“Professor C K Prahalad was and will be a guiding force for industry and people of this country. It is time for us to celebrate his contributions and recognise our responsibility to translate his vision to reality,” said Adi Godrej, president, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in his address on the occasion of unveiling ceremony of Professor C K Prahalad bust held at the CII Southern Region Headquarters.
Mr. Godrej said, “CII worked very closely with Professor Prahalad in ‘India at 75,’ an initiative articulated by him during an event to commemorate the 60 year of Indian independence at New York.
Professor Prahalad charted out his vision for ‘India at 75’ where India would have the world’s largest pool of trained manpower, became home for at least 30 of the Fortune 100 firms and accounted for 10 per cent of the global trade, and others.
Professor Prahalad was very passionate about India’s development and has spent time on India’s strategies on entrepreneurship, innovation and others, he added.
G V Sanjay Reddy, Chairman, CII Southern Region, in his address, said that Professor Prahalad’s principles became the guiding light for the Indian industry and over the years, his vision has become visible through new generation of products and services across India.
As part of Professor C K Prahalad’s memorial event, an interactive session was organised with the president of CII, Adi Godrej. As many as 1,200 students from institutions across Tamil Nadu participated at the session. In his address, Mr. Adi Godrej said, “Professor Prahalad was no ordinary thinker, he was an intellectual colossus. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Professor Prahalad turned the corporate world on its head through his pioneering concepts and ‘disruptive innovation’. Mr Godrej said through the sound propositions of Professor Prahalad, CII embarked on a journey of creating a bottom-up vision for India at 75 with the larger objective of creating an inclusive India by 2022.
“CII believes in Professor Prahalad’s vision and passion for India to be a great economic force for the world to reckon with. In her remarks, “Gayathri Prahalad said, today’s unveiling of Professor Prahalad’s bust is a path to the future. We are unleashing a movement that Dr. Prahalad showed would gain India a place in the business world by providing us with concepts and tools and most of all by sparking our imagination and giving us the confidence that people can achieve anything they wanted. Quoting Professor Prahalad, Ms. Gayathri said, “Our investment has to be in education, imagining the future and finding the strength in modern leadership.”
Dr. Prahalad’s son, Murali Prahalad and daughter Deepa Prahalad remembered their father for his great dream for ‘India at 75,’ a vision that would make India a global leader by 2022. The family members of Prahalad recalled Professor Prahalad’s aspiration for an inclusive growth with equal opportunities for all and empowering the youth in building a modern India.
Rajan R Navani, Chairman, CII National Committee on India at 75, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, and R Dinesh, Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council, spoke.
