Synergia Conclave 2017 - Closure

Back in 2009, we had a compelling thought  – to bring together senior practitioners from industry, academia, and government onto a single platform to discuss issues that needed multidisciplinary thinking. That year we organized the first Synergia Conclave. The objective was to identify key challenges, provide predictive frameworks and suggest ways to remediate them before such threat actually happens.

Together with our research partners, the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), we delved into the topic – the impact of pandemics on society at large and Industry in specific. We simulated an Avian flu pandemic to more than 200 senior executives, academics and policy makers. Since then, we have organized five international conclaves in Bangalore. As a methodology, we spend 12-18 months studying various issues that can potentially affect the way we live , organize focus groups , curate ideas and  then come up with a theme for the conference.

The first two editions of the Synergia Conclave were organized in partnership with academia and industry practitioners. Since 2013, we have worked closely along with the state and national government to build a non-partisan platform to ideate on topics that affect human security. The third Synergia Conclave in August 2015 provided deep insights on building resilient cities.  In the aftermath of 26/11 in Mumbai, we felt that urbanization was quite an irreversible process and cities would be vulnerable of both traditional and non-traditional security. The three-day conference brought experts from India and overseas to thread base issues related to terrorism, disaster management, chemical and biological threats, internal security and tactical medicine.

Our fourth edition in 2015, witnessed experts discussing problem points and challenges pertaining to cybersecurity.  Cyber 360 organized in partnership with the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the Government of Karnataka was rated as one of the best conferences on the subject across the world. The deliberations at the three-day conference helped us to provide a framework of cyber security challenges of the future.  Many of those predictions have since come true.

Thus, when we sat down to ideate on the fifth edition, the team was committed to raise the bar – could we make it more impactful than in the previous years?   We felt it was critical to broaden the security narrative to be more inclusive and focus on reimagining threats. The theme of the conference was then set - reimagining business and security in a digitized and asymmetric world.   We wanted to provide an opportunity for our participants to interact with and learn from leading security and cyber experts and solution providers.

After months of brainstorming and intense hard work from our dedicated team, the Synergia Conclave-Security 360 kicked off on November 17^th, 2017. Spanning three days, 60 expert panelists including the winner of the Marconi Prize (equivalent of a Nobel Prize) and keynote speakers from 15 countries , provided key insights  on issues ranging from the future of technology , reimaging intelligence ,  Block chains  to civil-military relations. In many ways, Security 360 surpassed our hopes for what we wanted to achieve in the first place. The conclave has now evolved from a platform to a community overflowing with fresh concepts, solutions and philosophies and predictions that look around the curve.

To that end, we are indebted to all our speakers who took time out of their busy schedules to provide their perspectives. We are also immensely grateful to all the participants who made this conference a roaring success. It goes without saying that without the backing from the Government of Karnataka, we would not be able to execute our vision of creating a global community where thoughts and ideas are freely shared, innovation reaches beyond borders, all in a non partisan manner.

As for us, we are already looking to the future and at the next edition of Synergia Conclave. We want to make it larger and more successful than ever before and we are sure that with your support, we will.