Hyderabad: The first edition of the Telangana Sports Conclave will be held at the HICC Convention Hall in the city on August 2, with Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy addressing the gathering to formally inaugurate the event. “The main objective of the conclave is to assess the current high-performance sports ecosystem and create a structured development roadmap for Telangana. It will also focus on building an athlete-centric sports ecosystem — governance, funding, and policy alignment, strengthening grassroots to elite pathways — infrastructure, coaching, and scouting frameworks,” informed Sports Authority of Telangana State VC & MD, A. Sonibala Devi. The speakers include Beijing Olympics gold medalist and shooter Abhinav Bindra, former international volleyballer and Arjuna Awardee Ravikanth Reddy, Tata Trusts Head of Sports Neelam Babardesai, and Adille Sumariwalla, vice-president of the World Athletics Federation. “The role of private academies and corporate investment in high-performance sport, best practices from other states, and global athlete development models will also be discussed during the day-long seminar, with well-known commentator Charu Sharma being the moderator,” she added. Some of the distinguished panel speakers include London Olympics bronze medalist and ace shooter Gagan Narang, World Championship athletics bronze medalist Anju Bobby George, chief national badminton coach P. Gopi Chand, COO of Dream Sports Foundation Sumit Pandey, and COO of Inspire Institute of Bellary Tathagata Mukherjee. The moderators for the Conclave will be well-known sports journalists G. Vishwanath of Mumbai and Saba Nayakan of Kolkata. “The second session will focus on expanding community sports and advancing physical literacy in Telangana, with a focus on developing strategies to increase grassroots sports participation, improve the sporting culture, and advance physical literacy,” the top SATG official said. The Conclave will also discuss ensuring broad-based access to sports infrastructure at the district and community level, integrating sports and physical literacy into schools and colleges, and creating a blueprint for better participation,” Sonibala Devi said. “The role of institutions in ensuring fair access to sports, learning from successful models in India and internationally, will also be discussed during the conclave,” she added.