Events

06 May 2020|Noida | Amity University, Noida

Varying social issues discussed during webinars at Amity University

During a webinar on ‘Child Protection During pandemic COVID-19’, Ms. Tannistha Datta, Child Protection Specialist - UNICEF India shared that this global occurrence will have a massive impact on children. “COVID-19 is a health crisis that risks evolving into a broader child-rights crisis. The social-economic impact of the virus is potentially catastrophic for many children,” shared Ms. Datta. She also averred how globally, after disasters, vulnerability of women and children rises, sharing examples of various global disasters that have occurred in the past and its repercussions. In India, CHILDLINE saw a 50% increase in calls received immediately post lockdown. “Key child protection concerns observed during COVID-19 lockdown include stress and anxiety; increase in cases of violence; increase family separation; child labour, trafficking due to loss of livelihood; stigma and social inclusion,” shared Ms. Datta. She also elaborated at length on the increased risk of violence in children during this period of lockdown due to varying reasons and stress among the caregivers and the family. “Several examples of domestic violence are being seen across the globe during this period of lockdown. Also, online safety is also a major concern for the children with a number of issues arising as they have increased access to online devices and activities without much monitoring and not having enough open conversations with them to inform them of dangers lurking in the online space,” shared Ms. Datta. A webinar on "Startup Canvas - 9 Steps to Startup Success" was conducted by Mr. Saurabh Jain, Vice President – PayTm. Elaborating upon who is an entrepreneur, Mr. Jain shared his entrepreneurial journey with the attendees. “Technology is just one part of being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur requires you to read a lot and I try to read at least one book every week related to entrepreneurship and start-ups,” shared Mr. Jain who also elaborated upon what a start-up is. He further shared the various challenges that occur while operating a start-up. “You will have to embrace uncertainty if you want to be a start-up entrepreneur in either of the categories including ‘Winner takes all start-up’, ‘Lifestyle start-up’ or a social start-up,” shared Mr. Jain. He further shared 3 goals of a startup including portfolio of products, culture and having an IPO. “The focus areas of start-up founders include Product, People and Purchasing Power. The three stages of start-up life cycle include search, build and scale,” averred Mr. Jain. Another lecture by Mr. Unnikrishnan ECK, DGM (Rtd), Bank of India was delivered on the topic ‘Skill development essentials to succeed after Corona Virus’. While delivering the lecture Mr Unnikrishnan said that in this pandemic is a time to improve the skills. “As a student or as an employee if you are not doing so then you are doing a crime to yourself. Once you are emotionally strong with positive attitude then you are successful. This is time of uncertainty and some people are worried about their jobs and some are worried about their academic year etc. But if you plan well and stay strong emotionally and redefine your goals, then we can relieve our stress,” shared Mr. Unnikrishnan. He also advised the students to develop mental and spiritual strength. “Try to be flexible and learn new skills. Foundation is very necessary and once you have foundation with positive thoughts then your action will be accepted by all. You all should improve communications skills - Oral and written as well, read what interests you and work upon your body language,” averred Mr. Unnikrishnan. A webinar by Mr. Divya Prakash Ahuja, Managing Director, Live Bean Hospitality & Asset Management was conducted on the topic ‘Hospitality Asset Management in the time of COVID 19’. “According to Live bean projections international travel is adversely affected for 5 to 6 months before any sense of normalcy sets in (at least 50% less travel- IATA Economics). This would translate into a loss of 700 to 900 US$ billion in international tourism receipts. Over 100 million jobs in the industry are at risk as hotels are presently either shut or operating at minimum occupancy. Tourism economics projects that it will take till 2020 before business in travel returns to 2019 levels,” shared Mr. Ahuja. He advised students to take potential measures during this situation and try to reduce the fixed costs if possible like Internet services, cable TV etc. “Manpower cost cutting can be done by termination, reduced salaries, leave without pay or Hybrid models of the above. Tourism and travel industry will have to leave middle seat empty in flights; Sanitize lobby, public areas and guest rooms; follow limited spaced restaurant seating; have temperature checks at various points; follow social distancing in public areas and say bye-bye hand shake, welcome elbow bumps and Namaste,” averred Mr. Ahuja. Another webinar on ‘Mind over Matter’ was conducted by Mr. Avinash Tiku, Director Youth Affairs, The Art of Living Organization. He averred that mind is a very powerful human tool. “We should always keep our mind calm. Social activities also affect our mind in a positive or negative manner like the COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting us and has made everyone locked in their homes. Constantly watching news and seeing updates about the disease is making people restless and affecting the mental health and making them wonder when they will lead a normal life,” shared Mr. Tiku. He also shared how one can keep our mind calm by doing yoga and meditation and how our mind can control and cure any situation or disease. He asked students to practice yoga on a daily basis for betterment of their health. A lecture by Mr Pankaj Mathur, Co- founder & President, Cogni Tensor Technology Pvt Ltd was delivered on ‘Emergence of Artificial Intelligence as a Business Tool and Solution’. While delivering the lecture Mr Mathur said that Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science that helps to create intelligent machines that simulate human decision making process with high level of efficiency, accuracy and precision. “AI is essential in two ways where business has started or starting. It plays an important role in various fields like Learning, Natural Language processing, Image processing, Robotics, Solving complex problems and Reason and logics. AI is a term related with deep learning, machine learning and Data Science. Data is the new oil which is actionable insights, Increase Revenue, reduce costs and data- driven decisions. Predictive Analytics can be done from AI and can be used anywhere or everywhere,” shared Mr. Mathur. He also shared how machine learning in business application has different roles like supervised learning which includes fraud detection; predictive maintenance; unsupervised learning including customer segmentation recommender system and reinforcement learning like game AI.