BHUBANESWAR: The Black Swan Summit India 2026 kicked off here on Thursday setting the stage for strategies that accelerate India’s leadership in the digital economy.
Co-organised by the Odisha government and Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN) under the BharatNetra Initiative, the two-day summit aims at placing Odisha at the centre of regulated digital finance and sustainable job creation in the country.
Addressing the summit, chief secretary Anu Garg said Odisha has emerged as a $112 billion economy with strong fundamentals with 69 per cent working-age population and the best fiscal health record in India with two decades of revenue surplus.
Rich in minerals and rapidly diversifying beyond traditional industries into EVs, electronics and green energy, the state is focused on value-added manufacturing, infrastructure expansion and ease of doing business, she said.
“Odisha aims to create 10 million jobs by 2027, scale to a $500 billion economy by 2036 and $1.5 trillion by 2047, while advancing urbanisation, disaster resilience, women’s participation and positioning itself as a global health and skills hub,” she added.
Additional chief secretary of Electronics and IT Vishal Dev said Odisha has transformed over two decades into a model of governance reform, fiscal discipline, disaster resilience and inclusive growth, while Bhubaneswar has emerged as a leading smart city with strong digital public infrastructure, a growing IT and startup ecosystem and rising global interest in fintech and technology.
“For the fintech community, Odisha offers three key strengths - scale with inclusion, demonstrated by digital finance empowering women’s self-help groups, a strong talent pipeline of engineers and data professionals. Global FinTech companies are partnering with the state to identify and build a digital workforce for the future of the industry,” he said.
In global leaders’ dialogue on technology, jobs and growth, CMD of Bajaj Finserv Sanjiv Bajaj, president of Ant International Douglas Feagin, chairman of GFTN Ravi Menon and president of Accion Michael Schlein spoke on how AI, digital finance and global capital flows are reshaping employment, productivity and inclusive growth.
Group CEO of GFTN Sopnendu Mohanty also spoke. President Droupadi Murmu and Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi are slated to attend the global conclave on Friday.