21st MMA All India Management Students Convention
Madras Management Association in partnership with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung conducted the 21st MMA All India Management Students Convention on Tuesday, 27 September at IIT Research Park Auditorium, Chennai. The theme for this year’s convention was ‘AI Shaping Today and The Future.’ The convention started with invocation rendered by Ms Padmaja. Mr Suresh Raman, President, MMA and Vice-President & Regional Head, TCS Chennai welcomed the gathering. Mr V Shankar, Convention Chairman & Director, ACSYS Investments Pvt Ltd gave an overview of the convention.
Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, delivered the key note address, in which he stressed that students must have a deep foundation in Data Science & Programming to learn Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Dr M Arumugam, MD, Broadline Technologies, spoke about the evolution of quantum computing and its possible use in genomics and cancer cure. There are wearables using AI which can detect formation of a colony of cancer cells in a human body, in a very early stage, he said.
Dr K Senthil Kumar, CEO & Director, Tamilnadu Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Corporation (TUAVC), gave a live demo of a drone developed by them in Chennai with 80% indigenous components. He spoke about the awards won by them in challenging drone competitions. He hoped that by 2030, India will become the drone hub of the world. They have employed and trained 15 transgenders in their organization. He also said that this segment offers three areas for a career—drone manufacturing, drone pilot and drone management.
Mr Rave Shankarr, Partner, DB Productions, gave a live demo of virtual production, which can bring to the audience the experience of any setting from anywhere in the world, shot with a camera inside the virtual studio. This will bring down the cost of production and time taken. It offers ease of usage in a controlled environment. Most outdoor shootings take a long time to shoot and may also be disrupted by bad weather; in a virtual production, this problem will not be there, he said.
Mr Mithun Sacheti, CEO, CaratLane, spoke about how they have used AI for closely analyzing the customer’s footprints online and increasing the sales substantially. Mr Vijay Karunakaran, CEO, InGage Technologies Pvt Ltd., spoke on the theme, ‘AI transforming lives beyond work.’
MMA also held the grand finale of Chanakya-The Mastermind competition to judge the best management student of the year 2022. The students went through a series of tests and ten shortlisted students made it to the grand finale. Out of that, Deepika Venkatesan of SSN School of Management was declared the winner. She walked away with prize money of Rs 1 lakh.
Mr D Lakshminarayanan, MD, Sundaram Home Finance Pvt Ltd., delivered the welcome address for the valedictory function. “We live in a VUCA world and these are testing times for the corporate world. The last two years turned things upside down,” he said and hoped that the deliberations of the convention would inspire all aspiring managers in understanding the importance of digital transformation of businesses.
Mr Vijay Shankar, Deputy Chairman, Sanmar Group, delivered the valedictory address. He spoke on how Sanmar Group embraced technology and been an early adaptor of technology.
“We probably had the first fax machine in Chennai. We were among the first of the industrial houses to move to SAP way back in 1997. We were among the first Indian companies to outsource IT in India. We were very early in digitising our records. We had robots at our foundry and engineering businesses fairly early. We also adopted zero liquid discharge technology in our chemical plants where we work closely with IIT Madras,” he said.
Since AI has unmatched ability to process large amount of data, there is an opportunity for the manufacturing industry to be early adaptors of AI, Mr Vijay Shankar pointed out. He outlined the areas in which Sanmar Group has begun to use AI and the future areas envisaged by them for application of AI. “We are now using AI in the areas of energy efficiency and process optimisation; safety compliance; forecasting and inventory management; and predictive maintenance,” he said. He expressed the hope that we will use ethical AI that will impact the society at large in a positive way and ensure that the benefits of the technology reach all strata of the society.