What Actually Stays With You When the Room Empties
Most people think the value of a global summit is who you meet.
They’re wrong.
The real value is learning how the world actually works. And a month after attending the 3rd Global IT Summit at London City Hall, I can say with confidence that those two days in June are still influencing decisions we’re making right now – not as distant inspiration, but as active inputs into live projects, ongoing conversations and the way we think about what we’re building and for whom.
Digital Media Technology Solutions was proud to sponsor GITS 2026. This is our attempt at an honest reflection – not a polished event recap, but a considered account of what was said, what it means, and what it’s already changed.
What Was the 3rd Global IT Summit?
Hosted by WTO Consultancy UK in association with Insoft Innovations and YIBN, the 3rd Global IT Summit ran on 10th and 11th June 2026 at London City Hall, during London Tech Week. It brought together global technology leaders, investors, policymakers, entrepreneurs, healthcare experts and industry practitioners across two days of keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats and the kind of corridor conversations that never appear on any agenda but often matter most.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Deputy Mayor Howard Dawber OBE provided their support and the use of City Hall — not a small gesture, and a visible affirmation of London’s intention to remain a global hub for technology, trade and innovation, not merely claim the title.
The agenda covered Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing, London as a Global Fintech Corridor for Cross-Border Transactions, Women in Technology, Cyber Security, Data Analytics and Quantum Computing, the Indo-UK Free Trade Agreement, and AI for Digital Transformation in Manufacturing 4.0.
That’s a broad canvas. It was intentional. Modern business growth doesn’t happen inside a single discipline. It happens at the intersection of technology, finance, trade, talent and trust; and the businesses that understand that are the ones pulling ahead of their peers.
When It Happened and Why the Timing Was Significant?
Running during London Tech Week on 10th and 11th June, GITS 2026 landed at an inflection point that most business leaders are feeling, even if they haven’t named it yet.
AI has completed its transition from hype to operational expectation. Businesses are no longer asking whether to adopt it — they’re asking why their current adoption isn’t yet producing the returns they were promised, and what they’re missing. Open banking and fintech infrastructure are reshaping what efficient transactions actually look like, while legacy payment systems silently erode margins. The Indo-UK Free Trade Agreement, moving closer to fruition, is beginning to separate the businesses positioning early from those that will be reacting later. Cyber threats are escalating precisely because digital surface areas have expanded; more cloud, more connected systems, more exposure. And quantum computing, still a horizon technology commercially, is already informing investment decisions among the people serious about where things are heading.
A Summit designed to surface practical, credible insight across all of those themes, in one room, over two days, is not a luxury for the businesses and leaders dealing with those pressures. It’s a briefing.
Why Perspective Is the Most Underrated Summit Output?
Here’s something worth saying plainly before getting into the sessions themselves: the conversations don’t end when the conference does. The knowledge compounds. It influences decisions made weeks later. It changes how you build.
Being in those rooms changed how we think about cybersecurity as an infrastructure decision rather than a compliance exercise. It changed how we think about AI deployment — not as a product feature but as an operating layer. It deepened our conviction around open banking, not as a payments play but as a genuine efficiency infrastructure for businesses that have been absorbing unnecessary cost and friction for years.
The people you meet at events like GITS don’t just become contacts. They become ongoing teachers, collaborators and thought partners. A month later, several conversations that began in the margins of City Hall are already producing unexpected results — introductions made, projects scoped, frameworks shared. That’s the actual return on attendance for any event worth going to.
Day 1: Driving Innovation Through Global Collaboration
AI and Cloud Computing - Infrastructure, Not Ambition
The Summit opened with a keynote from Martin Mackay, CRO at Versa Networks, on Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing. The framing was precise and worth holding onto: AI and cloud are not destinations businesses are travelling towards. They are operating infrastructure — already in place for the businesses winning their markets, still being debated by the ones falling behind.
Intelligent automation, scalable architecture, enhanced security posture, and accelerated digital transformation were explored not as aspirations but as practical design requirements for organisations that intend to remain competitive. The implicit challenge to everyone in the room was whether their current technology estate was built for the world they’re operating in today, or the one they were operating in five years ago.
For many of the businesses DMT Solutions works with, that question has a clear answer — and closing the gap is exactly the work we do through bespoke software development, ERP integration, AI agents and automation that remove the data silos and manual processes that prevent businesses from operating at the speed their ambitions require.
London as the Global Fintech Corridor
London As The Global Fintech Corridor for Cross-Border Transactions: moderated by Radhika Iyer (Senior Editor, NDTV), and featuring Prakash Thirugnana Sambandham (Vice President, MUFG) and Jitesh Lakhani (Blackcurrant Finance), made a compelling and well-evidenced case for London’s position as the infrastructure backbone of international financial connectivity.
