishakha Vaidya, Engineering Manager at Atlassian; Shraddha Kandpal, Engineering Manager, PharmEasy; Jayalakshmi Manohar, Founder and CPO, Streak.AI; Aishwarya Kalakata, Head – Product Innovation, Flipkart; Gunjan Shukla, Global Head of Demand Operations, Thought Works; Anuradha Balasubramaniam, VP – Global BPS Delivery, DXC Technology; and Pooja Patel, Vice President – Product Delivery, LogiNext.
If you’re interested in learning about building the fintech stack for billions, do check out this CTO Roundtable powered by Google Cloud featuring notable speakers like Mitesh Agarwal, Director – Customer Engineering, Google Cloud; Harish Patel, CTO, Mswipe; Raju Shetty, Head of Engineering, Razorpay; Murari Sridharan, Co-Founder & COO, BankBazaar; Ashish Anantharaman, Co-founder and CTO, ZestMoney; and Aditya Prasad, CTO, OkCredit.
Day Two of Future of Work 2021
Day Two will begin with a keynote by Warren Harris, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Technologies, on finding the balance between culture, management, morale, and remote working. This will be followed by the fireside with Shashank Kumar, Co-founder, Razorpay, on the future of neo banking in India beyond payments.
We will also have Jeyandran Venugopal, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Flipkart, talking about ‘Building ecommerce that connects a billion Indians’. This will be followed by a keynote on ‘The unprecedented role of technology in business and its impact on our lives’ by Ketan Patel, Managing Director, HP.
Tech tracks on Day Two
Notable sessions on the tech track of Day Two include the fireside on powering inclusion with insurtech: New ways tech is transforming the insurance landscape featuring Saurabh Tiwari, CTO, PolicyBazaar. Up next is a talk by Ashwin Jaishanker, CEO, AutoVRse, on VR/AR and the future of work.
A panel featuring Dinesh Ajmera, Head of Engineering & Site Lead, Atlassian; Ankit Maheshwari, President – Engineering & India Operations, Innovaccer; Ajeya Motaganahalli, Chief Technology Officer, Honeywell SPS India, Pravanjan Choudhury, CTO, Capillary Technologies; will discuss how to shape the future of collaboration.
Gametech enthusiasts will appreciate the panel on solving for scale and complexity in gaming featuring Sandeep Agarwal, CTO, Games24x7; Arpit Chaudhary, CTO, GreedyGame; Shubh Malhotra, Co-Founder, MPL; and Mitesh Agarwal, Director, Customer Engineering, Google Cloud India.
The SaaS panel titled ‘Building the foundations for robust and scalable SaaS platforms’ featuring Saravanan KP, Co-founder, Chargebee; Dinesh Varadharajan, Vice President of Product Management, Kissflow Inc; and Vara Kumar Namburu, CPTO, Whatfix; should be of value to SaaS enthusiasts.
Other notable tech sessions on Day One include a talk on ‘Playing the long-term tech game’ by Arvind Neelakantan, Evangelist- India/ASEAN, Epic Games; ‘How one year of the pandemic created a 10-year tech leap globally?’ – a talk by Milind Borate, Co-founder and CDO, Druva.
Harishankaran K, Co-founder and CTO, HackerRank, will talk about driving personalisation at scale with Machine Learning, and there will be a fireside chat with Raghav Chandra, Co-founder and CTO, Urban Company, on how tech is shaping the service industry.
Product and design tracks on Day Two
Among the product tracks curated for the day, we have Abhinav Sinha, Global COO and Chief Product Officer, OYO, who will talk about OYO’s tech and product arsenal that empowers small hotels and home operators.
A fintech panel on India’s fintech future featuring Manish Bhatia, President, Technology, Analytics & Capabilities, Lendingkart; Virender Bisht, Co-founder and CTO, Niyo; and Anshu Prateek, Head of Engineering, GRAB; should be of interest to fintech enthusiasts.
Key product tracks include Kapil Verma, CPO, Hotels, MakeMyTrip, talking about reimaging and rebuilding travel products for the new normal; Anuj Rathi, VP, Product, Revenue, and Growth, Swiggy, talking about product-market fit at scale for consumer tech; and Lalitha Ramani, Chief Product Officer, Myntra; on creating market-leading innovations and consumer engagement.
We will also have Ravish Naresh, Founder and CEO, Khatabook, talking about how SMEs can be more efficient and increase revenues; Sandeep Goel, SVP, Technology, Moglix, on reimagining the future of procurement; Krunal Patel, Director, TeamViewer India; talking about supporting the work from anywhere employee; and Jatin Bhasin, Vice President, Product Management, Capital Float; focusing on product lessons from billion-dollar disbursals.
An interesting logistics panel to catch would be ‘The future of supply chains: Frictionless logistics with collaboration’ featuring R Raghuraman, Head of Supply Chain Strategies, ITC; Vishal Sharma, CEO, India and Sub-Continent, DB Schenker; Vikram Janakiraman, Partner and Managing Director, BCG; and Swapnil Shah, Founder and CEO, Freight Tiger.
HR and job tracks on Day Two
Discussing how businesses could navigate work in a hybrid environment will be a panel featuring Mahesh Vandi Chalil, CTO/SVP, Head of Technology, BookMyShow; Ranjan Sakalley, Head of Engineering, Vedantu; Rahul Bhargava, Chief Product and Technology Officer, InCred; and Vikram Kumar Yerram, Country Manager – GreenLake Cloud Services, HPE.
Notable HR tracks include ‘Tech innovators: hiring maturity model in a remote world’, a talk by Yashwanth Kumar, Head, Analytics & Insights, Titan Company. We also have a fireside chat with Vishpala Reddy, Head of Human Resources, Indian Subcontinent, Philips, on tech hiring from India for the world.
Manmeet Sandhu, Head of HR, PhonePe, will be talking about the need for D&I in the context of the Indian startup ecosystem, while Gopinath Pullaihgari, Director, Human Resources, Verizon India, will be part of a fireside chat on becoming an employer of choice for tech talent in India.
The final two sessions include ‘Reimagining the workplace of the future’ by Priyanka Anand, Vice President and Head of HR, South East Asia, Oceania, and India, Ericsson, and ‘Embracing the new way of work with HR tech’, featuring Chaitanya Peddi, Co-founder, Darwinbox.
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