Doctor · Author · TEDx Speaker

Dr. Suma Appannanavar

Bridging the Real and Digital Worlds — Raising Children in the Digital Age

Dr. Suma Appannanavar has spent her career moving between two very different worlds — a hospital and a household — and she believes the space between them is where modern parenting is being decided. A gold medalist in MBBS from JNMC Belgaum, with an MD from PGIMER Chandigarh and an MBA from BITS Pilani, she leads as Chief Operating Officer at Aster Ramesh Hospitals. Along the way she watched screens move from the edges of childhood to the centre of it. On the TEDx stage, she went straight to the question most parents are quietly asking: how do you raise children who are digitally smart, emotionally strong, and still deeply connected to the real world? Her answer was not to take the screens away. Parents, she argued, must become the bridge between the real and digital worlds — helping children move through both with confidence, awareness, and responsibility. Drawing on medicine, healthcare leadership, and her own book 'Mind Your Screen', she made the case for mindful digital parenting: healthy screen habits, emotional resilience, and a sense of identity strong enough that technology supports it instead of replacing it. Her message is firm and hopeful at once — don't disconnect children from the digital world; equip them to navigate it without losing the real one.