Alright. I mean, as you can as you know already, the world is changing faster than ever.Whether it's the the new disruptive technologies like AI, IoT connectivity, blockchain, or, or even quantum. These technologies are changing the way we do our business. And businesses must adapt or risk falling behind. Most of the businesses are looking at, quicker ways of adoption of these technologies. And these emerging technologies are just not just tools, they are the catalyst. They are changing the way, most of the industries are doing their business. And most importantly, women are increasingly leading this transformation. The innovation in the company isn't a luxury anymore. It's becoming a business imperative. And that's one of the reasons why innovation matters quite significantly in in our ever changing business landscape.

Now, if you look at the innovation imperative, close to you and just look at what McKinsey or Gartner and other investment firms or analyst firms are seeing, Mackenzie says that 85% of companies believe innovation is essential for growth. If you look at what Gartner is saying, they're saying that out of three companies, if you look at the global CEOs of two out of three companies, they're investing in digital first strategies. And whether it's telecom, manufacturing, retail, and finance, doesn't matter what industry you are in. Every industry is looking at reimag they're looking at how do we, reinvigorate our our processes. They're looking at how how do we redo our business landscape as well by using these innovative technologies? So the way I wanna do this is I wanna start with a story arc. Let's meet Jenny who is a product leader at a telecom company.

Now you could have a product leader at any company. It doesn't matter whether it's telecom or or it's media or it's, retail industry. It doesn't matter. But most companies are facing similar challenges. Whether it's slow customer growth, it's, rise of rising of operational costs or pressuring pressure to innovate. This is a this is an issue that every single sector, every single company is facing these days. So the way I wanna do this is is I wanna follow her journey of leveraging emerging tech to transform the company and inspire others. If you look at the emerging tech landscape whether it's five gs, edge, gen AI, ML, quantum computing, IoT, I'm sure you've heard all of these technologies already. Now let's do one thing. Let's explore how these are applied in real world innovation and then let's see what is happening in in each of these industries as well.

Okay. So if you look at the telecom industry, telecom industry has, currently has five g. It has edge computing. Edge computing in telecom means bringing com computing resources closer to users. Like, at cell towers or within smart homes, to reduce latency. So you may have you may have used smart home devices like Alexa or you may have used Google Home. These these devices can process commands locally in your house at the edge instead of sending them to the cloud data centers resulting in faster and more responsive interactions. So as you can imagine now, the telecom is already investing quite significantly in five g edge. And now with the launch of AI, telecom is looking at how do I how do we use AI and five g to further accelerate the solutions, to bring new revenue streams and also drive social impact?

That's what is happening in the telecom industry. Now if you look at the manufacturing industry, whether it's, IoT, and and AI predictive maintenance reduced downtime or or manufacturing is looking at digital twins or they're looking at, factories which are which are completely automated. Each of these innovations is driving, is taking manufacturing from reactive to predictive. And as a result of that, there is there's increase in efficiency in manufacturing. Manufacturing industry is is looking at innovation to reduce cost and also build resilience. So those are other things that are happening in manufacturing. So it's a big shift from proactive intervention to preventive equipment, preventive and predictive maintenance. Whether it's preventing equipment failure, before they occur or ultimately improving efficiency and reducing downtime. All of those things are are being done in manufacturing. Now how does this this transition happen?

It happens through data collection, analysis, predictive maintenance and machine learning, and even prescriptive at times. Manufacturing is also going into prescriptive area. If you look at retail, online retailers like Amazon or, Sephora, they're all using hyper personalized recommendations. At Amazon, there are algorithms to suggest products based on browsing history. Starbucks is using loyalty app to offer tailored deals and updates, based on customer preferences. Sephora uses AR and and VR to do virtual try ons, and and then, that's also helping them boost sales. I know a lot of, retailers, especially when it comes to, the clothing industry. They they have the the smart mirrors where you can try on different clothing, based on using those smart mirrors and and then, and then, purchase that clothing material.

So as you can imagine, even the retail is moving into personalized and immersive experiences, leading to a boosted sales. And and that is that is also helping them in the new competitive edge. Financial services is also becoming smarter, safer, and and faster whether it's through blockchain or, secure, transparent transactions. Whether you you do transactions through your phone or your mobile devices or your, or your or your, Fitbit apps. These these technologies are are helping in in terms of convergence, of key concepts in in understanding, the potential for banking and and financial services as well. So five g conversions, bridges the the gap between the fixed broadband and mobile broadband.

And when it comes to experience, this conversion brings seamless service with no glitches when you when you change from indoor WiFi to outdoor mobile networks. On an operational level, you can also preserve IP addressing and session concession continuity as you move from one location to another location. Whether it's payment through your mobile apps or smart devices, these transactions are becoming secure. And, but and these days, we APIs are are used for fraud detection. So most of the banks have deployed APIs for fraud detection and credit scoring as well. So as you can imagine, the the, the banking industry, the financial services industry is also transforming itself, and ensuring that they are, that they are, they're becoming smarter, safer, and faster, whether it's it's also, doing micro loans just through even AI chatbots.

You know? So so those things are making the financial industries smarter and and faster as well. Now in health care as well, whether it's early diagnosis using using image scanning or whether it's continuous monitoring of the patient using variables and IoT, or in or in using, five g in health care through remote surgeries and and consultations. All of these things are, ensuring that the health care, becomes affordable for everyone. It also helps ensure that the innovation is used for good of the of the country, it's used for saving lives. As you can imagine whether it's a telecom industry or a manufacturing industry or a retail industry or a healthcare industry, Every single industry is changing with the with the usage of five g, with the usage of IoT, with the usage of cheaper for for, for users and consumers.

So, as as I I talk about, Jenny's journey here, whether whether Jenny was a product manager at a telecom industry or whether Jenny was a product manager at a at a retail industry, the the transformation journey for all of the industries look very similar. In order to in order to do the industries will first or the companies will first launch a pilots to ensure that, that the pilots are successful and then, then deploy these technologies in in their businesses. And I'm really proud to say that women led innovation hub are also getting established in in, many many many places. And we we also have to stop chasing disruption and become disruptors ourselves. This is the transformation journey that a lot of industries are taking. So as a key takeaway, emerging tech is an enabler, not a goal. Telecom is becoming a springboard for broader innovation. Women leaders are are extremely pivotal to sustainable and transformative growth. And it starts with people.

All of the innovation starts with people and then then they get scaled with tech. And finally, I wanna say that the best way to predict the future as I said by Alan Kaye is to really invent it. So let's invent it together. This is the moment where women have to come forward, they have to lead the charge and be, they have to be part of this society which needs to be an inclusive society for for invention, whether it's through five gs, whether it's through IoT connectivity, AI, blockchain, whatever quantum, you know, whatever new technologies come in.

These emerging technologies, as you can imagine, are powering business innovation and women have to be, e women have to play an equal role in ensuring that these technologies are adopted and and become inclusive.