India Conference at Harvard 2025 on Feb. 14-15, 2026 was a huge success. It was a sold-out event with over 1000 attendees. In its 23rd year of operation, the Co-Chairs of the conference were Ritul Madhukar, Arundhati Prasad, Narayani S.A., Sraaavani Royyuru and Satya Krishnan, The theme of the conference was 'The India We Imagine.

As in the past, the two-day event was split between HKS and HBS. Day 1 focussed on topics such as Building Sport Beyond the Podium, India's Orbital Ambition, Redefining Diaspora Leadership, What Counts as Culture, Scaling Confidence in the Digital Economy, Reimagining Learning in the Indian Classroom, and a keynote by Dr. Shashi Tharoor. Day 2 primarily focussed on Early Stage Investing in India, Start Up Pitch, Building Global Companies, AI, India' Home Kitchens at the Global Table, Deep Technology, concert by Sid Sriram, and chats with Priyanka Chopra and Ananya Birla.    

In the India’s Orbital Ambition: Partnerships for Progress’ panel, Dr. Raj Sharma talked future missions which benefit people of India in the areas of agriculture, water and climate. Mehak Sarang discussed the need for opportunities for young Indians to work in commercial space.

Aranya Sahay focused on in difficulty in accessing film makers and releasing films due to the way the industry is structured. However, he is very optimistic about the stories being told. Siddharth Somaiya on the other hand thought that the arts education in India provides vocation and does not encourage independent thinking or allow artists to push boundaries in their panel ‘What Counts as Culture – and Who Gets to Decide’.

As part of ‘AI, Law, and the Future of Justice in India’, Nikhil Narendran would prefer laws to strengthen the accountability rather than those that inhibit innovation. Nehan Sethi would like India to take the lead the setting up a Sandbox to test the risks and solutions, liabilities, technology which are principle based.

‘Reimagining Learning in the Indian Classroom’ brings in a breadth of new and old ideas as all of us are products of that system. While India and China both have about 250M students, India has about 1.5M schools and 10M teachers while China has 0.5M schools and 19M teachers. Kruti Bharucha said, ‘Put yourself in the position of the education minister / senior civil servant and look at the scope of the issue at hand, and don’t overcomplicate with policy and  administrative burden on teachers.’ Goal of education is the provide equity and opportunity and the success will be if I am willing to send my kid to government school in a society where money is the currency of everything we do! According to Vasvi Bharat Ram, the literacy rate has not change much in the past 20 years. She would like to see schools are a welcoming place for every student in a country where 200M people suffer from mental illness and ‘happiness’ is on a decline.

Finally, every speaker and entrepreneur touched on the topics of sense of purpose, making an impact, everyone’s journey is different, not to necessarily copy someone else’s metrics, build what your heart want to build, trust, honesty and passion.

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