Hyderabad/Chennai: In a major push to position India as a global technology orchestrator, IIT Madras Global and GATES have announced the ‘GATES India ICT Channel Summit 2025’, to be held from November 5 to 7 at the IIT Madras Research Park. The three-day summit will convene over 250 ICT channel leaders, technology innovators, policymakers and startups for strategic dialogues, curated matchmaking, product showcases and skill-building sessions.

The flagship session, ‘India Inc at Full Throttle: From Innovation to Global Impact,’ scheduled for November 6, will feature a high-powered dialogue between three pillars of India’s innovation economy. They include IIT Madras, where breakthrough research is translated into scalable technologies; Redington Group, the distribution backbone that has enabled access to innovation across 40 global markets and Zoho Corporation, a self-sustaining R&D powerhouse, proving that world-class products can be built from Indian soil.

The session will explore India’s shift from being a technology adopter to becoming a solution architect, highlighting the convergence of academia, enterprise and homegrown innovation.

Thirumalai Madhavnarayan, CEO of IIT Madras Global, emphasised the summit’s role in connecting research with entrepreneurship. “This collaboration extends IIT Madras’ mission beyond the campus — to shape the future of technology, industry, and entrepreneurship together,” he said.

Ashish Kapahi, Executive Director of GATES, called the summit a milestone in India’s innovation journey. “Our aim is to bridge technology creators with the ICT channel community — helping India move from a market of potential to a market of real influence,” he noted.

Nat Malupillai, Group CEO of IIT Madras Research Park, highlighted the Park’s commitment to deep-tech innovation. “This summit allows vendors and innovators to collaborate with some of the brightest minds from the IITM ecosystem and create positive societal outcomes,” he said.

Prof Thillai Rajan A from IIT Madras underscored the importance of market access for startups. “Events like the ICT Channel Summit facilitate dialogues between creators and consumers of innovation, enabling startups to become global players,” he stated.

With participation from over 30 cities and leading OEMs in Cloud Security and AI, the summit is all set to reinforce IIT Madras’ role as a national hub for research, entrepreneurship, and enterprise-scale transformation. Through IITM Global, the institute continues to build a globally connected innovation ecosystem, accelerating science-led entrepreneurship and international collaboration.