In partnership with ADB NGOC, ASSIST organized a full day event dubbed “Solutions Market” during the ADB Annual Governors Meeting, which took place in Delhi, India, on May 2-5, 2013.
Solutions Market (May 3) gathered representatives from corporate and civil society sectors to showcase innovative solutions and products which have a proven social and/or environmental impact. S. Chander (Director General, RSDD concurrently Chief Compliance Officer, ADB), C. Morris (Head, NGO and Civil Society Center, ADB) and S. Narayanan (Managing Director, ASSIST) gave the opening remarks. The event was split into three main sessions: Water Solutions Showcase, IT for Development, IT for Good and Empowerment & Innovative Partnerships.
Water Solutions Showcase session was open by Dr. Ajit Pattnaik, Chief Executive of Chilika Development Authority and ICZM Project Director who spoke on the importance of cooperation between the public, corporate and private sector for successful water management. K.S. Raghuveer (Chief Technical Officer; Luminous Water Technologies), Arumugam Kalimuthu (Managing Trustee; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Institute) and Swaminathan Murugan (Join Director; National Agro Foundation) then showcased their respective water solutions.
IT for Development, IT for Good session was open by Osama Manzar, Director of Digital Empowerment Foundation who highlighted to what small extent civil society sector and NGOs in India resort to IT solutions, when, in essence, IT sector has so much to offer. The speakers of the session Kuldip Nar (Managing Director; Aidmatrix), Muralitharan Vengadasalam and Prema Subramaniam (Consultants from Tata Consultancy Services), Vinay Kumar (Chief Operating Officer; Digital Green), Girish Lad (Chairman and Managing Director; Magnum Opus IT Consulting), Rajani Kant (Director; Human Welfare Association) and Ritu Srivastava (on behalf of Chanderiyaan) further deepened this thought with their own examples.
Empowerment and Innovative Partnerships session started with Mike Saycon (of ASSIST) officially launching AsianNGO, Asia’s leading media for NOGs – a resource for locating, tracking and securing projects, partners and funding. This was followed by presentations by Isaac Emmanuel (Head – Business Development & Social Business Initiatives, Bayer MaterialScience), Katsuji Imata (Lead Specialist – Enabling Environment, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation), Randeewa Malalasooriya (General Manager, Geocycle, Holcim (Lanka) and Thangavel Karthik (Key Accounts Manager, Bestnet).
Solutions Market also offered a spacious exhibition area where organizations from private and civil society sectors could showcase their products and innovative solutions.
