BRCC-Chennai-2017-Writeup

BLUE RIBBON CXO CONCLAVE (BRCC), , 06TH DECEMBER 2017, CHENNAI:

THOUGHT PROVOKING PANEL DISCUSSION

 SAEINDIA Automotive Board hosted the Blue Ribbon CXO Conclave on 6th December 2017 at Chennai, during the visit of Mr. Doug Patton, President SAE International to India. The Conference was attended by 50 CXO’s from the Automotive and IT industry. Mr. Doug Patton who is also the Executive Vice President of Denso made a detailed presentation about Intelligent Mobility and Transition to Future and went into depth on Cyber Security in the Connected Vehicle era. He visualized the Mobility Society image in future touching on widespread use of IT Services, Smart  Grid, Automated Driving and Social Control. He also identified the Cyber Risk in future and the need to cope with the counter measures to ensure proper Cyber Security. He had a small video clip highlighting this factor and how Cyber Risk should be managed by proper safe guards in terms of Products and Production Facility.

Dr.Wilfried Aulbur Managing Partner at Roland Berger India spoke on Connected Trucks and effect of cyber security in Indian Automobile Market. As automotive driving progresses from connected and assisted to highly and fully automated, the need of customers for safety, security and data privacy becomes paramount. The “zombie cars” scenario as shown in the movie “Fate of the Furious” where cars are turned into weapons for a cyber-terrorist attack could become a reality in an environment where autonomous driving capabilities in vehicles are widespread. Hence, with all the advantages that modern technology brings for automotive driving, the cyber security threats that emanate from threat vectors such as internet based attacks, hardware attacks, near-field wireless attacks and sensor attacks must be taken very seriously indeed.

The topic for panel discussion was Automotive Cyber Security, Threats & Industry Readiness. The Panellists were Ms.Naveena Swamy Chief Innovative Officer IITM, Mr.Kaushik Madhavan Director, Frost & Sullivan, Mr.Sanjeet Srivastava Managing Director, Accenture Technologies, Mr.Magesh Srinivasan Global Head Connected cars, HCL Engineering & R&D Services and Mr.Vinod Senthil Founder & CTO of Infysec was the Moderator. It must be mentioned that four out of the 5 Panellists were from IT Industry, Technology Solution providers and IT related services with particular relevance to Automotive Industry.

The panellists agreed that India has a long way to go in creating preparedness to face the emerging challenges in terms of Connected Vehicles and Cyber Security. They also felt the industry transformation will be driven by advancement in Information technology rather than Automotive Industry. Panel Discussion was followed by interesting and interactive question and answer session which brought out the general awareness about the new domain of connected vehicles occupying a major space in future development of Automotive Industry.