A webinar on ‘Climate Change Agenda in COVID-19 Impacted World: Psychology's Contribution’ was conducted by Mr. Sanjay Vashist, Director - Climate Action Network South Asia. The talk by Mr. Vashist covered aspects of lifestyle and its impact on environment. While COVID19 has shifted the priorities and put many urgent tasks on the back burner, the lecture delved on the impact of COVID19 on Climate Change agenda and role of psychology in near future. Mr. Vashist shared how the sudden onset has disrupted the march towards addressing issues around climate change and how environmental disasters now have become extreme in nature. He elaborated at length on how a half degree change in global temperature would cause widespread impact on natural resources around the globe.
He further stated how 2019 saw a calendar of climate change induced disasters striking the country and the series is still continuing. “We are facing a multi-hazard situation with a ‘neo-Normal+ COVID’ season ahead of us. The work on building long-term resilience would be affected,” said Mr. Vashist. He also elaborated on the population living on the edge i.e. the migrant population facing financial, physical and emotional distress as always. “Lockdown in India has affected 40 million migrants, says World Bank. Further, reverse migration due to lockdown has compromised resilience built so far and the unsafe movement has exposed migrants to COVID and affected their coping capacity further,” said Mr. Vashist. He averred that the present pandemic and its effect has made the achievement of SDG’s a challenging task.
Another webinar on ‘Banking Scenario Post Covid in India’ was conducted by Mr. S Ganesh Kumar - Ex Executive Director - Reserve Bank of India who shared how post COVID there will be a plethora of opportunities across sectors including banking and all segments would attain normalcy after a period of time. He also averred how banking has evolved over a period of time and the future will see Artificial Intelligence and other techniques play a major role in the sector. It was discussed how post COVID people would prefer to operate banking services from their homes than paying a visit to the banks themselves. Most of the transactions would be virtual and banks would have to reposition their offerings and services accordingly. He also averred how banks would have to offer new solutions for addressing customer queries.
A webinar on “The journey of being a lonely decision maker – How could decision makers cope with speed, scope and significance of change during and after the covid-19 conditions are lifted” was conducted by Dr. Abed Baidas - Group Chairman & CEO - Identity Branding Forum, Dubai, UAE. Dr. Baidas, in his vibrant and interactive session with students, sought their views on what their biggest worry was, what were they planning to do about it and how they expected him to help them. He advised students to be the leader as Covid-19 has created new conditions and changed the market DNA. He stated how Covid-19 broke the chain that connected business with people; killed the marketplace as we know it but it did not kill the market demand. “Leaders will have to devise ways to connect with consumers post Covid-19. We need to stop focusing on bricks but start focusing on the clicks. People are now taking charge as they have the remote control for the future market,” suggested Dr. Baidas.
A webinar on ‘Sensing, Shaping & Storming New Business Norms Post the Pandemic’ was conducted by Ms. Anisha Motwani, Brand & Innovation Expert and Speaker. She talked about the three possible types of recoveries suggested by economists including V, U and L shaped recoveries. She stated how history has evidenced that human perseverance has trumped epidemic disasters & economies have recovered, albeit slowly & carefully. “We do bounce back each time, but in the immediacy of a disaster and it’s near term aftermath, we tend to catastrophize and not be able to look beyond the worst case scenario,” said Ms. Motwani. She shared areas that present an opportunity to unlock hidden value & create industry inflection points including plan for recovery using the ‘Barbell Strategy’; focus on Make in India; look for an agile platform approach to business operations; look for collaborations, partners & shared economy; strong brands will prevail albeit with different roles of marketing; have an eclectic mix of workforce; omni channel & physical will become a next norm; the renaissance of Branded Micro Retail Stores and how Supply chain management will open new advantages. She also averred how the consumers will evolve and so will their needs.
A lecture by Ar Chenthur Raaghav Naagendran, Co- founder, A+R Architects was delivered on ‘How to design intelligent buildings and cities?’ Mr. Naagendran said that Number of IOT devices have grown from 10 billion to 35 billion by 2020. “Data and energy are wealth. Imagine a future where we blur the boundary between building material and technology. It’s time to start inhabiting spaces which are intelligent. So the vision of the future is a world where the buildings user and the environment come together to form a symbiotic ecosystem. Future is definitely intelligent cities with responsive buildings, and street adapting and interacting the User and Environment,” said Mr. Naagendran.
Talking about urban planning to prevent spread of Covid 2020 he shared about building integrated green and blue spaces within the zone. “All the facilities should be provided within the zone to stop overcrowding and maintain social distancing. Every zone must have its own hospitals, malls, supermarket, bank, restaurants and open spaces so that there won’t be any necessity to travel to another zone. Corporation schools can be converted to community kitchens and markets. Cities with integration of smart sensors and IOT gadgets to support planners and city officials,” said Mr. Naagendran.