Dr. Suborno Bose Honored as ‘AI Policy Leader of the Year 2025’

BENGALURU:
The Economic Times has conferred the AI Policy Leader of the Year 2025 award upon Dr. Suborno Bose, Chairman of the International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM). This recognition highlights his pioneering contribution in shaping a human-centered AI integration model within hospitality and higher education, an approach that proposes policy leadership can emerge just as much from academic institutions and classrooms as from government and industry boardrooms.

In acknowledgment of the award, Dr. Bose, said, “I am deeply humbled to learn that The Economic Times has chosen to confer on me the title of AI Policy Leader of the Year 2025. I view it not as a personal accolade but as an acknowledgment of what Indian education has achieved through courage and experimentation. This recognition validates a larger idea — that policy leadership today is not confined to government corridors. It can emerge from classrooms, labs and institutions that dare to reimagine learning through technology. What began as an experiment within IIHM and has been successful, has evolved into a policy model for responsible, human-centric AI integration in education.

As discussions on AI grow louder, Dr. Bose is clear that responsible AI in hospitality isn’t simply a matter of inserting ‘ethics’ into code as it requires designing systems with intent, where technology supports people rather than performs for them. He argues that AI should stay largely invisible to guests and practical for workers but not as a grand showcase of innovation but as an unobtrusive layer that strengthens human connection.

Rather than allowing technology to overshadow service, his approach positions AI as an operational enabler that enhances precision, sustainability and situational awareness while preserving the emotional dimension at the heart of hospitality. This principle shapes IIHM’s learning ecosystem, where students engage in AI-driven hospitality simulations, sustainability and zero-waste labs, empathy-oriented training, and tools such as the GreenRoute Sustainable Travel GPT and the SDG GPT Builder. The underlying claim, which may sound idealistic but is central to his philosophy, is that education itself functions as a living policy—one that influences industry practices by shaping mindset and behavior before graduates even enter the workforce. “Policy has meaning only when it reaches people,” he often says, and within IIHM, responsibility, sustainability and guest empathy are designed to be practiced as essential competencies rather than added later as corrections.