Deans Summit

About Deans Summit

Deans Summit—a signature program under the ambit of Deloitte’s University Relations—is a prestigious annual event for deans and directors from premier institutes across India.

Under University Relations (UR), Deans Summit, as a platform, continues to bring in new ideas catering to current landscape changes and helps align talent to future workforce requirements of the businesses. Thinking ahead of the curve and realigning with the times are what keep us relevant, the spectrum of topics covered during this program year-on-year only reinforces our commitment to the future workforce.

From mutually beneficial conversations between business and academia, to bringing in innovation in our approach to engaging with alumni, all the while providing platforms for breakthrough conversations, the event has gained a reputation of bringing about a paradigm shift in thinking and actioning.

A network of over 250 academic leaders and their insights have enabled the UR team to publish thought ware that are relevant to all academia, industry, alumni and education regulators.

Thoughtful, insightful, engaging, intriguing, evolving and forward-looking, this UR program is designed to be mutually beneficial and futuristic.

The journey so far

With seven successful years of disrupting the talent and education landscape of India, here’s a quick recap of this marquee program.

• Year one: Was focused on talent trends and trials with emphasis on digital education and preparing future talent
• Year two: Drove us to forge and leverage strategic relationships by fostering industry-academia collaboration
• Year three: Had thought leadership helping academicians build world class institutions
• Year four: Was focused around the theme “the greatest time to matter”
• Year five: Structured on the theme “Make your impact”, the summit focused on the future—future of work, future of education, and skills pertinent for future educators.
• Year six: centered on the themes of ‘connectedness’ and ‘resilient leadership’, and the resilient leaders’ approach to navigating through academic uncertainties.
  
• Year seven: focused on decoding the future of talent experience and shifts in learning patterns, as well as defining the paradigm shift in education and business. This summit acted as a guide to ‘thriving in the next normal’.
  

Deans Summit has been at the fore-front of experiential learning, breakthrough discussions, eminent thought wares, and digitization.

Latest edition: Deans Summit 2021

Structured on the theme ‘Thriving in the next normal: Insights to outcome’, the latest edition of Deans’ Summit held in 2021 focused on the exponential growth and accelerated change in higher education and talent landscape in India. During the summit, leaders and specialists drove and participated in conversations around key topics of future of technology, future of talent experience, the rise of skilling, learning outcomes and models, purpose and well-being.

Held virtually, the Deans’ Summit 2021 edition aimed to:

• Decode the future of talent experience and shifts in learning patterns.
• Define the paradigm shift in education and business, and what it means to usher in the next normal.

Explore the in-depth article on Deloitte Insights for key insights captured from the sessions and conversations between academia and business leaders and specialists.

Insights from Deloitte's Deans Summit

2021:

Optimizing learning outcomes in the Indian higher education sector
As an outcome of the Deans' Summit held in December 2021, we’ve gathered insights from top academicians across India. Explore the latest report to discover how collaboration with the industry and the three-step framework can help higher education institutions build “purple skills” of the future.

2020:

Building resilience and self-reliance
From the conversations and sessions held during the Deans Summit ‘Connected’ in 2020, we gathered insights on how COVID-19 rattled India’s higher education but also opened myriad opportunities in this in-depth article.

Enrollment management and its impact
Adapting to uncertain times for a resilient future
How can the deans and leaders of educational institutions weave the element of enrollment management into their overarching strategy for students during these times?

Zooming in and zooming out
Technology and systems transformation for an enhanced learner experience
Challenging current perspectives on student systems—from moving toward a student-centric focus, to leveraging data to back decision-making.

Designing tomorrow's world today
The need for lifelong learning
To be served by the education system is a privilege. But what if the education system itself is pivoting around orthodoxies that are not serving the consumers of the system, in these rapidly changing times?

Future is purple
Overcoming the digital skills gap with 'purple' people
The future is now. Technology disruptions are the new constant. New realities of work are impacting more than just work. And the future of work seems to rapidly be moving toward a scenario when humans are beginning to work productively and increasingly with technology.

Managing risk in the education landscape
Emerging role of a chief risk officer
The higher education sector is experiencing change at an accelerating rate, some of which was already underway since before the pandemic. As a result, an environment of constant change and disruption is creating opportunities as well as leading to a growing array of risks, which can quickly derail the strategy of higher education institutions.

Digital Transformation
Transforming learning to develop capabilities in the digital age
Emerging technology is reshaping the world of work, including the kind of jobs and the varying skills required. To keep up with the pace of change in the digital age, reskilling workforce and developing capabilities are need of the hour.

 

What is in it for the schools and the participants?

• To facilitate the further nurturing of our ties with these institutions and trigger discussions within these institutes beyond placements
• To enable conversations on opportunities in the new decade to advance higher education in India
• To channelize educational transformation by deliberation and exchange of knowledge and tools across recognized institutes
• To identify opportunities for greater synergy and collaboration between industry and academia across curriculum design, executive learning, and building thought leadership to make the future workforce industry-ready and innovation-ready
• To reimagine learning for enhancing the employability of the future workforce