The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) Kuwait Chapter under the leadership of CA. Sriram Gopalakrishnan organizes 2nd Annual International Conference with “Prism Possibilities” on Saturday 3rd November at Radisson Blu Hotel Kuwait.
Renowned speakers from India who are experts in their field shared about their success stories and the unique ways of how they converted possibilities to opportunities. This included people from a varies strata of society including sports personnel, spiritual gurus, start-up champions, runaway leaders who took small time opportunities to mountains of success.
The speakers of the day were Mr. S. V. Nathan (Partner and Chief Talent Officer at Deloitte India, National President, National HR Development Network), Anshu Gupta (Founder of Goonj & Raman Magsaysay award winner), Lakshmi Iyer (CEO, Kotak Investment Advisors), Capt. Akhilesh Saxena (Kargil War veteran) and Ritesh Andre (Spokesperson, Mumbai Dabbawalas).
After the registration and networking, the program started with formal welcome by compere of the day Lloyd D’Souza followed by National anthem of Kuwait and India.
After the inaugural address by Chief guest Smita Patil- Charge’ d’ affaires a.i, a Souvenir was released to mark the event. As they couldn’t attend personally, ICAI Vice President CA. Aniket Sunil Talati and ICAI President CA. (Dr.) Debashis Mitra addressed the audience and gave a brief about the chapter and conference through a Zoom meeting.
Speaker S. V. Nathan’s spoke about how to become an outstanding professional and moreover a human being, how an idea can change life, changes in technology etc. He focused on how the technology changed from files to laptop and working in office to work from home/anywhere.
Followed by Anshu Gupta who spoke on topic “Dignity, not charity”. He insisted on paying back to the society in return of the benefits we got from government which is from the taxes of common man. His charity work started after realizing that the people in some part of India are not dying due to cold but due to lack of warm cloths.
Lakshmi Iyer spoke on “India – a land of opportunity” as she spoke about inflation surged across the globe, recession, foreign investments, surging exports in India, GDP growth, investing in stock markets etc.
Capt. Akhilesh Saxena spoke on the topic “Arise, Awake and Ascend” and explained his journey in Indian Army. He said to see the opportunity, one must have dream and passion for the same.
Ritesh Andre’s talk on “Think about the box” explained how the Mumbai Dabbawalas collect the Tiffin at 9am and deliver to offices before 1 pm and return the empty boxes before 6 pm. There are total 5000 Dabbawalas in Mumbai who delivers 2 lakh Tiffin’s in time without any private vehicles or technology with 1 in 6 million missing Tiffin which can’t be achieved by any delivery companies. All the Tiffin’s are identified by their own coding system which was explained in detail during session.
Panel discussion on the practical aspects of start-up universe a was done by Panel Moderator CA. Sunny Bhatia – CFO Kuwait Projects Holding Company (Panel moderator) along with Abdullah Al Ajmi (Co-Founder of Hesabe), Divanshu Jain (Founder of KATCH), Jamal Al Humoud (Founder and CEO of Journey) and Ali Abdul Hassan (Co-Founder & CEO of TAP). They shared their views on start up of new business and challenges faced to run the same. They also spoke about the growth of new businesses and online businesses during and after Covid-19.
All the guest speakers, media personals and dance artists were felicitated with mementos. As a part of Indian Cultural Presentation, Kinkini Ensemble under the guidance of Karnataka Kalashri. Guru. Rangashree classical dance ‘Bharatham’ was presented by Srivibha, Gayathri Devi and Vidhyavathi.
Vote of Thanks was presented by CA. Rabin Gonsalves, Vice Chairperson, ICAI Kuwait Chapter. Raffle draws were conducted to keep the excitement in audience. The program was well compered by Kuwait’s one of the top MC’s Lloyd D’Souza. The program came to an end with grand buffet dinner.
The Kuwait Chapter was formed in the year 2007 to provide a forum for its members to comply with “Continued Professional Education” (CPE) requirements as mandated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, among other professional development and networking opportunities. There are over 500 Chartered Accountants members registered with the Chapter.