300+ Global & Indian Leaders Gather to Tackle UN SDGs

This week saw the second annual gathering of leading business leaders, policymakers, academics and artists at the Xynteo Exchange/India2022 hosted at the Nehru Centre, Mumbai.

India2022 is a purpose-driven global business coalition committed to creating a new model of growth in India by 2022, the 75th year of India’s independence. The event showcased a number of initiatives that are addressing systemic transformation in energy, waste, healthcare and mining. A series of workshops involving some of the brightest minds from a wide range of specialisms and sectors worked on accelerating current India2022 projects. Combined, these aim to achieve a vision for more sustainable and inclusive growth in India.

Accelerating and scaling sustainable solutions

Following the success of last year’s inaugural event, this year’s Exchange centered on how to scale collaborative, commercial and sustainable solutions covering four macro scale challenges: Accelerate penetration of clean energy solutions; establish working models of circularity, in particular plastic waste; deliver high quality and accessible diagnostic healthcare; adopt best-in-class sustainable mining practices.

The launch of MedTechConnect, a platform for delivering disruptive medical technologies

Cyient and the India2022 coalition announced the launch of a new ecosystem platform, MedTechConnect. This innovative platform will bring together all MedTech stakeholders to address India’s ‘last-mile challenge’ in healthcare, with the aim of touching millions of lives by 2022 and beyond. Currently, a large segment of India’s population does not have access to basic healthcare services, and nearly 80 percent of its medical technologies are imported. To combat this, MedTechConnect will work collaboratively with stakeholders to deliver disruptive medical technologies and catalyse innovative business models.

Krishna Bodanapu, Managing Director and CEO, Cyient said that to realise the full growth potential of India and all of its people, they need to have a healthy population. They need to transform the incumbent healthcare system to leverage technology and make it relevant to current realities. Their ambition with MedTechConnect is to transform the health of millions of people, by creating accessible healthcare to those most in need, said Bodanapu.

innoDI Water Technologies wins Impact Maker Award, and the chance to scale up rapidly

innoDI Water Technologies Private Limited won the Impact Maker award, which recognises the project with most potential to reinvent the growth model in India. They have won the chance to showcase their venture to over 300 global leaders at the Marketplace at the Xynteo Exchange/Norway, in Oslo in October.

The company won the award for their Capacitive Deionization technology (CDI), a water treatment system that treats ground or surface water to produce clean drinking water. Their technology is noteworthy because less than 20 percent is wasted during the treatment process, as well as being highly energy and cost efficient.

Vijay Sampath, Director, innoDI Water Technologies, said that they are absolutely thrilled to win this award and to get recognition for the work we’re doing. To be chosen among so many other incredible impact-driven projects is very humbling. They can’t wait to visit Oslo and build more momentum, he said.

India2022 coalition comments

Osvald Bjelland, Chairman and CEO, Xynteo said that India is excellently equipped to accelerate a new type of growth with the fastest growing economy in the world, and a huge proportion of young and well-educated people. The India2022 coalition and the hundreds of leaders joining us at this year's Xynteo Exchange/India2022 illustrate a collective will to take action. Together, they are seeing strong progress and the coalition is starting to deliver real value, said Bjelland.

Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever, President, Unilever, South Asia. Chair India2022 Executive Committee, said that they have started to see traction with their business-led coalition. Working with some of the best businesses in India and on the global stage, they are pooling their talent and resources to tackle some of the intractable problems they face as a society. They all recognise that these problems cannot be solved working alone, they need business, government and NGOs to work together to solve these problems in the smartest and quickest manner.

Harry Brekelmans, Projects & Technology Director, Member of Executive Committee, Royal Dutch Shell, said that the growth model that served them so well for many decades is starting to reach the edge of its abilities. The India2022 coalition is working on a range of solutions including creating accessible, affordable and sustainable energy solutions to off-grid small towns and cities in India. They’re looking at a range of products, including bio-fuels, converting waste to fuel, providing clean energy to people that currently don’t have any access