The committee for the 5th AMCHAM Healthcare Conference met at the office of Eli Global India on 24th May and discussed the conference flow at length. The speakers for various panel discussions will focus on the theme ‘Impact of Current Geo Political Situation on Healthcare.’ Frost & Sullivan confirmed to be the knowledge partners for this conference.

The Defense Committee met on Wednesday 24th May 2017 to go over the documents submitted to the DG (Acquisition) office. A final request to all members was made for any additional items for submission/consideration. The team felt that congratulatory letters to Def Sec Mitra and DOMW Rajib Kumar Sen should be sent out immediately. AMCHAM’s Defense Committee engagement with Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defense was discussed and the team was updated about all AMCHAM upcoming meetings. All members were invited to participate at the annual door knock to Washington D.C. from 25th – 28th June. The next committee meeting was planned for the first week of July 2017.

The newest AMCHAM committee, the Cyber Security Committee, met for the first time. Mr. Deepak Maheshwari, Chairman – Cyber Security Committee, AMCHAM and Director Government Affairs, India & ASEAN, Symantec, Mr. Arijit Sen, Co-Chairman – Cyber Security Committee, AMCHAM and Director Global Government Affairs & Public Policy, Dell, and Mr. Chad R. Norberg, Trade Unit Chief, U.S. Embassy attended the meeting in the AMCHAM office along with Ms. Ranjana Khanna, Director General CEO, AMCHAM, to discuss the way forward in cyber security and also identified the following few key areas to work on 1) critical infrastructure building 2) financial sector is the most critical so gap analysis is needed and 3) how to get three identified smart cities into the cyber security framework. This was followed up with a networking meeting at U.S. Embassy to meet industry representatives actively engaged in cyber security.

On 22nd May, Dr. Krishna Gupta, IAS, Principal Secretary Departments of Information Technology & Electronics, Government of West Bengal, held a meeting in his office inviting representatives of different chambers in Kolkata who have IT committees or who have a strong IT presence in the state. There were also a few industry members present who are involved in IT operations in the state.

The meeting was a follow up to a meeting held on 8th May. The IT Secretary asked members present if they had any lists prepared on events, either domestic or international, that his ministry could attend to highlight investment opportunities in the state. He also requested chambers and industry to give him names of speakers who could be invited participate at the BGBS on the various topics either at a panel or roundtable discussion. He said that he would write directly to the speakers inviting them. He requested that the speakers should be either from pan India organizations or international. The major emphasis was on:

• technology competition for IT companies on the challenges faced in the sector
• IT electronics and hardware
• Data science
• CybersSecurity
• Start ups

AMCHAM was represented by the Regional Director, Ms. Amada Kidwai.

Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, Partner, KPMG and Co-Chairman – Infrastructure and Smart Cities Committee, AMCHAM along with Ms. Ranjana Khanna, Director General CEO, AMCHAM and Mr. Debasish Roy, Program Director, AMCHAM, met Dr. Shrikar Keshav Pardeshi, Director, Prime Minister’s Office, GoI, to push forward AMCHAM’s agenda on smart cities in India. The meeting took place on 19th May at Dr. Pardeshi’s office at the PMO. During the meeting, AMCHAM pressed for an effort by the government to identify the problems faced by the Indian smart cities agenda under three heads: 1) governance and accountability issues, 2) funding issues and 3) regulatory issues. Dr. Pardeshi was open to AMCHAM detailing and quantifying such problems through the committee so that the PMO can pass it on to the Ministry of Urban Development.

Mr. Debdas Sen, Chairman – Eastern Region, AMCHAM, chaired the EC meeting on 19th May, 2017. He updated the members on the AGM and first NEB meeting of 2017. The focus of the meeting was the membership drive and events for 2017. He requested members to assist in the membership drive for the ER. The meeting was hosted by TCG Digital Solutions.