To mark its silver jubilee milestone, Goa Institute of Management (GIM) in keeping with its philosophy of espousing Principle-Centred Leadership, hosted a conclave on Ethical Data Leadership in Bengaluru recently. The event was well attended by thought leaders and alumni from the field of analytics, big data and information technology.

The event featured a keynote speech by Bhaskar Pramanik, former chairperson of Microsoft India, and a panel discussion with Dr. Avik Sarkar, officer on special duty at NITI Aayog, Professor Rahul De, Hewlett-Packard chair professor in ICT for Sustainable Economic Development at IIM Bangalore, Anoop Nambiar, partner with Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu India LLP, Narasimha Murthy, vice president of Cartesian Consulting, and Dr. Nitin Upadhyay, chair and Head Centre of Innovation, member Big Data Analytics Goa Institute of Management.

Pramanik shared deep insights about science fiction predicting the technology we are now witnessing around us today highlighting how writers right from Aldous Huxley in the sixties to Harari today have brought into focus the ethical dimensions that these revolutions will or are throwing up. Every advance in technology raises more questions on ethics. He emphasised that with these advancements there will be a greater need for technologists to understand humanities and for humanists to appreciate technologies that are evolving today.

The panelists also raised important points on the provenance of data, the need for human judgment overriding artificial intelligence, taking a 360-degree view of customers as well as the emerging imperatives on technology by way of better confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data that has proliferated.

On the occasion, Dr. Ajit Parulekar, director Goa Institute of Management said, “This data conclave furthers GIM’s objective of being a management thought-promoter and providing a platform for cutting edge discussions in emerging business domains such as Big Data Analytics.”

Big data is fueling the new digital economy and stakeholders of big data are experimenting with ever-evolving business cases to leverage data to generate business value. However, the new digital economy that is built on data needs a bigger lens for examination that goes beyond the traditional governance frameworks and risk-mitigation strategies. A new class of risks is generated in the digital age due to the inherent nature of data analysis and the set of actions taken on the insights. Some prominent risks include the unethical or even illegal use of insights, augmenting biases to aggravate social and economic justice issues and data usage for purposes not intended for and without taking the formal consent.

Goa Institute of Management through such events as these intend to continue to place important debates on Ethics and Leadership in front of industry and academia, helping form opinion and direct thought to this ever-challenging issue.

Promoted in 1993 by Father Romuald D’Souza, the Goa Institute of Management has emerged as India’s premier business school offering cutting edge management programmes designed for jobs of the future.