CITAPP Seminar Series Talk by Samir Shah on ‘DPIs in Agriculture’

Date: 17/01/2024

About the Talk:

Agriculture is truly one of the most complex ecosystems in India – comprising of millions of small holder farmers growing hugely varieties of produce lacking scale and aggregation. Very ripe for DPI (s) style intervention. This talk will explore the various models of DPIs and explore:

  • Various actors in DPI including state
  • Role of central government and state government
  • Role of private sector
  • Single large monolithic DPI vs. a collaborative, inter-operable network of several DPIs?
  • Role of regulations

Speaker Bio:

Samir Shah has three decades of experience in building institutions and digital market infrastructure. Currently, he leads Dvara, a strategic #VentureStudio and mission driven platform specialising in founding world class digital companies dedicated to financial inclusion. Dvara Venture Studio companies are pioneers in financial inclusion and also in harnessing technology including AI to serve the needs of the underserved.

Till Jan 2018, he was the MD & CEO of NCDEX. During this period, he had the fortune of leading NCDEX Group’s several initiatives that helped make India’s agri marketing system more efficient. Prior to that he was the Chief Business Officer of the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) till end of February 2013. During his tenure DGCX emerged as the second fastest growing exchange globally.

Prior to this, he worked at global information company Thomson Reuters for 17 years. From 2009 to 2011, he worked in Global and regional Business Planning & Operations roles, and helped set up a state-of-the-art Inside-Sales unit at Thomson Reuters called Direct. As a member of the Asian Leadership Team based in Singapore, he successfully transformed the Asian organisation structure and GTM to focus on customer segments. He led Reuters’ India business as the Managing Director for Reuters in South Asia. In this position, he doubled revenue through an India Strategy both organically and through M & A. In previous roles, as the Head of Treasury and Fixed Income Business for Reuters Asia and senior sales leadership roles in Asia, he partnered with large global market makers to launch dealer-customer electronic trading systems in Asia.

Samir Shah began his career as an investment banker in Mumbai helping companies unlock value through public offerings and buy-out deals. He is a Mechanical Engineer, an MBA in Finance and has completed an Advanced Management Program from Wharton.

The talk was followed by a discussion and Q&A

CITAPP’s Monthly Seminar Series is an attempt to create a forum where researchers across IIITB domains can meet and discuss cutting-edge research on the chosen theme of the semester. The Series hopes to explore a technology or topic for its ramifications in different realms of social activity. In particular, we are interested in understanding the specific kinds of complexity that these domains present for technological innovation and design.

CITAPP at IIIT Bangalore is an interdisciplinary think-tank set-up to focus on the policy challenges and the organizational demands made by technological innovation. Of particular interest to the Centre is how technological advances, along with institutional changes that harness the legitimacy and the powers of bureaucracies and market, address the needs of underserved communities.