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B Swaminathan
The CIO Association Chennai Chapter recently concluded its highly anticipated CIO Tech & Kinship Family Event 2025, which was successfully held in the scenic coastal town of Pondicherry. More than just a conference, the exclusive gathering celebrated technology, collaboration, and togetherness, bringing a refreshing blend of professional insights and personal connection to the community.
The event brought together a substantial gathering of CIOs, industry partners, and, notably, their families, in a setting specifically designed to foster relationships that extended well beyond the boardroom. Manjunath Prasad, President of the chapter explains the motive behind involving families in the events and the plans ahead.
How did the Family Day event align with the chapter’s broader goals for the year, particularly in terms of member engagement and fostering a sense of community?
Family Day event contributes to the chapter’s goals by enhancing member engagement through inclusive activities along with their families, strengthening the sense of community, and supporting long-term retention by fostering a welcoming, supportive environment.
Our members had engaging sessions and networking with our partners to learn about their technology solutions roadmap to meet the diverse needs of their respective organizations. Such relaxed sessions increases the bonding between members & Technology partners.
We had variety of activities suited to various age groups (games for kids, networking for adults, bonding games for couples and more) which enabled members to engage with each other in new, relaxed ways.
Such events reflect a culture of inclusivity and care that strengthens our chapters core values and helps members create lasting memories and positive association with the chapter. It also leads to further promote member engagement.
What was the most significant challenge the organizing committee faced in planning and executing this year’s Family Day, and how was it overcome?
Typically we will have multiple challenges in organizing such a huge gathering of 250+ participants, which was handled well by our Council members with co-ordinated planning and addressing proactively to ensure the event is smooth, fun, engaging and memorable experience to everyone involved.
To name a few challenges & how it was addressed:
– We had to balance the needs of diverse attendees, ensuring smooth co-ordination during their travel & stay at the venue. Separate halls for CIO members knowledge sessions with partners, and different game zones & activities were planned to engage wide range of ages – young kids, teenagers, adults etc
– We had to be prepared to handle the weather exigencies to conduct the activities indoor in case of rains or extreme heat. Activities were planned and kept flexible to handle such situations
– Budgeting is always a concern for such events, which was handled well proactively by our Council members with effective planning & co-ordination with partners.
– Ensuring safety of all attendees and ensuring engagement of all members through out the stay at the venue was also handled well with sufficient volunteers and enthusiastic partners contribution
Today many tech-professionals are longing for a perfect work-life balance. how have such events motivated your members and their wellbeing?
Events like the Family Day plays a meaningful role in motivating our members—particularly tech professionals—and supporting their well-being and sense of community in several concrete ways like Reinforcing the values of Why Work-Life Balance matters. It shows the sense of support, strengthening social connections, enabling shared experiences, encourage detachment from work etc.. and feeling relieved in a relaxed environment. It also helps build the bonding with the next generation (GenZ).
In what ways did the Family Day event contribute to strengthening the bonds between the CIOs and their immediate families?
Family Day event contributes to strengthen the bonds between peers of similar roles across multiple & different organizations along with their families and next generation.
It enables to share experience in a non-working & relaxed atmosphere, spend quality time together with families and friends away from the work mindset, thus reinforcing value and recognition of the family role in their career growth. It provides long term relation benefits of supporting work life balance thru inclusive time and care for the community
What are the other immediate plans for your association in the coming days?
We are working on plans to execute more of such events to enable connect with Partners, Families and the next generation kids to foster the sense of belonging & serving community.
