A webinar on ‘Parenting during Covid 19- Open the Door to Your Child’s World’ was conducted by Dr. Ritu Gupta, Health Expert and Coach, National Faculty for Adolescent & young Adult Programme. She shared how the quality of one’s life is determined by their relationships. “These are unprecedented and extraordinary times being witnessed for the first time in our lives. People are in different spaces in their life since the last two months, locked up in their homes,” said Dr. Gupta. She averred how there are some who are relieved and overwhelmed with this break while some are stressed, overburdened, overworked and scared for their future.
The interactive webinar had participant sharing the varied emotions like anxiety and uncertainty they were facing during this period of lockdown. Dr Gupta said that life has always been uncertain and will be in the future as well. “We don’t know what will happen in the next instance as circumstances are not in our control but how we deal with them is in our control. And are we preparing ourselves and our kids to deal with these uncertainties? Children are looking at us to learn how we are dealing with these uncertain times as we are their role models,” shared Dr. Gupta. She further detailed on how it was important to tell our child that it is ok to fail and we should look beyond the tip of the iceberg of their emotions and find out their source and introspect on their behavior. She advised parents to share about their childhood experiences and emotions with their children to understand them better.
A webinar on Design Thinking: Innovation through Empathy was conducted by Mr. Siddhant Agarwal, Program Coordinator (Developer Relations team), Google India. He stated how design thinking helps foster a culture of innovation by introducing a product or a process catering to the needs of the consumer. He also averred how design sprint, a framework for answering critical business questions through design prototyping and testing ideas with users, helps one to paint the future. He shared that the design thinking process involves to empathize; define; ideate; prototype and test.
The session also focused on how in the recent initiatives taken to fight the pandemic, a key group that was forgotten for some time was people with hearing and talking disabilities. Mr. Agarwal shared the example of a girl who empathized with this set of people and designed a face mask with a transparent sheet to allow people to read their lip movement. He further averred how it’s important in design thinking to define & ideate on how to deal with a particular scenario to develop a product. “The next step is to create a prototype to demonstrate some aspect of the proposed product in a low cost manner,” stated Mr. Agarwal. Further testing and validating is done based on the feedback of the consumers.
A virtual discussion on Stress free meditative life / Art of Relaxation was conducted by Swami Bodhi Vartman (Dr. Manoj Rangarh) - Manager Environment - VPHEP-THDCIL, Pipalkoti. Swami Bodhi Vartman embraced Osho Neo-Sanyas in late 90’s. Since then he is actively spreading OSHO’s message of Love & Meditation across various sections of society ranging from school going children to well accomplished professionals. It was averred during the discussion how the growing population is reducing the resources and increasing stress in the population. Stress is becoming behavior of life now affecting people of all age groups. He averred how people are always worried of the past and the future and never live in the present moment, being the primary cause of stress. “Meditation helps us to look within and derive peace. Even modern practitioners suggest mediation now to relieve stress,” stated Swami Bodhi Vartman who also suggested laughter therapy, meditating with eyes closed etc as methods to relive stress.
A lecture by Prof. Dr. Azhar Kazmi, Professor, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia was delivered on ‘Business Responsibility in Times of Crisis’. While addressing the virtual gathering Dr. Azhar Kazmi briefed about the aftermath of crises. “After counting losses, society recovers, economies rebound, lives and lifestyle change forever. Moreover, several long- term trends alter course and new trends will emerge as even the mental models reconfigure,” stated Dr. Kazmi. He also added how crises isn't a new thing and is present in all spheres of human activity including business.
He further stated that crises management is an established discipline and contingency planning is a part of most organisation's planning process. He talked at length about Business Responsibility that is defined as the commitment of an enterprise to operate in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner while balancing the interests of diverse stakeholders. “Economic responsibility of business is to itself to survive and grow. Capacity of business to survive organizations varies ( e.g. Size). Social responsibility of business is to help society to survive and grow and capacity of business to contribute to society varies,” shared Dr. Kazmi. He also averred that Environmental Responsibility of business is very significant at this time as it adds to the effort to contain the spread of disease. He also stated that businesses have responsibility towards society (CSR), environment (corporate sustainability) and shareholders (corporate governance).
Prof. Kamal Bhattacharya, Professor of IT Management, IUBH International University, Germany and Co-Founder & CEO of Mojochat LLC-U delivered a lecture on ‘The Art of a conversation and the Role of AI in developing 21st Century Skills’. He talked about Skills referred to as technical task requirement that are necessary for effective performance of jobs. Talking about various types of skills he shared about ‘Cognitive that receive most attention, make the most money and are closely related to education; Interpersonal: soft skills, everyone considers as important, hard to measure attainment; Manual: least tracked, most affected by automation’.
He also talked about how a new wave of automation is changing the nature of work. “The labor force is getting older, technical skills at the median income levels scarcer hence; firms are pressured to automate faster. The digital era has catalyzed the simultaneous growth of high education high wage and low education/low wage jobs at the expense of middle skill jobs. AI, by reducing the cost of predictions, is opening new opportunities, especially in areas where collecting historical data is feasible. The barrier to entry for AI is low. Hence, there is an unprecedented wave of innovation globally,” said Prof. Bhattacharya.