An ‘AiConic Moment: The WION AiEDU Summit gets underway in Bengaluru

“Ai education will be part of curricula for children of all grades in Karnataka’s public schools. It will take a little bit of time but it will get done,” said Karnataka’s Education Minister, Madhu Bangarappa, addressing school students at the ongoing WION AiEDU Summit 2026.

The Summit, that is currently in progress has a cross-section of startup founders, researchers, school and university students, and media professionals in attendance as various speakers and panelists take the stage for a series of addresses and panel discussions about Artificial Intelligence and its ramifications for industry and the world at large.

Minister Bangarappa set the ball rolling with a wonderfully candid and impassioned address in which he directly addressed the young people in the audience and spoke about how Ai awareness was going to be critical for their professional and personal growth but had to be balanced with personality development.

Things got down to business with the Keynote address by Mr. Naganand Doraiswamy, Managing Partner and Founder of Ideaspring Capital and the Co-Chairman of the Vision Group for Startups, ITBT, Government of Karnataka. Speaking on “Building the next decade of Innovation: AI, startups & the future of Karnataka,’ Mr. Doraswamy gave an expansive view of the macro picture when it comes to leveraging Artificial Intelligence, both across industries and in education.

That was followed by a fascinating panel discussion on ‘AI & Work: The Future Logs In.’ Moderated by this writer, the panel included four thought leaders: Mr. Vinay Ramprasad, CTO, WAISL- GMR Airports, Mr. Balaji Rajan, CTO, & AI Leader, FACTSPAN, Mr. Praanesh, CEO & Founder, QORUZ, and Mr. Avinash Rao, Co-Founder, ALT DRX.

The discussion continued for over an hour with the participants grappling with a range of issues— technical, ethical, and future-related--around the deployment of AI in education and industry.

Mr. Ramprasad gave insights into how WAISL has created a ‘digital-twin,’ at Hyderabad airport. The system uses a range of live sources, ranging from camera feeds, airline-information and the like to predict and manage traveller movement, and manage a range of activities at the airport. “The system provides what we call, AI-recommendations,’ but humans across the spectrum of services at the airport take the final call,” he said.

Mr. Praanesh, whose startup Qoruz, uses AI for creator discovery and commerce, had an interesting observation about skills and aptitude. “We have a product manager with a commerce background. A few years back I would never have considered asking someone with a non-engineering background for this role. But he was so good at asking the right questions, that he was best qualified for the job,” he said.
Mr. Praanesh stressed on the ability to think independently, ask incisive questions, and creativity as the most important skills for freshers entering the industry.

Avinash Rao, whose platform ALT DRX uses tokenisation and blockchain to facilitate buying and selling of fractional real estate, clarified that blockchains are not synonymous with cryptocurrency.

Balaji Rajan, VP Technology and AI Expert at FACTSPAN, provided a foil to the other panelists. While the others came from businesses that leverage AI, Mr. Rajan, stressed on context deployment of AI rather than generic use.

The second panel, moderated by Siddharth MP, Principal Correspondent, WION, focused more on the future of learning vis a vis application of AI.

"We should know when, what for and how to use AI. That’s the most important. We also need AI literacy programmes, especially in rural areas,” said Ms. Revathi Kamath. Ms. Kamath who wears many hats including a musician, philanthropist and educator, spoke about how she came from a place of resistance to AI but had now come around to the point of view that responsible use was possible. “It can be like an addiction,” she warned, adding, that, “Children using AI is very harmful.”

At the time this was written, a rapt audience was waiting for the final panel discussion to follow on “Funding the Future.”

The WION AiEDU Summit is co-powered by VEKA; NU VENTURES (Special Partner), HOMELANE (Home Decor Partner), UJJVAN SMALL FINANCE BANK (Banking Partner) and TIE BANGALORE (Industry Partner)

A live Carnatic Music live performance is scheduled for the evening. Readers can catch the event live on WION’s Youtube channel.