The seventh edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit-2015 will be a trailblazer one. Commencing September, the state will see hold as many as 40 pre-summit events throwing light on sports to women empowerment, including forest conservation, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The pre-summit events of the biennial meet will make all concerted efforts to cover a wide range of areas with some 10 national or international events per month till January 2015.
The main event will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January next.
In a first, the sports, youth and cultural department will hold the first pre-event summit on October 17 at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar. “The theme of the summit is ‘Decoding sports ecosystem. What it takes to create an environment that can help promote sports’,” said an official from the sports department.
“Our event partner, the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), will help hold this event which will see some sports experts taking part in the debate,” he added.
The sports department believes that the pre-event summit on sports will add the necessary fillip to promote sport activities in the state, which has a Sports University.
With Anandiben Patel at helm of the government as the first woman Chief Minister, for the first time VGGIS 2015 to have a pre-summit conference on “Women: Leaders of Tomorrow.” Organised in September by the state women and child welfare department, the event has been supported by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Some of the other pre-summit events will include Forest Conservation for Climate Change Mitigation and Adoption, International Conference on Sustainable Tourism, Indian Renewable Energy Summit, Landscape Approach to Long-Term Conservation of Wildlife and Eco Tourism- An Approach to Long-Term Conservation.
The officials of the Industrial Extension Bureau (IndEXTB), the nodal agency for organising the VGGIS-2015, maintained that the change of shift from focus on business and industries had began in the last edition of the VGGIS in 2013, which was held under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi as Gujarat CM.
“2013 summit brought in two major shifts. One, for the first time focus and success were not measured from how much investment was pledged. Even the figures on pledged investment were not declared. Secondly, it hosted an international summit on education, bringing education also in the focus along with business and industries,’’ marked a senior officer from the Industries Department.
The usual seminars on agriculture, industry and finance are very much part of the pre- summit events.
