ICRIER Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy
Annual Conference 2026
State of India’s Digital Economy

AGENDA
9:00 am – 9:30 am : Registration

9:30 am – 10:50 am : Inaugural Session and Report Launch

9:30 am – 9:35 am : Opening Address by Pramod Bhasin, Chairperson, ICRIER

9:35 am – 9:50 am : Keynote Address by Abhishek Singh, Former CEO, India AI Mission

9:50 am – 9:55 am : Launch of the State of India’s Digital Economy 2026 Report

9:55 am – 10:15 am : Report Presentation by Deepak Mishra, Distinguished Visiting Professor, ICRIER

Discussants
10:15 am – 10:25 am : Helani Galpaya, CEO, LIRNEasia

10:25 am – 10:35 am : Nitin Pai, Co-founder and Director, Takshashila Institution

Session Chair & Moderator
Shekhar Aiyar, Director and CE, ICRIER

10:35 am – 10:45 am : Audience Interaction

10:45 am – 10:50 am Vote of Thanks by David Tudor, Group General Counsel, Prosus

10:50 am – 11:10 am : Fireside Chat

In Conversation with
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Co-Founder, Info Edge and Board of Governors, ICRIER

Session Chair & Moderator
Pramod Bhasin, Chairperson, ICRIER

11:10 am – 11:30 am : Tea Break

11:30 am – 12:15 pm : Lightning Talks

11:30 am – 11:45 am : Digital Public Infrastructure
Sanjay Jain, Director, Digital Public Infrastructure, Gates Foundation (virtual)

11:45 am – 12:00 pm : Why Bharat Cannot Afford to “Rent” Intelligence
Gaurav Aggarwal, Chief AI Scientist, Reliance Jio

12:00 pm – 12:15 pm : How will startups help Humans and India win in the age of AI
Purva Bhandari, Strategy and Operations, Deccan AI

Session Chair & Moderator
Payal Malik, Visiting Professor, ICRIER

12:15 pm – 12:25 pm : Changeover

12:25 pm – 1:40 pm : Panel Discussion: AI, Economy, State and Society

Prakash Kumar, Former CEO, Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN)
Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director and Senior Fellow, IT for Change
Girish Krishnamurthy, CEO & MD, Tata MD
Vibhav Mithal, Associate Fellow, CeRAI, IIT Madras
Aalekh Sharan, Head, Agentic AI & Head, Public Sector, Sarvam AI

Session Chair & Moderator
R. Chandrashekhar, Former President, NASSCOM, Former Secretary, Department of Information Technology and Department of Telecommunications, Government of India

1:40 pm – 1:45 pm : Conference Concludes

1:45 pm onwards : Lunch