35 speakers confirmed for Wan-Ifra India 2017 conference

The event to be held in Chennai at Hotel ITC Grand Chola in Chennai from 12 to 14 September 2017 is the annual meeting point of news publishers in South Asia and includes two parallel conference tracks, learning workshops, South Asian Digital Media Awards (SDMA), plant visit and expo.

The conference themed 'Driving the media business into future' is expected to see presentations from leading editors and media executives on topics such as journalism, fake news, artificial intelligence, readership development through big data, printing in digital era, operational efficiency and cost reduction in newspaper printing plants, high value products, automated distribution systems and optimized paper handling.

The list of speakers include David Callaway, CEO of The Street, USA, Mukund Padmanabhan, editor, The Hindu, Shadi Rahimi, senior producer, Al Jazeera, USA, Bella Hurrell,  assistant editor, BBC News, UK, Basant Rathore, senior VP, strategic planning, brand and business development, Jagran Group and Michael Kiesswetter, managing director of Rheinische Post AdLog, Germany.

The two-day event will also see a panel discussion on the future of media business chaired by Thomas Jacob, COO of Wan-Ifra with participation from Pawan Agarwal, deputy managing director of DB Corp, Rajiv Lochan, MD and CEO, Kasturi & Sons and Rajiv Verma, CEO of HT Media.