United Nations Academic Impact and Amrita University hosted Skills and Technology Accelerating Rapid Transformation,START Conference on Technology for Sustainable Development on July 8, 2015 at the United Nations Head Quarters in New York. Over 700 people joined in person as well as many others following online. Speakers at the event included United Nations Development Programme Administrator and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark; Chancellor of Amrita University, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi; His Excellency Mr. Kaza Imnadze, Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations; Mr. Vijay Nambiar, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Myanmar; and UNAI's Ramu Damodaran. Chancellor Amma gave an opening keynote address followed by researchers from Amrita University and its collaborators. Dr. Bipin Nair, Dean of Biotechnology at Amrita University with his collaborator Prof. Tai-Ping Fan from University of Cambridge presented their work titled "Harnessing Natural Resources for a Better Tomorrow" which encompassed the research focus at Amrita School of Biotechnology on Natural Products to treat WoundHealing and Cancer, An End-to-End Diabetes Solution for Indian Masses and a Novel Lytics Broadcasting System for Sanitation Solution in the developing world. Collaborators and Adjunct Faculty Members of Amrita such as Prof. Gillian Murphy from Cambridge and Prof. Hideaki Nagase from Oxford also addressed the audience from the panel.
