New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural function of Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020, on 19th October at 7:30 PM via video conferencing. The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020 will be co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, the Indian Council of Medical Research and NITI Aayog, along with the Grand Challenges Canada, the United States Agency for International Development and Wellcome. Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Science and Technology and Earth Sciences will deliver the opening remarks. Mr. Bill Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will present the plenary framing conversation.

The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting, for the last 15 years, has fostered international innovation collaborations to address the biggest challenges in health and development. The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020 will convene virtually from 19th-21st October, bringing together policymakers and scientific leaders, calling for deepened scientific collaborations in solving global health problems, with great emphasis on COVID-19 with an “India for the World” framing. World leaders, eminent scientists and researchers from across the globe will join this annual meeting to discuss key priorities for accelerating progress across the Sustainable Development Goals in the post-pandemic world and elaborate on addressing the challenges to manage COVID-19. The three-day program will feature leaders talks, panel discussions and virtual informal conversations on topics ranging from scientific interventions for fighting the pandemic, managing the pandemic and accelerating the development and implementation of global solutions to combat this pandemic and prevent the next one. Approximately 1600 people from 40 countries will participate in this Annual meeting.

Grand Challenges India was set up as a partnership of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012, and Wellcome also joined the partnership. Grand Challenges India works across a range of health and developmental priorities ranging from agriculture, nutrition, sanitation, maternal and child health to infectious diseases.