Aimed at bringing together the finest minds in IT, health, housing and smart city domains, Elets Technomedia organised the Innovation Summit in Chandigarh recently. The summit hosted a number of policymakers, industry leaders, international experts, innovators and IT experts to speak and ideate on various innovations that are gradually transforming India.

The objective of this summit was to discuss the key theme of innovation across areas like governance, infrastructure, health, education, BFSI, energy and technology sectors.

The sessions of the summit were spread across themes like innovation across sustainability, information technology, healthcare, education, smart cities and governance.

The inaugural theme, 'Innovation for a Better Future', was addressed by Kamal Kishore Yadav, Municipal Commissioner, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation; TL Satyaprakash, Secretary, Department of Home and Director, Skill Development Department, Government of Haryana; Ajoy Sharma, Secretary, Local Government, Government of Punjab; A Venu Prasad, Principal Secretary, Local Government, Government of Punjab; Rajesh Kumar, Head of Technology Strategy (Public Sector) Microsoft India; and Sunny Singh, Founder, RoundGlass Wellbeing Pvt Ltd.

The session began with the address by Rajesh Kumar of Microsoft. He said that digitisation is the need of the hour. Be it governance, education or healthcare, information technology is playing an important part in each sector of development.

Taking the session forward, Yadav shared the various innovative sustainable measures taken by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation. “At Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, we are working on ideas like how to maintain and sustain the usage and availability of water, creating renewable energy, use of mass rapid transport system along with public bike sharing or cycling system, waste management etc.,” he said.

Listen to the ideas of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav on innovations for a better future. He was a keynote speaker at #Elets #InnovationSummit at #Chandigarh. @ChandigarhAdmin @PunjabGovtIndia @eletsonline https://t.co/u5Tir8Ruah

— eGov Magazine (@egovonline) March 15, 2019

Prasad stated that technology has to be robust, user friendly and cost effective to be adopted by all.

A Venu Prasad, Principal Secretary, Local Government, @PunjabGovtIndia speaks on innovation for a better future#innovationsummit #chandigarh @avenuprasad1963 @innovationchandigarh @eletsonline https://t.co/00n7yeOuJ3

— eGov Magazine (@egovonline) March 15, 2019

Sharma on the other hand said, “We have come out with 24*7 water supplies, projects in health and skill development. Cities looking at being smart need to have a holistic outlook.”

Ajoy Sharma's address in the inaugural session on innovation for a better future. #innovationsummit #chandigarh @PunjabGovtIndia @innovationchandigarh @eletsonline https://t.co/mKcZ2iPuyT

— eGov Magazine (@egovonline) March 15, 2019

Singh talked about the model village initiative taken up by Roundglass in Mohali where various initiatives have been taken up such as water treatment, waste management, plantation of trees, curbing drug menace by creating awareness through sports, etc.

Satya Prakash shared the technological innovations Government of Haryana is planning to implement for better governance and the challenges being faced. The other sessions of the day dealt with the themes of artificial intelligence and block chain, health care, smart cities and governance.