UImagine TN 2025 — A Summary
UImagineTN 2025 was a wonderful event with enticing insights into technologies, startups and innovations. It was filled with transformative discussions, exciting opportunities and valuable connections emphasizing mainly artificial intelligence, Investment pitches, Entrepreneurship opportunities, cybersecurity, etc.
Here is the summary of the key messages from the discussions I had listened to,
1.Beyond Chennai: Building Emerging Tech Hubs for Tamil Nadu’s Next Wave of Growth
The session discussed the development of delivery centers in Tier2, Tier3 cities, emphasizing the importance of sustainability. Chandra Nandakumar — AVP of Infosys, articulated on how Infosys is setting up delivery centers in the Tier2, Tier3 cities of US such as the Phoenix (Arizona), Hartford (Connecticut), Richardson (Texas) through apprenticeship programs in community colleges and hiring local talent. The company also acquired a Coimbatore-based startup, Skava, to support employees’ desire to reconnect with their roots and be with their parents, thereby bolstering the local economy as well.
2.Making AI the Real Infra
The session centered on how AI will transform the businesses in future and the need for upskilling, reskilling, learning and unlearning to cater to the changes. While AI can increase efficiency and productivity by automating the repetitive tasks, humans will still be required for tasks that involve critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. Neelakantan Venkataraman, VP — Cloud and AI, Tata Communications recommends taking proactive steps to prepare for the jobs of future based on AI which will be about training machines instead of training ourselves, we must know on how to train a machine, train a model and build an agent to support it. When it comes to Infra, AI can be used to predict and forecast network or Infra issues rather than fixing things once it’s broken.
3.Leveraging AI in Cyber Defence, what talent is needed in Tamil Nadu to build a world class cyber capability
The session accentuated the importance of building local talent in the Cybersecurity field at the college level by creating specialization programs. Krishna Sai, CTO of SolarWinds highlighted about an unconventional security threat, where in the criminals hacked a fish tank connected to Internet to steal data from a casino and the critical need for comprehensive security measures that encompass not just traditional IT infrastructure but all internet-connected devices. Alagu Periyanan advised the students to participate in cybersecurity hackathons, and bug bounty programs, get internships to become a well-trained cybersecurity engineer. Rahul Sasi, founder of CloudSek, underscored the importance of building skills and doing certifications on cybersecurity while studying college, and it helps freshers to get jobs soon while they graduate.
4.Cultivating Entrepreneurship in TN via Angel Investing
The session was all about nurturing young entrepreneurs and creating a conducive environment for them to start up early. Alagu Periyanan, cofounder of Bluejeans Network, lauded the mind-blowing quantity of information students have about entrepreneurship in college and even in high school nowadays. He mentioned about Silicon Valley’s culture of successful founders investing and backing the next group of founders, he is starting to see a similar startup ecosystem grow in India as well. He added that Investors should not only provide financial support and think about return on investment but also mentor and assist the next set of founders in growth. GradCapital founder Prateek Behera emphasizes the importance of a founder pitch in attracting investors, emphasizing the need for students to think outside their class and think creatively. GradCapital is a startup that invests in early-stage startups founded by students at top universities in India.
5.Data-Driven Telco: How organizations are Enabling Predictive Insights and Enhanced Network Performance
The session discussed the evolution of Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India, particularly in Chennai, which have driven global delivery models, innovation centers, and centers of excellence. Verizon’s Managing Director Vijayaraman Subramanian mentioned that they had their first GCC setup in Chennai by 2001 and now with over 7400 employees across Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, Verizon remains one of the world’s largest telco companies and in terms of revenue as well. He also added, Verizon was the first company in the world to launch 5G commercially, and it was turned on from Chennai. He also shed some light on value center of excellence, With USA having 90% of the market belonging to postpaid users, he emphasizes the importance of learning from India’s prepaid business, as India’s users are predominantly prepaid (90% of India’s market is based on prepaid), and Verizon is building a value center of excellence for US to cater to what India is doing in Prepaid business. Verizon also has Churn centers of excellence, as US is a saturated market, they need to focus on reducing customer attrition. Long story short, Verizon’s GCCs are focussed on building Innovation centers, value center of excellence and churn center of excellence.
6.Leveraging AI in Cyber Defence, Can we predict and prevent crime leveraging AI?
This session surrounded on how AI can use vast datasets and contextualize it to identify individuals or areas at risk of criminal activity, enabling law enforcement to deploy resources more effectively and proactively prevent crimes. Sandeep Rai Rathole, IPS from Tamil Nadu police department, suggested that AI can predict and forecast crimes based on past incidents, like for instance a criminal who has been released recently had this knack of committing a crime by 5 am in a particular place often and this way the police can act proactively anticipating a similar incident in future at the same place and same time.
In total, UmagineTN 2025 event was filled with insightful discussions on tech landscape. Many founders and visionaries embraced it with transformative ideas and a glimpse into the future of technology.