Key takeaways from Jack Condon, Dr Geetha Manjunath, Rahul Chari, Akshay Munjal, Himanshu Verma, and more at Day 1 of Future of Work Conference 2022

YourStory’s Future of Work conference 2022 is aimed at equipping industry stalwarts, creators and thinkers to come together and deliver actionable insights and connections to predict a better future.

As Day 1 of the fifth edition of the Future of Work conference ended on a high note of ideas and inspiration, we couldn’t have asked for more. 

From conversations around a hybrid work culture to women in tech, from reskilling the workforce of the future to accelerating innovative product and design thinking — we got everything covered.

Jack Condon, Evangelist, Epic Game; Dr Geetha Manjunath, Founder and CEO (chief executive officer), Niramai; Rahul Chari, Founder and CTO (Chief Technology Officer), PhonePe; Anil Goel, President Technology, BYJU'S; Gaurav Bhalotia, Head of Product and Engineering, Udaan; Himanshu Verma, CPTO, (Chief Product and Technology Officer), Licious; Saurabh Arora, Co-founder, Plum; Ajit Narayanan, Co-founder and CTO, mfine; Geeta Gurnani, Country Head, Modern Work, Microsoft India, and more came together at the virtual event to help reshape and reimagine the futuristic ways of work. 

The day began with an insightful keynote on fuelling the future with equitable work experiences by Hussain Zaidi, Director, Growth and Transformation, Strategic and Specialty Sales, Kyndryl. And as he rightly mentioned, today, we are in the digital age, and the digital era will forefront new dimensions and structures likely to fuel deeper collaborations between tech and the workforce.

Jack Condon, Evangelist, Epic Games took the stage next. He spoke at length about creating real-time ICVFX/animation in a hybrid world. “In real-time rendering the interesting part is the work given because of the fact that we have immediate feedback, and are able to analyse and make up our minds as creatives instantly,” said Jack.

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An interesting panel discussion on representation of women in tech was up next. The panellists Vidhya Seetharaman, Chief of Staff to the CTO at Swiggy; Megha Yathadka, Senior Director, Programme Management Tech and Head Global Scale Solutions, Uber; Dr Geetha Manjunath, Founder and CEO, Niramai, delved into the key gaps and challenges for women looking to build their careers in tech.

“It needs a holistic approach, right from the grassroot education level to growing through the ranks in a corporate career, and investing in that community, building mentorship and sponsorship, to help increase women’s representation in tech,” highlighted Megha.

Rahul Chari, Founder and CTO, PhonePe shared penny-wise thoughts and more on ‘Upskilling and growing talent in tech for the future’. “Getting talent that has experience dealing with complexities at this scale where performance can never be compromised is what we need. We have a model that complements on-the-job learning,” Rahul surmised.

Highlighting challenges for D2C (direct-to-consumer) startups in India, Himanshu Verma, CPTO, Licious said, “It is one thing to build a small-scale business but it is another thing to build a nationwide brand that provides a consistent quality product.”

Fireside chats on concepts such as ‘Product, tech and design in a hybrid world’ by Anil Goel, President Technology, BYJU'S; ‘Reimagining supply chain tech for future commerce’ by Gaurav Bhalotia, Head of Product and Engineering, Udaan; ‘Importance of corporate health protection plan for SMEs’ by Saurabh Arora, Co-founder, Plum; ‘Changing role of future doctors’ by Ajit Narayanan, Co-founder and CTO, Mfine also gained limelight.

The masterclass by experts such as Ashish Gupta, CTO and CPO, Progcap; Ranadheer Velamuri, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Locus; Mahesh Kumar, Cloud Solution Architect, Microsoft; Namrata Tata, Managing Partner, House of Cheer Networks and Gaurav Chaubey, Co-founder, Mesh took the audience deeper into reimagining the future of work and building skills for future workforces.

Check out all sessions on Day 1 here. Don’t forget to log in tomorrow as the excitement continues and many more enthralling conversations take place on Day 2 of Future of Work Conference, 2022.