People Matters TechHR India 2026, New Delhi: dates, venue, agenda and event guide
People Matters TechHR India 2026 ran on 6 and 7 August 2026 at Yashobhoomi in Dwarka, New Delhi. The two-day conference and WorkTech Expo brought CHROs, HR leaders, business executives and work tech companies together under the theme "Orchestrating Growth With A Human Edge". This guide explains what TechHR is, who runs it, what the 2026 agenda covered and who attends.
Written by the HoloBox911 team, who were on the expo floor at TechHR India 2026 · Updated 8 October 2026
TechHR India 2026 at a glance
What is People Matters TechHR?
People Matters TechHR is an annual conference and exhibition about human resources and work technology, run by the HR media company People Matters. It pairs a multi-track conference programme with a WorkTech Expo where HR technology companies show their products, and it is aimed squarely at the people who buy and run HR systems: CHROs, HR leaders, and the executives and founders around them.
The event began as TechHR'14 on 22 August 2014 at The Leela in Gurgaon, billed as India's first large-scale HR technology conference. The organisers expected more than 400 delegates, 30 speakers and 22 sessions. By the 2018 edition in Delhi NCR it was drawing more than 200 HR technology companies, and the brand had expanded to Singapore in 2016, later adding the TechHR Pulse format in Southeast Asia and Indian cities such as Bengaluru.
People Matters describes TechHR as Asia's largest HR and Work Tech conference. That positioning is the organiser's own and is not independently audited, so this guide reports it as a claim rather than as a ranking. What is clear from the published figures is the trajectory: from a few hundred delegates in 2014 to more than 5,000 a decade later.
What happens at TechHR
The published programme combines several strands:
- A conference across four themed tracks, with keynotes, panels and masterclasses
- The WorkTech Expo, where HR and work technology companies exhibit
- A Startup Zone for early-stage HR tech companies
- Closed-door and peer formats such as C-Suite Huddles and the People Matters THINK TANK
- Awards, mentorship sessions and the TechHR Night Fest
TechHR India 2026 dates and format
TechHR India 2026 ran over two days, Thursday 6 and Friday 7 August 2026, at Yashobhoomi in Dwarka. The organisers published more than 100 learning hours across the two days, which is only possible because sessions run in parallel across several tracks and formats rather than from a single stage. Workshops and masterclasses were sold as add-ons or bundled into premium passes. The organisers did not publish a public session-by-session timetable, so the table below sets out the structure rather than session times.
| Element | What it covered |
|---|---|
| Thursday 6 and Friday 7 August 2026 | Two full conference days running in parallel with the WorkTech Expo and Startup Zone, across four agenda tracks and more than 100 published learning hours. |
| Session formats | C-Suite Huddles, People Matters THINK TANK, Talent Snack case studies, TechHR Lighthouse Talks, Big Questions debates streamed live on LinkedIn, and live Q&A, alongside masterclasses and workshops. |
Where was TechHR India 2026 held?
TechHR India 2026 was held at Yashobhoomi, the India International Convention and Expo Centre at Dwarka in New Delhi. This was a change from earlier editions: the 2024 edition and several before it were held at the Leela Ambience in Gurugram, and the first in 2014 at The Leela, Gurgaon. Phase 1 of Yashobhoomi opened in September 2023 at a cost of around ₹5,400 crore. Its convention block covers more than 73,000 square metres and holds 15 convention rooms, including a plenary hall seating about 6,000 and a grand ballroom for about 2,500, with a combined capacity of roughly 11,000 delegates. Exhibition halls add more than 1.07 lakh square metres. Reported hall counts and some area figures differ between sources, so this guide states only the figures that agree. For visitors, the venue has its own metro station, Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25 on the Airport Express line, which opened with the centre and sits about 21 minutes from New Delhi station, with Indira Gandhi International Airport on the same line.
Who organises TechHR India?
TechHR India is organised by People Matters, with a wide partner ecosystem around it rather than a government or trade-body sponsor.
People Matters
People Matters, operating as People Matters Media Pvt. Ltd., is an HR media and events company. It publishes HR journalism year-round and runs TechHR as its flagship conference, which is why the agenda tends to track the editorial themes the publication is covering.
