BRICS CCI hosts a webinar on Investment Opportunities in India and Brazil

New Delhi, June 17, 2021: The BRICS Chamber of Commerce & Industry virtually organized a webinar on Investment Opportunities in India and Brazil: Interactive Session on Innovation and Growth.  Key note speakers of the event were Mr. Andre Aranha Correa Do Lago Ambassador of the Federative Republic of Brazil to India and Suresh K Reddy Ambassador of India to the Federative Republic of Brazil. Mr. Sameep Shastri, Vice Chairman, BRICS CCI, Mr. Gustavo Cavenaghi- Kortex Ventures, Mr. Lasse Koivisto-CEO & Co-Founder Prontmed, Mr. Mudit Dandwate- CEO & Co Founder, Dozee and Mr. Ashwin Raguraman- Founding Partner, Bharat Innovation Fund were the prominent speakers of  panel discussion.

India and Brazil share a close and multifaceted relationship which is based on common global vision, shared democratic values, convergence of views on many global issues and a commitment to foster economic growth with social inclusion for the welfare of the people of both countries. The two countries cooperate not only bilaterally but also at plurilateral fora such as BRICS, IBSA, G-20 and in multilateral bodies such as the UN and WTO, among others. India-Brazil relations were elevated to a Strategic Partnership in 2006, thereby heralding a new phase in bilateral ties. Brazil is one of the most important trading partners of India in the entire LAC (Latin America and Caribbean) region.

The session was inaugurated with the welcome address of Mr. Vishwas Tripathi (Chairman, BRICS CCI). In his opening address he stated that, “Education and health will always be most important. This pandemic has made us shiver, made us awake and now the whole world is gearing up to take care that such a catastrophic event doesn’t happen in future.”

The special remarks were delivered by Mr. Augusto Pestana, president, APEX Brasil and Mr. Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO- Invest India. Mr. Pestana said “Healthcare sector represents approximately 9% of Brazil in GDP, I invite investors from India to join us and engage (Corporate Venture in Brazil Summit, October 20-21) in this new phase of our economic partnership.”

Mr. Bagla said “The core of this relationship (Brazil and India) is the partnership on startups and innovations. One of the reasons, we are able to manage this pandemic, it is a large focus on digitization by the government in the past 5 years. I see this partnership becoming a very serious partnership as it is going to bring solutions to the entire world”.

Mr. Andre Aranha Correa Do Lago Ambassador of the Federative Republic of Brazil to India said in his key note address to the webinar, “We are starting a true bilateral relationship. In our visit in last year (Republic Day), we signed 15 bilateral agreements. We are so happy that we have startups in the field of healthcare. It is not a simple relationship. We have a strategic view of the world. We must work together, no matter what the subject matter, we should focus on entrepreneurship and this event is the demonstration of our commitment to strengths on this startup bridge”

Suresh K Reddy Ambassador of India to the Federative Republic of Brazil stated “I think this is a wonderful partnership that has been established between the two countries. To me there are two things which are of interest, one is under the BRICS chairmanship itself we are looking at promoting and identifying sustainable solutions using digital technology and in context of the pandemic this has become even more important as other has mentioned, the pandemic has reshaped the world and accelerated the acceptance of the the digital technology. Digital technology has been there and India has been doing telemedicine projects in Africa with an investment of 500 million dollars.”

The session was moderated by Mr. Sameep Shastri, who highlighted that the session would be about the healthcare, digital healthcare and the improvements that are required in it.

Mr. Gustavo Cavenaghi said that “The sense of urgency, ownership and business approach that the entrepreneurs had, is by far a great experience that we had. The noise in the startup ecosystem is very hard for serious investors and entrepreneurs to navigate through the market.”

Mr. Lasse Koivisto said “Prontmed is a leading company in developing digital medical records. Our main focus is on organizing the clinical data that health professionals put in the system because we believe that clinical structured information is vital for development of the series of innovation and processes in the healthcare markets.” “We had to change a lot of things in our system in order to support the market that needed these changes to help the patients.” “It is hard in the healthcare sector to start because it is long process of creating technology and being validated in the market.”

Mr. Mudit Dandwate said “We have a full stack system that turns any bed into ICU. It is entirely contactless and with medical-grade accuracy. It is changing the paradigm of the healthcare sector.” “Challenges we face are data privacy, because it is a sensitive global issue, so we had to take care of the data that we were collecting and using it for healthcare.” “Dozee is monitoring more than 40k patients in this pandemic”. “I really believe that India and Brazil they really have to innovate form the bottom and middle of the pyramid and there is no way we can expect the normal innovation engines to deliver it for us, I think we really need to step up to deliver it to the world and these are the two economies which can do that”

Mr. Ashwin Raguraman said “In the healthcare sector there are many opportunities that are emerging and some of the drivers are the digitization and availability of the data. This has helped in deploying the AI in a serious manner for either diagnostics or treatment. The whole concept of digital, automation and AI can reduce the burden on health infrastructure.” “The paradigm of reducing the burden of healthcare infrastructure from hospitals to smaller centers is a trend and a pandemic has given a push to this trend.” “I think a big opportunity lies in a parallel pandemic which is mental health, perhaps a bigger and longer lasting one. We have seen tons of interesting and innovative startups coming up in the diagnostics side and the treatment side and this is another interesting area.”

In the closing remarks, Mr. Ashok Singh, Vice Chairman, BRICS CCI, said “We have heard today how much scope and opportunity exists for innovation and collaborations in the healthcare sector. Some of the trends that the sector has and will continue to witness will be driven by technology and mobile application and AI. Today all nations have further directed their attention and focus on healthcare research and training. As we have witnessed the covid impact, with this all nations we have seen how healthcare as a sector has united the world today more than ever before. The chamber will continue to work to achieve its objective. I once again thank all the speakers and panellists for their interesting and informative exchange of the ideas”

The highly significant panel discussion was attended by an audience comprising globally recognized experts, psychologists, students, home-makers, corporate sector employees, members and civil society members.