The “disruptive” process had been part of last year’s Digital conference by the Public Relations Society of India, Kolkata Chapter. It redefined the traditional forms of communication, reversing the conventional meaning to give it a new interpretation that could enable digital products, services and businesses to disrupt the ways the market had dictated consumption and created a level playing field for the “low capital entrepreneurs who are big on effective innovations.”
This year, the PRSI has further upped the ante to go into a new mantra that blends tech, design and data to create optimized and personal experiences to up-end current trends and outperform peers. This time around, Digital Intelligence dominated the proceedings and Robotics ruled the roost.
Setting an ominous tone for the conference thematic was the Chairman of PRSI, Kolkata Chapter, Soumyajit Mahapatra who talked about an empowerment scenario through Artificial Intelligence “which is all set to play dice with God.” This was echoed by the Keynote speaker, Sandeep Marwah who has founded Noida Film City when he stressed on how innovators are the new gods. Marwah’s film city has, under its aegis made over 150 feature films and over 5,000 training films, contributing to the mass enlightenment about cinema. And Manoshi Roy Chowdhury, Vice Chairperson of the Techno Group brought in another dimension, wondering if Digital Intelligence could do something to mitigate the Kerala flood disaster. She stressed on Artificial Entrepreneurship and Artificial Creativity being the new tangential and necessary arms of AI.
So, how could the new scenario be viewed? With fear of job losses stemming from greater digitization where human labor could be pitted against virtual agents? Or will design driven organizations be the ones to stay ahead of competition? Will the consuming public be benefitted through the new range of services and products from the health-tech, edu-tech and fin-tech companies?
Many of the solutions and the prognostications came from the speakers who had helmed their own companies, whether it was be the Mayabious Academy, the Aegis School of Data Science, YUVA Unstoppable, Urs Digitally—branding and marketing company, the data analytics cell of Niti Aayog, the Technology, Innovation and Architecture arm of DCB Bank, or I-Com Global. Much of what was said came down to the new scenarios where re-skilling will be required, as will machine learning and the areas of focus will be Data Science Big Data Analytics, Human Psychology, Redesigning of Learning Spaces, Deep Learning. There were those who shared the digitization of five lakh underprivileged students, others about how you could engage customers at just Rs 1 per month, and yet others about how brands that create personalized experiences by integrating advanced digital technologies could see revenues increase by ten percent. “Design is thinking made visual,” was the exhortation by Akhil B. Paul of Mayabious, while Cecil Antony, the chief mentor of the NSHM Knowledge Campus did not see gloom and doom at all but talked of how competition, talent and technology all had wings to fly in the digital space.