The India AI Impact Summit is in the news everywhere right now. Everyone you talk to here has heard about it. There were news about exorbitant hotel pricing before the summit. Then reels showing rampant mismanagement at the venue and of course, the infamous Delhi traffic jams. A lot of the spotlight was stolen by a university showcasing a Chinese robot as its own. Standard discourse for any world-class event being hosted by India.

Then there’s the meta-discussions where people are arguing on social media whether all these are deeper Indian issues. Will we ever get a well planned, international event? Will our universities ever prioritize fundamental research? Why was the event filled with bureaucrats instead of scientists? And on goes the list.

All this noise causes you to lose sight of the prize.

How many people actually watched keynotes given by the attendees? How many read up where the money is going to flow to power AI innovation in India? Were there any genuinely good start-ups that launched or demoed something?

These takeaways won’t go viral, so hardly anyone is focusing on them. Instead of physically being present there, the best thing you can do is drown out the memes and the meta-discussions and look for the signals that will give you an edge over the changing digital landscape in the country. You might spot a start-up that might 100x over the next few years, or a insight over a sector that might outperform the index. Whatever it is, it’s going to take some effort and distillation of information. It’s not going to be as easy as complaining on the internet.