e-Revolution 2010: Chandigarh Aims for a Mega Vision for ICT Revolution

The sixth edition of the two day mega ICT event, e-Revolution 2010, held on September 29 and 30, 2010, in Chandigarh was jointly hosted by the Chandigarh administration along with the Government of Punjab and STPI in association with TiE and Nasscom. It witnessed many dignitaries from various parts of the country. The event focused on Building Future Ready Organizations and Government for a New India and how IT SME companies can evolve with some of the business models showing directions for others to follow. With an aim to promote IT in Chandigarh and Punjab, numerous panel discussions and presentations were held throughout the two day event.

Omkar Rai, director general, STPI; Dr SS Channy, principal secretary, industries and commerce, Government of Punjab; Pradip Mehra, advisor to the administrator; Sanjay Kumar, secretary, IT and finance, Chandigarh administration; RK Verma, MD, Punjab Infotech; SC Agarwal, chief secretary, Government of Punjab; Manoranjan Kalia, industry and commerce minister, Government of Punjab; Pradeep Gupta, chairman, CyberMedia; and Ibrahim Ahmad, group editor, CyberMedia were among the key participants of the event. The event was inaugurated by Shivraj V Patil, Governor of Punjab and administrator of UT, Chandigarh and had a special address from Sukhbir Singh Badal, deputy chief minister, Government of Punjab.

During the inaugural address, Governor Patil said, For Chandigarh to reach electronically ahead, it has to look beyond Chandigarh itself and widen its thinking with a mega vision. During the discussions, it came out that development of IT and ITES in the region is the core agenda and both the local administrations are gearing up to promote growth of ICT industry in the region. As a major step towards making the region future-ready, the local administration is taking various e-gov initiatives and plans to automate all government departments to bring in transparency and efficiency, thus, enabling free information flow and pacing up processes. One of the key challenges in the region was identified as developing and retaining local manpower. Kumar informed that UT administration has launched the Chandigarh training on soft skills program.

Talking on the occasion, Badal highlighted the recent developments in the state in ICT. He informed that his government is committed towards bringing some serious changes and places Punjab at the forefront of the IT revolution. To support the revolution, local government is planning to commence several e-governance initiatives like e-tendering, e-payments, e-centers, e-gram centers, e-land records, e-transport and many more. Hopefully, people of Punjab will see the difference brought by IT implementations from December 2010 onwards, said Badal. Dr Pramod Kumar, chairman, Punjab Governance Reforms Commission, Government of Punjab discussed various ways of empowering local citizens by giving rights of dignity, health, education, pension among others and emphasized that the government is committed towards bringing in the necessary reforms. Education came out to be another area where IT has been bringing in a paradigm shift. Professor MK Surappa, director, IIT Ropar discussed in details about managing the quality paradigm of tech education. He elaborated the ways in which quality technical education can be given in the state and how to make Punjab a hub of talent pool. SC Agarwal, IAS, chief secretary, Government of Punjab said, Ours is the government that believes in attracting investors. He re-asserted that the state has resolved to bring in a change via ICT and give the best in terms of infrastructure to investors.

Focus on Research and Development

The first day included a panel discussion on Building a New India. The panelists included Dr Prithipal Singh, board member, Abaxix; Upal Chakraborty, CIO, DLF Group; Manipal Dhariwal, CEO, SEBIZ; Ranbir Singh, head, government vertical, Wipro Infotech; and Priti Rohra, head, accesibility, BarrierBreak. The moderator of the discussion was Vivek Atray, senior advisor, KPMG.

Every year, Indian IT companies generate a lot of revenue yet very less is spent on research and development, said the California based entrepreneur Singh, who strongly felt that India should focus on its healthcare sector and new technologies should be introduced to reach people in every corner of the country. Acknowledging that India has seen massive progress in the e-governance sector within a decade, Chakraborty stressed on the need of automation of many government processes. Dhariwal brought into notice that 70% of the Indian population live in rural India and a large population comprises of youth. Therefore, his recommendation was to take due measures to introduce technology for the rural section largely.

