The live session of Leadership talk by Dr. B.V. R Mohan Reddy, was conducted on 27th April 2020. Dr B.V.R Mohan Reddy is the first generation entrepreneur, Ex-Chairman of NASCOM and is currently, the Chairman of Multinational Conglomerate Cyient. Dr. B.V.R Mohan Reddy is also the Chairman of IIT Hyderabad. He works very closely with AICTE on building roadmap of future of technical education in India. The session was organized by MHRD Innovation Cell. Faculty members and Students of Manav Rachna University attended the session.

The discussion was around rebuilding the world, economy and industry in post Covid pandemic. Dr Reddy said that the challenge of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak is a challenge of unimaginable magnitude – economy is shrinking around the globe. However, the silver lining is that the pandemic has caused technology disruption. Indian industry is service based industry heavily depending on countries like US. It will recover possibly in 2021- the economy decline and recovery will probably be a mix of V and U curves – it is hard to say how long the full recovery will take. He compared this crisis with the 9/11 world trade tower terrorist attack in the US which caused death of 3000 people and revival was in 6 months.

Silver lining is that a lot of new technologies have come up, telecommunication is helping people to communicate across the globe- today 5 billion population out of total of 7.3 billion population of world are communicating. Telecommunication is helping us to collaborate. In technology industry, there is an enormous need for business transforming to digitalization. Tele-consulting with doctors have opened up. It is possible to do so with small devices at home as Mundane devices like thermometer, digital oxymeter, glucometer, blood pressure measuring equipment etc. In India, business impact is on construction, real estate, travel, tourism, hospitality and essentially on unorganized sector.

The survival of the businesses will depend on their digital transformation. He also discussed the case of manufacturing MSMEs for whom, the cash has to be the king. Focus should be on saving life and livelihood of people. Everyone will need to go for cost cutting by cutting the advertising costs, bringing down travel etc. But he laid emphasis on preserving the jobs. He motivated the student community to utilize this crisis time to learn new technologies which will be beneficial for them to enrich their resumes. Today, a lot of learning platforms are available and technology has been the enabler for that. He discussed various instances of his life where his positive attitude helped him to sail through the complex situations. He encouraged the graduates to learn new technologies during this time which will help them to get hired for a much higher skill job after the pandemic is over.