Today's generation is planting their ambitions firmly on Indian soil as they are convinced that India itself will be the stage for realising their dreams, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani said on Thursday.
Addressing the Adani Green Talks 2025 in Ahmedabad, Mr Adani said: "Last evening, I had the pleasure of meeting some of this year's participants along with many familiar faces from the past three years of Green Talks. Standing among so many confident young entrepreneurs was absolutely energizing. I felt very much on home ground."
He added: "This generation is different. They are planting their ambitions firmly on Indian soil, convinced that India itself will be the stage for realising their dreams. No doubt I found the evening to be immensely inspiring."
The industrialist said it is "our shared responsibility to search out the brightest minds across our vast nation and prepare India to be ready for its Second Freedom Struggle - not a fight for independence from foreign rule but for independence in technology, and social innovation that uplifts every community, bridges divides and strengthens the very fabric of our democracy."
And it is this understanding that is reshaping the concept of Green Talks, he said.
Green Talks is a non-profit open platform that seeks to unite the global network of social enterprises that are bringing about broad transformation in a range of sectors, to accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. It has been designed as a space for open-source innovation, a forum for unrestricted discussion, and an incubator for concepts that could lead to long-lasting societal change.
The industrialist said that social entrepreneurs are the ones who humble him the most. "They begin, not in search of fortune but in search to build a better society," he said.
Talking about the latest edition of Green Talks, Mr Adani said: "We began this series four years ago with a simple, but powerful belief that we can learn and be inspired by those rare people who choose vision over comfort and possibility over security. Green Talks is indeed all about possibility."
He added: "Built on the belief that every fresh idea contains the blueprint for transformation, Green Talks reminds us that growth is not linear - it is unpredictable and often invisible. That is, until suddenly, a green shoot breaks through the surface, announcing a new chapter of freedom and hope."
Mr Adani recalled a few stories, including that of GenRobotics - that focuses on robotic solutions for sanitation, waste management and hazardous confined space operations - from the previous edition of Green Talks.
"I will never forget the hard-hitting images of manual scavenging that they presented. Real images that showed one of the darkest forms of human indignity. Their answer to this crisis was bold: robots - capable of entering and cleaning the dirtiest of gutters and doing the work no human should ever be forced to do. From that beginning, they have now grown to deploy over 300 robots across 21 states, freeing thousands from this degrading practice," he said.
The industrialist also praised actor Vikrant Massey over his film '12th Fail'. It is more than just a film, he said. "Just as every green shoot breaks through the hardest soil, his story reminds us that resilience and perseverance can break through every barrier," he said, days after the actor won the Best Actor Award at the 71st National Film Awards.
Besides, Mr Adani also praised Padma Vibhushan Dr Krishna Ella, "an entrepreneur who, in our darkest hour, delivered the Covid vaccine, proudly stamped Made in India, and safeguarded hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters." "Dr Ella, your inspiring journey is a reminder that visionary entrepreneurship by an individual can indeed impact the fate of a nation," he said.
