Chief Guest

Smt. Droupadi Murmu Hon'ble President of India

In The August Presence Of

Shri Mohan Charan Majhi Chief Minister Odisha
Dr Mukesh Mahaling Minister, Health and Family welfare, Parliamentary Affairs, Electronics & Information Technology Odisha
Shri Suryabanshi Suraj Minister, Higher Education, Sports & Youth Services, Odia Language Literature & Culture Odisha

All speakers

Yanan Wu

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Surfin Meta Digital Technology Pte. Ltd

Dr Wu is CEO and Founder of Surfin Meta Digital Technology (SMDT) Pte Ltd, a Singapore-headquartered financial technology solutions provider for the underserved.
He began his career as a research scientist in the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center as well as the Los Alamos National Lab, where he published several academic papers on first-rate physical journals.
Dr Wu then kickstarted his financial career by joining a hedge fund for quant trading, before moving on to a large bank in Canada for 13 years as a senior portfolio manager, managing $30 billion in AUM for global asset allocation and quant strategies. Following that, he moved to Asia as Head of Quantitative Investment Director of an international mutual fund company, and was responsible for managing $4 billion in AUM with a focus on Asian equities for 5 years.
SMDT was founded in 2017, inspired by Dr Wu’s passion for bringing financial inclusion to the unbanked and underbanked. He hopes to utilize his financial training combined with his love for technology to create a unique cross-border platform that will aim to provide financial services such as consumer lending and credit cards, payments and remittances, wealth management as well as B2B solutions to those who are unable to access traditional financial institutions.

Speaking at

1:45–2:45pmThu 5 FebBlack Swan DebatesCentral HallPremium
Next-Gen Global Capability Centre

Assessing Odisha’s GCC ecosystem: In the age of automation and AI, should we adopt technology-led or talent-led growth strategy to future-proof the GCC ecosystem more effectively?

Black Swan DebatesCentral HallPremium
About this session

As AI and automation reshape the Global Capability Centre (GCC) landscape, Odisha faces a critical strategic choice: should it build its competitive advantage around cutting-edge technology infrastructure and AI capabilities, or invest primarily in developing specialized talent pools that can adapt as technology evolves?
The Technology-Led Case: GCCs will gravitate toward locations with superior digital infrastructure, AI/ML platforms, data centers, and automation-ready facilities. Odisha should become the testbed for next-generation GCC operations focused on analytics and innovation rather than routine tasks.
The Talent-Led Case: Technology commoditizes quickly. What differentiates sustainable GCC ecosystems is specialized talent, particularly in regulated domains (finance, insurance), multilingual capabilities for ASEAN/Japanese markets, and the human judgment and creativity that AI cannot replicate. Odisha should invest in academia-industry partnerships and niche expertise that builds irreplaceable human capital.
This debate brings together GCC leaders, technology providers, policymakers, and talent strategists to examine Odisha's optimal path forward, identifying critical success factors for each strategy, deal-breakers that make either approach unviable, and whether a precisely sequenced hybrid model offers the most realistic route to making Odisha a competitive, future-proofed GCC destination by 2030.
5:45–6:15pmThu 5 FebBlack Swan DebatesCentral HallOpen
Others

Driving Impact: The Corporate Champions of BharatNetra

Black Swan DebatesCentral HallOpen
About this session

Announcing the Corporate Champions committing to support the BharatNetra programme with jobs, innovative technological solutions and more.