IIM Shillong successfully hosted the first edition of the International Conference on Leveraging Emerging Technologies and Analytics for Development (LEAD-2024), themed “Empowering Humanity.”
The event brought together distinguished academics, policymakers, and industry leaders to explore innovative solutions for global challenges through the intersection of technology, analytics, and development.
On the first day, delivering the keynote address Prof. Viswanath Venkatesh, Verizon Professor, Virginia Tech – Pamplin College of Business, Virgina, and a globally acclaimed scholar in business information technology emphasised the importance of rigorous research with practical impact, while highlighting innovative methodologies.
Prof. Somnath Mukhopadhyay, a renowned academic in marketing and management sciences, shared valuable insights on integrating analytics for effective decision-making and management innovation, Nupoor Singh, Editor, Business & Management, Economics, Law, Statistics, Political Science, Springer India, addressed challenges in ethical research, plagiarism concerns, and the implications of generative AI.
Prof. Kirankumar S. Momaya Professor, Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay and Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Global Business and Competitiveness (JGBC), Springer, underscored India’s rising global competitiveness and the opportunities for impactful research in emerging technologies.
The second day saw a thought-provoking keynote by Prof. Suprateek Sarker, Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Commerce Professor (Information Technology), McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia., who elaborated on the transformative role of digitalisation in humanitarian action, sustainability, and health.
His detailed analysis of platforms like Twitch and Slack highlighted how user engagement drives service evolution. Prof. Jason Bennett Thatcher, Milton F. Stauffer Professorship in the Department of Management Information Systems, Fox School of Business, Temple University, presented a master class on multidisciplinary research, addressing the necessity of integrating insights from multiple fields to tackle complex global problems like misinformation.
