From women in tech to real-time animation and more: welcome to the action-packed opening day of Future of Work

The past two years have witnessed the great metamorphosis of work. Cutting across national boundaries, the new workforce is a dynamic melting pot of ideas and cross-cultural ethos, enabled by a technological tour de force. With hybrid being heralded as the future of work and remote conveying a sense of coming together like never before, work today is breaking free of boxes and shifting contours seamlessly. Who would have thought that once a side-hustle, the gig economy would emerge to be a boost economy with its own pull and glamour, enabled by a boom in digital platforms and consumer communities?  Or that new-age human-machine collaborations riding on the power of intelligent and intuitive technologies, would be already reimagining the future?

Going beyond tokenism and breaking the glass ceiling are a growing tribe of women in tech opening windows for next generations of girls to break barriers and storm into the male-dominated bastions of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). From the rise of conscientious consumers to woke workforces, diversity and inclusion are not corporate buzzwords but a necessary course of action. 

To weigh in on this evolving paradigm, we’re excited to announce the fifth edition of Future of Work 2022 — a two-day virtual conference by YourStory — kickstarting on March 28, 2022. We ask the best minds in technology, product, and design, about their agendas and vision with the aim to drive decisive, actionable insights and equip organisations and leaders to better predict and prepare for the future.

YourStory’s Future of Work conference will explore themes such as:

• The evolution of hybrid workplaces and how they can be set up to bridge the divide between employees across national boundaries
• Hiring tech talent and providing skilling opportunities so businesses are future-ready
• Exploring deeper, more intelligent human-machine collaborations by deploying new technologies
• Understanding and redefining the new gig economy after its maturation last year
• Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) and how they’re going to change the face of business
• What global Indian tech and product leaders are prioritising in 2022
• Women in tech and why their involvement is more than a necessity now

Here’s a look at the power-packed sessions and speakers on day 1:

This cracker of an opening session would be presided over by none other than Jack Condon, Evangelist, Epic Games. Catch Jack demystifying the ‘Unreal’ world of real-time animation in this session titled ‘Creating real-time ICVFX /animation in the hybrid world.’ 

Next up is a panel on ‘Women in Tech: What it'll take to boost representation’. Catch Vidhya Seetharaman, Chief of Staff to CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Swiggy; Megha Yethadka, Senior Director, Program Management, Tech & Head, Global Scaled Solutions, Uber; Dr Geetha Manjunath, Founder and CEO, Niramai, share their vision on empowering women leaders in tech.

Another key session is the one on ‘Upskilling and growing talent in tech for the future’ by the revolutionary Rahul Chari, Founder & CTO, PhonePe. Before building PhonePe, India’s first non-banking payment platform, Rahul was responsible for building the eKart logistics at Flipkart.

Education is one sector which has undergone a tectonic shift owing to COVID-19 disrupting traditional systems of learning and catapulting the rise of interactive classrooms and edtech (education technology) startups. Do not miss this session, ‘How Product Tech & Design are at the core of creating engaging learning solutions in a hybrid world’, as Anil Goel, President Technology, BYJU'S, one of India’s most valued unicorns, is set to share his perspective on pioneering tech redefining digital learning.  

Trust Gaurav Bhalotia, Head of Product and Engineering, Udaan, the game-changing business-to-business (B2B) platform, to deliver key learnings on ‘Reimagining supply chain tech for future commerce’. 

Catch Himanshu Verma, CPTO (Chief Product and Technology Officer), Licious, farm-to-fork meat company and India’s first direct-to-consumer (D2C) unicorn, sharing his key perspectives on the exponentially growing D2C space in the session titled ‘Product thinking: challenges and way ahead for India's D2C space’. 

Last but not the least, Ajit Narayanan, Co-founder and CTO, mfine, an AI-powered healthcare platform, is all set to share the future-ready prescription of how doctors’ work is going to look like in the future in this engaging session, ‘Tech for AI diagnosis - how jobs are going to change for doctors of tomorrow’.  

Key initiatives to watch for at Future of Work 2022

The Future of Work 2022 conference will feature several key initiatives including:

• Recognising ‘30+ Emerging CTOs’ of India who are pushing the boundaries of how technology can serve humans;
• Felicitating the ‘Top 30 Chief Product Officers’ in India who’ve changed the face of legacy products and built innovative offerings;
• Reverse job fairs;
• Masterclasses and technical workshops for attendees;
• Strategic conversations around how product, tech and design is taking on a more humanistic, activistic persona in this new age of socially conscientious asks by consumers

YourStory’s Future of Work event has, historically, been an industry-defining event shaping the thinking of not just budding entrepreneurs and startup founders, but also well-established designers, technologists, innovators, product managers and brand identity creators.

Over the last four editions of the Future of Work event, we’ve reached over 100 million people in tech-product-design, hosted over 2,000 attendees per day, across 20+ masterclasses, 5+ tracks, and 50+ sessions.

Join the Future of Work conference here.