Participant profile and topics at SKU-sort-deliver forum:

Speakers want to know who will be in the audience and therefore how to pitch talks. Below is a list of potential participants:

1. Chief Operations Officers (COOs)
2. Product managers
3. SME retail business owners
4. Founders and CXO teams from startups operating in logistics space
5. Operations teams
6. Data scientists
7. Product engineers
8. Mapping and location data communities and practitioners
9. Researchers

Based on the above audience profile, our interest is in seeking talks that cover:

1. Business decisions and approaches
2. Discovery of new markets and customer segments
3. Innovation from product/customer perspective
4. How business challenges have been solved (partially/fully) through technology (including engineering, AI, ML, etc)

We are accepting proposals for talks, workshops, BOF sessions and other formats on the following topics:

1. Location data and address challenges in Indian markets -- in first and second-tier cities and smaller towns.
2. Fleet management approches - costs, operational challenges, asset management.
3. Inventory management -- addressing vectors such as SMEs and large organizations, short and long shelf life of goods/products.
4. Warehousing solutions - linked to inventory management.
5. Supply chain and fulfillment - novel approaches and product innovations.
6. MyGate - fulfillment and user privacy perspectives.
7. Logistics solutions built for developing markets including India, China, Indonesia, and other parts of South East Asia.
8. Solutions built to leverage/assist business communities and setups such as Kiraana, AlphaLite, Samarth.
9. Product and business innovations for serving customers and players left out by conventional approaches.
10. Service innovations for value-conscious customers; built for flexibility to control costs.

We will update the list of topics as we receive feedback and proposals. Feel free to add proposals for topics you want someone else to speak on by adding a proposal.

##Formats of talks/sessions

1. Full talks - 40 mins duration
2. Crisp talks - 20 mins duration
3. Flash talks - 5-10 mins
4. Birds of Feather (BOF) session - 1 hour duration
5. Round tables - 1-3 hours duration
6. Hands-on workshops, where participants follow instructors on their laptops: 3-6 hours duration
7. Suggest your own format

##Selection process

Proposals will be accepted based on the themes of the forum.

We recommend that proposers do the following with/after submitting proposals:

1. Add links to videos/slide decks if your talk is at an advanced stage of articulation.
2. Explain problem statement and the key learnings in greater detail.
3. Submit your proposal early for feedback and review.

This forum’s policy is one speaker per talk. There can be multiple facilitators for BOFs, workshops and other formats.

Passes for speakers

Confirmed speakers, facilitators and instructors get a pass to the conference. They also receive a discount code to share with colleagues, communities they are part of, and on social media channels. We do not provide free passes for speakers’ colleagues and spouses. Please do not ask us for this.

Travel grants for outstation speakers:

Travel grants are available for international and domestic speakers. We evaluate each case on its merits, giving preference to women and persons of non-binary genders.
If you require a grant, request it when you submit your proposal in the field where you add your location. This event is funded through ticket purchases and sponsorships; travel grant budgets vary.

Important dates:

Last date for submissions: 18 April, 2020 for the unconference track. Talks in other tracks will be confirmed iteratively with schedule announced by 3 April.

Event date: 18 April 2020

Schedule announcement: iteratively, from 15 March onwards

Contact:
Write to fifthelephant.editorial@hasgeek.com if you have questions regarding talks/sessions at the conference.