Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

Nasscom and TiE, in association with STPI and Indian Angel Networks, organized e-Revolution 2009 in Chandigarh on September 3rd and 4th, 2009. The two-day event, aimed at the promotion of IT in Chandigarh and Punjab, began with the signing of an MoU between the Department of Technical Education, Punjab and Nasscom. This was followed by numerous panel discussions and presentations throughout the two days.

Pramod Bhasin, chairman of Nasscom and CEO of Genpact; Puneet Vatsayan, president, TiE Punjab and Chandigarh; SC Agarwal, chief secretary, Government of Punjab; SS Channy, principal secretary, Industries and Commerce, Government of Punjab; Sanjay Kumar, secretary, IT and Finance, Chandigarh Administration; Dr Omkar Rai, senior director, STPI; RK Verma, MD, Punjab Infotech; Pradeep Gupta, chairman, CyberMedia; and Karandeep Singh, MD, Sapient India; and Ibrahim Ahmed, group editor, CyberMedia were among the key participants of the event.

During the discussions, it came out that along with Chandigarh, there are some other regions, such asKapurthala, Jalandhar, Mohali, and Roopnagarthat are emerging as IT hubs in the state. Hence, the industry should focus on them.

Scope of Convergence
The first day included a panel discussion on Opportunities in e-governance, Telecom & Healthcare in the Chandigarh (tri-city) Region. Moderated by Ibrahim Ahmad, group editor, Dataquest, the discussion revolved around the scope of convergence of VAS, e-governance and healthcare. The panel members included RK Verma of Punjab Infotech; Karandeep Singh of Sapient India; Vineet Kaul, senior VP, One97; and Amit Chander, head, IT/ITeS & education investments, Barings India.

Starting the discussion with the status of e-governance projects in the state, RK Verma of Punjab Infotech informed that Punjab is aligned with the National e-Governance Program. Under NeGP, we have collaborated with HCL for setting up SWAN. Also, we are working with the government for state data centers. Under CSC, we have Suvidha Centers at district level. We are now planning to penetrate them to city level. Verma stated that there are plenty opportunities of deploying IT systems in government departments, such as transportation and municipal corporations. Upbeat about the MoU signed with Nasscom, Verma said that Punjab Infotech is working on the development of all aspectsinfrastructure, human resource, policies, and investor relationsin order to make Punjab one of the most sought after destinations for IT investments. We are coming up with an incubation centers for nurturing young entrepreneurs, he informed.

Taking over the discussion to healthcare and the scope of IT and telecom in it, Karandeep Singh of Sapient India stated, Creating awareness on wellness, rather than illness should be the focus of the tri-city. He informed that the key issues of the healthcare industry are rising costs of healthcare and the simultaneously rising patient safety expectations. These are the essentially the reasons why the healthcare industry needs to concentrate on IT solutions deployment, he stated. Mentioning a few areas of IT implementation, Singh suggested, Maintaining medical history of patients; and having an integrated healthcare system that involves citizens, public health system, pharmaceutical companies, health insurance providers on a common platform are some of the areas where IT can play a significant role.

Another discussion was on Aligning BPO Opportunities in the Domestic Market: Taking the Next Step. Rohit Kumar, deputy VP, Vertex, India and Anil Modi, head, marketing, Aegis BPO participated in the discussion that was moderated by Navin Agarwal, executive advisor, KPMG.

Speaking about the status of the domestic BPO market in India, Modi informed, Currently, its a $2 bn market and has grown at a pace of 41%, which is quite commendable. The key drivers for this growth have been, rising demand for subscriber services, increasing use of credit cards, more transactions happening via plastic money, and the penetration of the telecom industry. In such a scenario, the proximity and quality of BPO services gains prominence.

In a discussion on Building India as a Market, Sumit Bhattacharya, EVP HCL Technologies (BPO) states that it is essential to tap young and quality talents across the country and create value resources; while Rajdeep Sehrawat, VP, Nasscom; and Tanmoy Chakrabarty, VP & head of global government industry group, TCS get busy in a quick chat on the dias	In Showcase of Nasscom Emerge 50, an initiative by Nasscom identifying fifty emerging companies, Ajay Sharma, CEO, Shristi Software speaks about his entrepreneurial journey, while other panelists, including Veena Mahendru, CEO, Savi Group; Anupam Arya, chairperson, Mobera Systems; and Santosh Choubey, chairman & MD, AISECT listen

Kumar of Vertex, India talked about the need for convergence in the services being offered. Our objective is to create a one-stop shop whereby customers can interact via email, phones, telephony based, and even kiosks, he said.

Public Cloud on the Rise
Focusing on SaaS and Cloud ComputingOpportunities they Present to Companies, it came put that with the growing need for innovative and sustainable business model, cloud computing is emerging as an unparallel technology driver. The discussion was moderated by Chandramouli C S, director, offshore advisory, Zinnov Consulting; and was participated by Natraj Akella, SaaS leader, software group, IBM India; Kulbushan Chand, director partner, solution center, Oracle India; and Ashutosh Agarwal, cloud computing COE lead, Infosys Technologies.

Agarwal of Infosys pointed out the increased adoption of cloud based services by large enterprises and the benefits they are getting out of it like cost reduction and enhanced business efficiency. As per Gartner, 80% of Fortune 500 companies will use SaaS by 2012. Chand of Oracle recommended cloud computing as the ultimate growth driver for SMBs and start-ups in particular. Its the way utility computing should happen. Its low on investment, offers pay-for-use pricing, multi tenancy and most importantly, its scalable, he said. According to him, public cloud will grow to 9% of enterprise IT spend by 2012. Its an unmatched and innovative technology for the SMBs and start-ups and they must experience it once.

Global Economy to Revive Soon
Even as the discussions revolved around building growth and investment opportunities in the state, the universal issue of the economic slowdown could not be ignored. It wad unanimously agreed that the worst is over. Lead by China, the world economy is once again back on the growth path. This is what the panel discussed over Emerging from Economic Crises. The panel included Satish Bagrodia, chairman, Winsome Group; Jehil Thakkar, partner, KPMG; and Piyush Patodia, client service director, Grant Thornton India. The session was moderated by Hashveer Singh, MD, Drishti Software.

Talking about India Bagrodia said, Indian economy could save itself from direct impact of the latest recession. And now its fully back on the threshold of fast track growth. The industrial growth in India has grown to 7.8% in June over 7.2% recorded over the previous month.

Future Belongs to Entrepreneurs
There was also a special address on entrepreneurship. Starting the discussion, Puneet Vatsayan mentioned that the future of the region lies in the convergence of the government, entrepreneurs, and citizens. Pradeep Gupta of CyberMedia agreed. In the last few years, major changes have happened that have promoted in building the right ecosystem for entrepreneurship, he added.

Monalisa Das and Piyali Guha
monalisad@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1