Students at the Goizueta Business School are planning the inaugural Indian-oriented event, Emerging India Summit 2010, that will focus on the cultural, social and economic aspects of India.

The idea was first conceived by Goizueta Business School seniors Gautam Agarwal and Karan Kothari, who are currently working with students and faculty and non-faculty advisers to plan the event.

“I was telling my roommate [Agarwal] that we just go to class, take tests, and do our work, and that we should do something worthwhile before we leave Emory,” said Kothari, co-founder of the program that focuses on the recognition of India as an emerging world power.

Kothari said that he hopes to reach a wide spectrum of interests.

“We want to include as many academic departments as possible,” said Kothari, who explained that the initiative began in the B-School under the name “Emerging India Colloquium,” but was changed to reflect the wider scope of the event.
The Emerging India Summit 2010 is a planned event meant to showcase India and bring awareness to the nation’s rapid development as an emerging world power. The focus of the program is broad, encompassing many different academic departments and programs throughout the University.

The summit will be represented by four broad sectors. They include business, consisting of Indian companies investing in the Western countries as well as Western European countries investing in India, the arts and culture sector, which will feature world-renowned Indian authors and poets, the government and civil society sector that will include many people from the American and Indian government and the non-governmental organizations sector which will discuss the challenge of developing India.

The group is planning to invite a keynote speaker to the event.

Agarwal, program co-founder, explained the necessity of a conference of this type because of the increasing Indian enrollment at Emory, and the potential role that India had in the world’s economy.

“Given India’s role in the emerging global economy, it is interesting to listen to perspectives and even more important to gravitate students of non-India origin towards understanding India from an economic, cultural, social and even a civil perspective,” Agarwal said.

Kothari also explained that the recent influx in the number of students directly from India attending Emory was also a factor in deciding to hold the Emerging India Summit 2010.

The summit plans to call speakers and presenters from many walks of life. The plan is to invite people and organizations that have a focus in the advancement and development of India.

The ultimate goal of this summit is to make people more aware of India as a growing power and overall, the event aims to build a relationship between the Indian community and Emory.

“In the end it’s about building relationships,” Agarwal said.

— Contact Lance Powell.