Credit: Marcela Hernoux dos Santos
The Indian Business Chamber of Luxembourg (IBCL) recently held an event dedicated to "Knowledge and Technology Capability Partnership with India".
On the evening of Tuesday 7 November 2023, over 60 participants attended this session held on EY's premises in Luxembourg-Kirchberg. The event brought together the Embassy of India in Brussels and businesses in Luxembourg to discuss the evolution of talent and technology in India and potential partnerships between India and Luxembourg.
Yves Even, Chairman of the Board at EY welcomed the audience and set the tone of the discussion with his opening remarks. As reported by the IBCL, the event kicked off with an engaging keynote speech by Chris Hollifield, the Head of Business Development at Luxembourg for Finance (LFF), highlighting the technological evolution in areas such as fintech and payments in emerging markets like India.
Special guest Ashok Kumar, Adviser (Industry & Engineering) at the Embassy of India in Brussels, presented the policies adopted in India and examples of technology application from urban and rural India affecting the lives of some 1.5 billion people. He added that Luxembourg could directly benefit from this with closer cooperation.
A panel representing various industries, which included Anjani Ladia (Head of Business Control at IQ-EQ), Pranjul Shah (Manager of the University of Luxembourg Incubator), Lokdeep Singh (CEO of Talkwalker) and Manoj Kumar (CIO of Aperam), engaged in a discussion providing insights into areas such as:
• leveraging India's talent pool in software engineering, data science and AI to drive innovation beyond just cost optimisation;
• while initiatives to foster talent in Luxembourg have helped, corporates need to promote and create awareness to drive further growth opportunities;
• the key aspects that need to be addressed while offshoring include cultural alignment, understanding EU regulations and aligning ways of working through sufficient training;
• universities and incubators partnering with academic institutions and research centres in India, such as those with Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), can enable stronger partnerships on talent development between India and Luxembourg;
• partnering with incubators in India and establishing startups offices in Luxembourg can provide significant growth opportunities for entrepreneurs in both countries;
• technology partnerships with India can address business challenges in process improvements, innovation and creating a centre of excellence.
There was also time for interactions with the audience.
Guest of honour Perses Bilimoria, Luxembourg's Honorary Consul in Mumbai, then shared his perspectives on collaboration between Luxembourg and India.
IBCL President Aditya Sharma added the following remarks:
• new technology generates enthusiasm for quick adoption; however, at the local level, ground conditions may not be ready to adopt it, as was seen in the case of the internet of things (IoT) and a few other preceding trends;
• the pace of technology innovation is several notches higher today compared to a decade ago; the next trend in technology usage is generative AI;
• opening Luxembourg for talent flow from India needs to be examined from the lens of local job protection, so the industry-business case is not an adequate consideration at the country level.
Aditya Sharma thanked the speakers, master of ceremony, organisers and sponsors. He also introduced three new IBCL Board Members to the audience: Lokdeep Singh, CEO of Talkwalker; Himanshu Upadhyay, Team Leader, Product, Strategy and Project Management at Globality Health; Sahil Goel, Platform Project Manager at POST Luxembourg and President of the Indian Association of Luxembourg (IAL).
The event concluded with networking drinks.
The next IBCL event will be "Pre-Christmas Drinks" at Deloitte on Thursday 21 December 2023.
The IBCL President also mentioned upcoming activities for 2024, not least an anniversary event on 26 March and planned India missions to be organised in the first quarter.
