Navigating the Digital Frontier: NZ-India Forum

International Dialogue Series:

Navigating the Digital Frontier

NZ - India Forum 2

The second forum in our International Dialogue Series, in collaboration with Ananta Aspen Centre in India, focused on 'Navigating the Digital Frontier.' With a mission to 'turbocharge' the relationship between India and New Zealand, the forum opened new communication channels through the Institute's international network to explore digital technology opportunities. 

The panel featured prominent industry leaders, including Arvind Gupta, one of India's foremost experts in digital public infrastructure (DPI) and Head of Digital India Foundation, and Indrani Bagchi, CEO of Ananta Aspen and a respected authority in foreign policy. Representing NZ was Carmen Vicelich, CEO of Data Insight, Generate Zero, and Valocity, who are actively expanding into the Indian market. Joining Carmen was Amit Gupta, Group CEO & Founder of Ecosystem Group and Chairman of TiE Global, whose interest lies in utilising NZ's innovative capabilities to address global food security. 

Discussions spanned a wide range of opportunities in both countries, from introducing elements of the India Stack into underdeveloped DPI sectors in NZ to exporting sophisticated NZ Fintech solutions, agritech, and health tech to India. The panellists also discussed collaborative efforts to tackle global challenges, including leveraging NZ's agritech expertise and India's digital capabilities to feed the world. Indrani highlighted that the concepts, technologies, and features of the India Stack are fully adaptable in other countries, enabling relationships to be developed between India and countries as diverse as Germany and Sri Lanka. 

Other avenues for collaboration included establishing global standards for DPI and data, as well as initiatives to introduce DPI to South Pacific nations. Carmen emphasised that doing business in India demands time and commitment to building solid relationships and networks. She underlined the importance of engaging with authorities and specialists to learn about market intricacies, as well as aligning values and objectives to create strong partnerships. 

To learn more about the opportunities in both countries, find out more about the India Stack and explore how we can collaborate for mutual benefit, watch the full forum replay below: 

Panellists:

Amit Gupta - Group CEO & Founder, Ecosystm Group; Chairman, TiE Global

Founder of Ecosytm, a next generation Technology Research and Advisory Platform, and its spinoff Kampd, a professional communities-led social learning platform, Amit is a New Zealander and stays deeply connected to the NZ ecosystem. He holds a Master's in Engineering Management with honors from the University of Auckland and has served as a Beachhead Advisor to the New Zealand Government through NZTE. Earlier in his career he was the Managing Director for IDC New Zealand, and prior to that he founded a successful New Zealand based startup which was acquired after a few years.

Carmen Vicelich - CEO, Valocity, Data Insight and Generate Zero

Carmen Vicelich is an entrepreneurial powerhouse with over 20 years' experience developing innovative technology and data solutions that deliver impact to make the world a better place. In record time she has created several purpose and impact driven, global businesses; Valocity, Data Insight and Generate Zero. Carmen is a well-known global public speaker, serves on several boards including UNICEF, Co-Chair of Fintech NZ and New Zealand India Trade Alliance and is proud mother of four children. In 2023, Carmen won EY Entrepreneur of the year in the Technology Category, and Valocity was named Scale Up of the Year, India 2022, and won runner up Singapore Fintech Festival 2022.

Indrani Bagchi - CEO, Ananta Aspen Centre

Prior to her role with Ananta Aspen Centre, Indrani was Associate Editor with the Times of India, reporting and analysing the newspaper's foreign policy issues from 2004 until 2022. As Diplomatic Editor, Indrani covered the Ministry of External Affairs on her news beat and interpreted and analyzed global trends with an Indian perspective. Earlier, Indrani worked with India Today, a premier news magazine, The Economic Times and The Statesman. She graduated from Loreto College, Calcutta University with English honours and was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University in 1997. In 2010, she was awarded the Chang Lin-Tien fellowship by the Asia Foundation to study US-China relations at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. Indrani is a Fellow of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship Class 3 of the Ananta Aspen Centre and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Arvind Gupta - Head, Digital India Foundation, Founder Member, iSpirit

Mr Gupta has over 27 years of industry experience, having worked in diverse sectors in a variety of leadership, policy, and entrepreneurial profiles in India and Silicon Valley, USA with considerable experience in Consumer Internet, Digital Media, Payment Systems, Analytics, and Data Economy. He has been on the Global FinTech top list of Influencers and is also a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Digital Economy & Society and an OECD Expert Member of Global Value Chains. In his last role, he was the CEO of MyGov, an initiative of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, to Empower the Citizens of India with Participative Governance and Digitally communicate Schemes and Policies to all Indians. He led the Digital, Social Media, and Communication Campaign for PM Narendra Modi, which resulted in PM Modi creating electoral history and achieving its Mission 272+ in the 2014 Elections. He is a Member of the Founder’s Circle of Spirit, which has worked extensively on the “IndiaStack”.

Moderator:

Prerna Bountra, Assistant Centre, Ananta Aspen Centre

Prerna leads Ananta Aspen Centre’s work on the India – U.S. bilateral relationship and Climate Change – Energy policy. She specializes in curating bilateral and multilateral Track 1.5 and Track 2 dialogues. Her research interest is at the intersection of geostrategy, realpolitik of foreign policy, climate change and social justice. She is a sociology honours graduate from Hindu College, University of Delhi; Journalism post graduate from Xavier Institute of Communication, Mumbai; and an International law & diplomacy post graduate from the Indian Society of International Law, New Delhi. She follows Hindi cinema with a passion, watches many sports but plays none, and is known to arm wrestle people who trivialize pop culture.