In the first ever MIT-India Conference held on Sept. 23 at the MIT Media Lab, speakers from both MIT and India explored the challenges associated with India’s rapid expansion, including energy distribution, rural access to health care, and efforts to curb governmental corruption.

The event opened with a welcome address by Chancellor Grimson who described the friendship between MIT and India as a century long friendship. In 1906 Ishwar Das Varshnei became the first Indian to graduate from MIT. In 2010, his great-great-grandsons, twins Kush and Lav, followed in his footsteps, earning PhDs in electrical engineering and computer science. Today, more than 270 students of Indian descent attend MIT .

The conference featured entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, finance experts and government officials from India, as well as MIT faculty working on India-related projects. The one-day event sought to strengthen the relationship between MIT and India.

The plenary session was focused on Energy and the environment. Panelists Michael Greenstone, E.A.S Sharma, Venkatesh Narayanamurthi, Robert Stoner explored the role technology can play in resolving the conflict between energy generation and environmental preservation. Prof. Moniz served as the moderator.

Panelists discussed the potential contributions of solar, natural gas and nuclear energy, the overall consensus was that it would take a combination of approaches to solve India’s energy problem. And in many cases, those solutions will have to be extremely affordable.  They agreed that the problem was not simple for an opportunity in one area can lead to a challenge in another.

The panel on health care discussed the issues around affordability and access. Panelists Jonathan Jackson, Kenneth Cahill, Bhargav Dasgupta and Ashwin Naik, discussed a wide range of ideas from telemedicine to micro-insurance. Panelists noted that much of India’s health care is provided on an out-of-pocket basis, with very little spent on preventive care. Kenneth Cahill, a principal at Deloitte Consulting, observed that India spends less than 1 percent of its gross domestic product on health care. Ashwin Naik, CEO of Vaatsalya Healthcare, agreed that preventive care is often short-changed, stressing that Indian hospitals should reach out to rural, poor communities to educate people about it.

Anurag Bhatnagar, Pankaj Vaish and Mohanjit Jolly were on the finance panel that was moderated by S.P.Kothari.  They presented the opportunities and challenges of working in a very dynamic environment and presented many of the creative investment strategies used.

A very animated panel discussion occurred in the governance panel that was moderated by Abhijit Banerjee. Panelists Jay Panda, E.A.S Sharma and Vini Mahajan presented the various challenges faced by different branches of the government. Lack of adequate number of judges, small staff for ministers and an ancient election system were blamed for many of the problems.

Frugal innovation talked about a variety of low cost tools. Venkatesh Narayanamurti, former dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, pointed to Indians’ recent widespread adoption of clean-burning cookstoves as an example of affordable “reverse innovation.” The low-tech cookstoves have reduced the indoor air pollution associated with traditional biomass-fueled stoves.

N.R. Narayana Murthy, the conference’s keynote speaker and founder and chairman emeritus of Infosys Limited, said the time is right for those who choose to work in India.

“They can be part of an era where there’s so much confidence, there is so much hope, there is so much ambition,” Murthy said. “And there is so much that needs to be done.”

Looking forward, the conference’s keynote speakers, Murthy and Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks Inc., addressed audience members, many of them MIT students, with ideas on how to make a mark in India’s complex, dynamic culture.

Deshpande counseled students against taking a “pre-packaged” view of India, urging them instead to go there for a year and “get the local flavor” before starting a venture. “Ideas change, and you need to be open to change,” he said.

The conference gave attendees a good overall feel about various aspects of doing business in India.

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