Digital transformation is a journey into the heart of the digital era, where technology and people collide. It’s about reinventing our reality, shared experiences, knowledge, and problem-solving abilities. See it as a link between the past and the future, with opportunities where innovation improves our everyday lives and creates deeper bonds. The International Conference on Digital Transformation (ICDT) will discuss these revolutionary concepts, slated to take place at IIM Kashipur in collaboration with the Earl V. Snyder Innovation Management Centre, Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, USA, from March 21 to March 23, 2025. This conference aims to exchange ideas and innovations that transform industries and societies by bringing together academic researchers, industry experts and thought leaders. Don’t miss the abstract submission deadline on January 6, 2025, to participate in this transformative event.
Topics such as Industry 5.0, advances in finance, cybersecurity, cloud computing, big data, blockchain, digital governance, and AR/VR technologies will demonstrate how companies and governments use these resources to develop more intelligent, sustainable alternatives. We’re bringing all these diverse topics under one roof at the International Conference on Digital Transformation (ICDT) 2025. Whether you’re into tech, business, or innovation, this conference offers a chance to see how everything connects and what the future holds. As industries evolve, digital transformations enable organisations to remain competitive in a rapidly changing digital world and spread their use cases across several domains.
Generative AI is at the forefront of these advancements, rapidly becoming our time’s game-changer. Companies are slowly becoming aware of this disruptive phenomenon, leaving no holds barred in leveraging these technologies. Alaska Airlines is creating an AI-powered travel agent, simplifying bookings through conversational experiences, while IHG Hotels is leveraging AI chatbots to help guests plan vacations effortlessly within its app. This awareness is not just limited to MNCs – venture capitalists realise its potential too, with Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, where AI tools like Gemini are claimed to save employees five hours weekly in tasks like email management.
Not all tasks can be fully automated. Human expertise remains vital, and this idea is the essence of Industry 5.0, where industrialists are projecting human and machine collaboration to drive industry efficiencies to new heights. At ABB’s Smart Power factory, the first of its kind in Nelamangala, Bengaluru, IoT devices – robots, motors, and drives- work alongside people, optimising processes and scheduling predictive maintenance. This framework has boosted productivity by 40% and improved energy efficiency by 15%, demonstrating the power of human-cobot (COllaborative roBOT) teamwork in the next era of industrial innovation.
All these frameworks are driving growth across multiple sectors. Digital transformation has allowed businesses to reinvent themselves, flipping their models and embracing new roles in the market. Domino’s has become more of ” an e-commerce company that sells pizza” with all its tech innovations, such as AI-powered ordering, Domino’s Tracker for real-time delivery updates, and AnyWare technology that lets customers order across multiple devices. Their experiments with autonomous vehicles and drones show they’re constantly pushing the boundaries of digital delivery. It’s not just about pizza anymore. It’s about the experience, from order to delivery. On the fintech side of businesses, Capital One, for example, is basically “a tech company that does banking” now. Its bold decision to close all on-premises data centres and move entirely to the cloud marked a pivotal moment. By moving to a cloud-first approach, Capital One shifted its focus. It now turns data into insights that drive better customer experiences. This move has pushed the limits of digital banking and set a new industry standard.
These changes aren’t just transforming individual companies; they’re making a significant impact at the community level, especially with the rise of smart cities. As urban areas embrace digital technologies, they’re creating connected systems that improve life for everyone. Using sensors to collect data throughout the city, Singapore measures everything from cleanliness in public spaces to crowd sizes at events. It feels like something straight out of Person of Interest, the 2011 sci-fi show where advanced surveillance tracked citizens’ every move to predict events. But unlike the show’s darker themes, Singapore is using this technology to improve daily life, ensuring more intelligent urban planning and real-time responses to the needs of its citizens. It’s the future we imagined, only it’s happening now.
As smart cities grow, this digital shift naturally leads to e-governance, where technology changes how governments connect with and serve their citizens more effectively. While we have only scratched the surface with our humble college projects on online voting systems, South Korea has turned that concept into reality. Their advanced online voting platform for specific elections has boosted voter participation and accessibility, showing how technology can strengthen democracy. But despite the complex multi-party system and a population that has only recently adapted to technology, India isn’t far behind in embracing digital governance. With initiatives like Aadhaar for secure identification, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) for streamlined procurement, and DigiLocker for easy access to digital documents, efficiency and services are being improved nationwide, creating a more accessible and user-friendly governance model for all citizens.
While we continue to explore the digital transformation of governance and sectors, it is critical to recognise the human factor driving these developments. Automation and Artificial Intelligence increase productivity, but they cannot take the role of moral discernment and empathy in making moral decisions. Human oversight guarantees the ethical, inclusive, and socially conscious implementation of digital applications. ChatGPT acknowledges that societal biases could emerge from the language data it processes, which mirrors human communication and can perpetuate racial and other prejudices. An experiment revealed that the word “black” in ChatGPT-generated crime stories was consistently assessed as more menacing and dangerous than the word “white”. Also, stories with “white” contexts were more individualised and took place in serene suburban locations, whereas stories with “black” contexts typically featured urban violence and violent altercations. However, there’s a flip side to it, too. Reaction to the Gemini AI model’s model’s historically erroneous creations, which included Asian women dressed as German soldiers in WWII and Black Vikings, showed that inclusivity efforts could go too far. The AI was also criticised for being unduly “woke” when it refused to distinguish between Elon Musk and Adolf Hitler, saying it isn’tisn’t possible to ” say definitively who negatively impacted society more.” These digital tools have all been fashioned by human input and interpretation. Its complete potential can only be realised through our capacity to manage it responsibly, ensuring it represents ethical principles while avoiding extremes in bias or overcorrection.
How can academia shape the future of digital transformation, which is hyper-focused on businesses and large corporations but less on human evaluation and refinement? Schools and universities are crucial in building the foundation for these advancements. They nurture innovation, teach essential skills, and conduct research that prepares students to drive technological change. When universities collaborate with businesses, they ensure that future leaders have the knowledge and tools to create a more efficient and inclusive world, setting the stage for a brighter digital future. At ICDT 2025, this collaboration between academia and industry is one of the central themes. The organising committee, consisting of experts with extensive experience in marketing, economics, and IT systems, ensures that the conference is a well-rounded platform for discussing digital transformation’s theoretical and practical aspects.
In the next part of our blog series, we’ll explore examples of how academic research has fuelled digital transformation. We’ll highlight innovative projects that illustrate the powerful collaboration between academia and industry, showcasing how scholarly inquiry moulds technology and causes a meaningful change in business environments. To witness such transformative discussions firsthand, we invite you to tune in with ICDT 2025 at IIM Kashipur, where these collaborations will be at the heart of the conversation. Take advantage of the opportunity! Submit your abstracts by January 6, 2025, the deadline to share your insights and contribute to this dynamic exchange of ideas.
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