The wider TechHR platform
TechHR is not a single event. Alongside the India flagship, People Matters runs a Singapore edition, launched in 2016, and the shorter TechHR Pulse format in Southeast Asia and Indian cities. Edition numbering differs across these strands, so this guide refers to TechHR India 2026 by year rather than by edition number.
Partners and exhibitors
The organisers listed more than 150 HR and Work Tech partners for the 2026 edition. These are the technology vendors, service providers and sponsors who exhibit at the WorkTech Expo and support the programme, and they are a large part of why the event functions as a buying venue as well as a conference.
Startups
A dedicated Startup Zone gives early-stage HR technology companies a presence on the floor alongside established vendors, which has been part of the event's structure since its earliest editions brought start-ups and investors into the same room as practitioners.
TechHR India 2026 theme, tracks and agenda
The 2026 theme was "Orchestrating Growth With A Human Edge", carried with the tagline "What we create today, others inherit tomorrow." The through-line is the balance between automation and human judgement: what technology should orchestrate, and what should stay with people. The agenda was organised into four tracks, which the organisers call Fastlanes.
The New HR Operating System (HROS) Edge and The Leadership Edge
The first track deals with how the HR function itself is built: the systems, processes and data model that sit underneath hiring, performance and pay. The second deals with the people who run it, and with how leadership practice changes when much of the operating layer is automated.
The Human+Tech Experience Edge
This track covers the employee-facing side: what it actually feels like to work inside an organisation where technology mediates much of the experience, from onboarding through to everyday support. It is where the theme's "human edge" framing is most directly tested.
The Sustainable Innovation Edge
The fourth track addresses innovation that holds up over time rather than pilots that stall after a year, including how organisations adopt new tools without exhausting the people expected to use them. Jason Averbook of Mercer led a masterclass on change resilience within this area of the programme.
Highlights and speakers at TechHR India 2026
Session formats
What distinguishes TechHR from a standard conference is the range of formats rather than the number of keynotes. The published formats were:
- C-Suite Huddles: facilitated, peer-to-peer discussions for senior leaders
- People Matters THINK TANK: candid discussions with CHROs and business leaders
- Talent Snack: short case-study presentations followed by questions, and TechHR Lighthouse Talks from speakers outside traditional business and HR
- Big Questions: debate-style sessions streamed live on LinkedIn, plus live Q&A
Speakers, the expo floor and the Night Fest
The organisers published more than 175 speakers for the 2026 edition. Named on the official programme were Marc Effron, President of the Talent Strategy Group; Holger Mueller, VP and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research; and Jason Averbook, Senior Partner at Mercer. Two strands ran alongside the conference:
- The WorkTech Expo and Startup Zone: the exhibition floor, where more than 150 HR and Work Tech partners showed products, with a separate area reserved for early-stage HR tech startups. For most delegates this is where product evaluation actually happens.
- Awards, mentorship and the TechHR Night Fest: an awards programme, structured mentorship sessions, and an evening networking event. The organisers have not published a full awards category list for the 2026 edition, so this guide does not list one.
TechHR India 2026 in numbers
The participation figures below are the organiser's own, published on the official TechHR India site. They are not independently audited, and this guide labels them as the organiser's throughout. Historical figures come from People Matters' own event archive, and venue figures from public information about Yashobhoomi.
The full figures
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Attendees (organiser's figure) | 5,000+ |
| Speakers (organiser's figure) | 175+ |
| HR and Work Tech partners (organiser's figure) | 150+ |
| Learning hours (organiser's figure) | 100+ across two days |
| Agenda tracks | 4 Fastlanes |
| First edition, 2014 | 400+ delegates, 30 speakers and 22 sessions expected |
| 2018 edition | 200+ HR technology companies participating |
| Venue capacity, Yashobhoomi convention block | About 11,000 delegates across 15 convention rooms |
| Nearest metro | Yashobhoomi Dwarka Sector 25, Airport Express line |
Participation figures are published by People Matters on the official TechHR India site and are not independently audited. The organisers' description of TechHR as Asia's largest HR and Work Tech conference is likewise their own positioning rather than a verified ranking. Historical figures are from People Matters' event archive; 2014 numbers were the organisers' pre-event expectations for the first edition.
