Impressions of the WEF Sustainable Development Impact Summit, September 2017

Impressions of WEF sustainable development summit; September 2017

It was my inaugural WEF summit with an impressive line-up of 700 leaders spanning politics, business and philanthropy and representing all ages, nations and gender. Truly global and truly holistic: Climate change initiatives from Trinidad & Tobago to gender parity efforts in Canadian and Panamanian politics; tech giants from India and the USA unlocking the potential of Industry 4.0 and digital ID solutions and through them, supporting education and social protection for all; traceability and cybersecurity technology from Switzerland to the application thereof in biomimetics in the Amazon; education initiatives in the Nordics to education revolutionary advocates from South Africa; technology innovations in the food chain to disruptive, sustainable fashion using ocean plastics from the Philippines.

The objective? To bring a diverse group of likeminded, influential people and organisations into a room together and explore actionable ideas to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.  SDGs that cover climate change, digital ID, corporate social responsibility, advertising, education and gender parity – and the catwalk.

There were some truly impressive attendees with sustainability credentials stretching back into the annals of recent world history: Al Gore on climate change; Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister on making education relevant, sustainable and fit for the future; Unilever on hashtag #unstereotype, bringing an end to gender-based advertising in the FMCG industry; Barbara Byrne, Vice Chair of Barclays and Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, Vice President of Panama speaking of initiatives to elevate experienced woman back to senior leadership positions that they have personally championed; the list goes on. There were also many fresh, hugely talented faces from WEF’s Global Shapers representing all of these aspects and the recipe brought about electric interaction.

The summarising Tweet for the event was social dialogue, empathy and trust, enabled by digital tech seen as key to meet 2030 SDGs - doused with liberal lashings of pragmatism to #makeithappen.

So what struck me in all of this is how well-placed Infosys is to make an enormous global difference and a dramatic footprint on the world sustainability agenda. From a tech giant perspective, we have:

• state-of-the-art smart, sustainable campuses with renewable energy sources for an on- and off-grid carbon neutral footprint with world class corporate tech-education facilities
• Energy monitoring and management services from our Engineering services to assess viability of living grid solutions and smart farms, through the power of IOT
• consulting and technology capabilities in the fields of: blockchain to enable ethical sourcing, supply chain traceability; RPA for automated content creation of safety sheets in EHS-related industries; Design Thinking to unleash the power of AI to unshackle traditional approaches to learning-by-rote education and move to applied learning and; digital ID – Nandan’s name and efforts with Aadhaar were used as pedestal positioning on several occasions by many

… and from a demographic perspective as a key player in the world’s largest democracy, we as global Indian player are in poll position to lead the way in partnering to solve many of the SDGs, the roots of many of which are close to India’s heart.

#sustainability #infosys #wefimpact