The opportunity isn’t in claiming the title – London already holds it. The opportunity is in removing the friction that still exists in cross-border transactions at scale: multi-step settlement processes, high transaction fees, inconsistent reconciliation and fragmented payment data.
Open banking is central to solving all of it.
This is an area DMT Solutions has invested in deliberately and extensively. Our Open Banking payments infrastructure consolidates multi-gateway management into a single integration:
- reducing transaction fees to under 1%,
- enabling instant merchant payouts,
- eliminating chargebacks,
- recurring direct debits and standing orders,Â
- recurring credit card payments or Continuous Payment Authority (CPA) (from 2027),
- synchronising with EPOS systems and accounting software,
- integrating with over 100 payment methods from Apple Pay, Amex and PayPal to existing gateways,
- Invoice and QR Code integration.
For businesses currently absorbing 2–3% on transaction costs and waiting days for funds to clear, the difference is not marginal. It’s structural.
One integration, immediate impact, and no need to rip and replace existing infrastructure.
The session crystallised something important: London’s fintech corridor ambitions and the operational reality of payments for UK businesses are the same problem, approached from different altitudes.
Women in Technology
Moderated by Yelena Mackay (AI Strategist and Revenue Operations Consultant), and featuring Amudhavalli Ranganathan (Director, Cavinkare), Natalia Pickett (Director of Procurement Services, Infinitive Group Limited), and Deeksha Ahuja (Founder, Encubay), the Women in Technology session was one of the most honest and grounded conversations of the two days.
The discussion moved quickly past representation statistics into what inclusive leadership in technology actually demands in practice – mentorship structures, access to networks, organisational culture, and the pace at which institutions are genuinely willing to change versus performatively signal change. There were no easy answers offered, which is precisely why the session worked. The willingness to sit with difficulty is, as Deeksha Ahuja’s work with Encubay demonstrates, what enables ecosystems that actually produce new leaders rather than just celebrating existing ones.
Cyber Security, Data Analytics and Quantum Computing
Nayan Gala (Founder, Nayan Gala Ventures and EdenBase Quantum Fund) and Sal Viveros (VP of Marketing and Communications, Ivanti), again moderated by Yelena Mackay, covered a topic that sits uncomfortably between immediate operational urgency and longer-horizon strategic planning.
The immediate reality: cyber threats are escalating in direct proportion to the expansion of digital surface areas. Every cloud adoption, every connected payment system, every remote working infrastructure decision increases exposure. Cyber resilience is no longer a concern for the IT department to manage below the board’s line of sight; it’s a board-level risk management priority with direct commercial implications, and the businesses treating it as anything less are carrying unquantified exposure.
The longer horizon: quantum computing is not science fiction. It is an investment reality for organisations like EdenBase Quantum Fund. The businesses making thoughtful decisions now about data architecture, encryption standards and technology infrastructure will be positioned for the quantum transition. The ones that aren’t won’t have a smooth upgrade path; they’ll have a rebuild.
Indo-UK Free Trade Agreement
Moderated by Debdut Mondal (Senior Organic Account Director, MediaPlus UK) and featuring Jack Francis Kelly (Founder, My International Portfolio), Radhika Iyer, and Subhayu Ray MBA (Strategic Business Development and Consulting Leader), the Indo-UK Free Trade discussion was the session that felt most like a starting gun rather than a recap.
The opportunity for businesses with cross-border ambitions between India and the UK, across manufacturing, technology services, professional services, financial services and trade infrastructure, is substantial. The panel was clear that the window for early positioning is open. It is not permanent. The businesses that show up early to partnerships, supply chains and market relationships will benefit disproportionately compared to those that wait for the framework to be finalised before deciding whether to engage.
We are actively exploring how DMT Solutions can support clients with Indo-UK ambitions – both in terms of digital infrastructure and in creating the commercial and trade relationships that the FTA is designed to enable.
Day 2: AI-Powered Transformation Across Industries
AI for Digital Transformation in Manufacturing 4.0
The standout session of Day 2 was the fireside chat on AI for Digital Transformation in Manufacturing 4.0, moderated by Anastasia Vladychynska (Vladychynska Consulting), featuring Paul Hu (Co-Founder and CEO, Syntropix AI) and Roop Bhadury (AI Researcher, The Sensemakers).
What made this session exceptional was its refusal to be theoretical. Paul Hu’s work at Syntropix AI centres on AI-powered operating systems for industrial enterprises – not pilot programmes, not proof-of-concept installations, but production deployments driving measurable gains in automation, intelligent decision-making and operational efficiency. Roop Bhadury brought the research perspective that grounded the commercial applications in their broader technological context.
