BCAS President CA Anand Bathiya’s Message for the Month of September 2024

“Sir, what supplementary courses would you recommend I take alongside my Chartered Accountancy course?” asked a young and enthusiastic student who recently embarked on her Articleship journey. The student was attending an orientation program conducted by her firm to welcome the new 2024 batch of recruits.

The principal, with grey hair and a composed demeanour, articulated to the student, “In our era, we focused on enhancing our ‘technical’ proficiency through courses like masters, legal qualifications, CS, CWA, CFA, and so on. However, today it is crucial for you to also develop ‘technological’ proficiency by deeply understanding, learning and applying modern technologies. Being tech-literate is no longer a choice.”

In current times, technology and Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) have become ubiquitous, permeating every significant discussion and infiltrating every dialog that matters.

Be it at the BCAS New Chartered Accountants’ Felicitation event, attended by hundreds of newly qualified Chartered Accountants, or the CA Pariskha pe Charcha webinar, attended by CA students in hordes; the theme of Technology somehow found its way into these leading discussions. So-much-so that when a group of BCAS volunteers visited a BCAS Foundation supported school in Umbergaon, Gujarat, t