The conversation consistently returned to the same distinction: the manufacturing businesses pulling ahead of their peers are not the ones with the most ambitious AI strategies on paper. They are the ones who have moved from strategy to implementation, found the right delivery partners, and are now measuring results rather than modelling them.
That distinction applies well beyond manufacturing. It applies to any business in any sector that has been planning a digital transformation initiative for longer than it has been executing one.
What's Already Changed a Month Later
The real measure of any summit is not how it felt to attend. It’s what’s different a month after you got home.
Follow-up meetings have been held. Collaborations that began as conversations in the margins of City Hall have been formalised. Projects are in early delivery. The perspective gained across two days of genuinely high-quality discussion has found its way into commercial decisions, technology architecture choices, and conversations with clients about where their businesses need to go.
That’s the compound return on good education. It doesn’t stop when the conference ends.
How DMT Solutions Works Across These Themes
We won’t be coy about why GITS 2026’s agenda felt so directly relevant to us. Every session mapped onto work we’re actively delivering.
AI, automation and technology: Our Technology division builds AI chatbots, intelligent agents, bespoke software and ERP integrations that eliminate the data silos and manual processes preventing businesses from scaling at pace. We’ve deployed this across sectors from events organisations and compliance platforms to fintech-adjacent services and property technology.
Open Banking and payments: One integration, sub-1% transaction fees, instant payouts, no chargebacks, compatibility with over 100 payment methods and existing gateways, seamless sync with EPOS and accounting systems. For businesses still running on legacy payment infrastructure, the shift is not complicated. It’s just rarely been made by someone willing to do it properly.
Cost reduction and procurement: This is the conversation that rarely gets the stage at technology summits, which is part of why margins stay compressed for longer than they should. Our Business Procurement Solutions division operates with the buying power of an FTSE 250 company. Across energy, telecoms, business insurance, payment terminals, business rates and waste management, we routinely identify savings of 15–60% on operating costs that most finance directors believe are already optimised. It is a free, no-obligation audit. The savings are real. In an environment where every growth initiative requires capital, freeing up cost through procurement is often the fastest route to funding transformation – faster than new revenue, faster than external investment, and considerably less dilutive. We think about it the way a seasoned procurement specialist thinks about it: every percentage point recovered from supplier margins is a percentage point available for growth.
Digital marketing and media – AI-led SEO, PPC, content strategy, PR and media outreach that convert technological capability and brand positioning into measurable commercial returns.
The through-line across all of it is the same conviction the best sessions at GITS 2026 expressed: good intentions are not enough. Measurable outcomes are what matter.
That’s what we build towards with every client, every project, every day.
Our Thanks
The 3rd Global IT Summit was not our event to run. But it was very much our community, and we are grateful to have been part of it.
Thank you to the organising team at WTO Consultancy UK, Insoft Innovations and YIBN for creating something worth attending. Thank you to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Deputy Mayor Howard Dawber OBE for the support and for making City Hall the setting for this gathering – a commitment that says something meaningful about how London’s leadership thinks about its role.
Thank you to our keynote speaker Martin Mackay (Versa Networks), moderators Radhika Iyer, Yelena Mackay, Debdut Mondal and Anastasia Vladychynska, and to all panellists – Prakash Thirugnana Sambandham, Jitesh Lakhani, Amudhavalli Ranganathan, Natalia Pickett, Deeksha Ahuja, Nayan Gala, Sal Viveros, Jack Francis Kelly, Subhayu Ray, Paul Hu and Roop Bhadury – for the quality and candour of the thinking they brought into those rooms.
Thank you to every volunteer, sponsor, partner and attendee.Â
The measure of the Summit’s success is already visible in the conversations that have moved from City Hall into contracts, collaborations and active projects.
What Comes Next
If the themes covered at GITS 2026 have any bearing on your business, and they should – the conversation does not have to wait for the next summit.
DMT Solutions offers a free, no-obligation cost audit across energy, telecoms, business insurance, payment terminals, business rates and waste management. For most businesses, it’s the fastest way to identify capital that can be redeployed into growth, technology and transformation.
No commitment.
No obligation.
Just clarity about what you’re actually spending versus what you need to be.
We continue to explore how Open Banking, Unified Payments and the UK-India Free Trade opportunity can create real, measurable value for the businesses and communities we work with. Not as agenda items. As live projects.
The people shaping tomorrow never stop learning. Neither do we.
Every room has something to teach – if you’re willing to listen.