Stretching on Dhariwals point, Singh suggested that once new technologies are introduced, it is the responsibility of citizens of India to be open-minded towards adopting those technologies, thus, allowing transformation in their lives. The driver should be government departments, he said. He also mentioned that the government on its part should ensure that there is an availability of supporting infrastructures like power and connectivity in rural India as that will enable implementation of technologies in the hinterlands.

According to Rohra, technology is a wonderful tool if used properly. She informed that it is with the help of technology that she can confidently work at par with the senior management in her company, even though she has just 40% of her vision left. However, she feels that India should create technologies for the disabled people which will help them contribute towards the country without being a burden. Though the Government of India has taken the initiative to make all government websites user-friendly for specially abled people, implementation of such important ideas needs to be ensured.

The discussion can be summarized by concluding that we need to capitalize on our strengths and use technology to ensure that the entire country becomes a part of the new India building process.

The second day of the event kick-started with signing of a MoU between the state government and PanIIT, with a vision to capitalize on the institutional strengths of the region. This was followed by a number of panel discussions. The first panel discussion focused on where can Chandigarh region be in the next five years. The discussion was moderated by Pradeep Gupta, CMD, CyberMedia; and the panelists included Vikas Ahuja, center head, Infosys, Chandigarh and PK Sharma, VP, Tech Mahindra besides Pradip Mehra, SS Channy, Sanjay Kumar, and RK Verma.

Chandigarh faces a major land crisis for setting up new industries. Reiterating a point made by Governor Patil, Pradip Mehra said that land is not and will never be a constraint, if Chandigarh looks beyond itself and considers Mohali and Panchgula too. The state government has already identified a lot of Panchayat and government lands and has created a land-bank which will be given to industries at a very reasonable price.

It was acknowledged during the discussion that quality of life and ambience in Chandigarh attract investors. Therefore, it needs to retain these traits and update its infrastructure with the changing human demands. It came to fore that much is needed to be done to help the youth Chandigarh develop their communication skills which is a vital requirement in any industry, especially the IT service sector.

Technology for Rural India

Another discussion was on Technology Touching a Billion Lives. The panelists included Kamlakar Kaul, chief strategy officer, ENC India; Bhushan Jagyasi, scientist, TCS Innovation Labs; and Rikin Gandhi, founder, Digital Green. The discussion was moderated by N Suresh, group editor, Technology Review.

It was recognized that a large number of Indian villages are still untouched by basic technologies. Unlike mobile phones, Internet connectivity is hardly available to Indian farmers. Considering that, Jagyasi showcased an intelligent TCS innovation called Sensors and Human Participating Sensing, a technology built for farmers and for betterment of their crops through the use of mobile phones. Young innovator, Rikin Gandhi explained through a presentation that how he and his team along with partners and Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India are reaching out to remote villages to help them see gains in using technology in their day-to-day life. He stressed on the fact that if technology is to touch a billion lives, a large number of which live in rural India, we need to leverage information technology to create ladders of achievement for the farmer community by manufacturing simple yet effective technologies for their use.

Speaking about the need for proper database for technology to be taken to remote areas, Kaul explained the benefits of the new cloud technology which can be set up for niche application, and SMEs can benefit alot by availing such data and pay as they use it.

Through the discussion, it was strongly felt that technology can transform lives of common citizens if it can be made available to them. It is important to evaluate such needs and identify right tech solutions for them. Once thats done, there will be many entrepreneurs who will be ready to take it to the masses.

3G: A Complete Game-changer

The last panel discussion was on 3G Impact. The discussion was moderated by Manish Kasliwal, head, strategic marketing, L&T Infotech and among the panelists were Aditya Gupta, COO, Tata Teleservices Punjab; Sachin Singhal, GM, One97; Naresh Sharma, general manager, BSNL; and Rajat Mukarji, chief corporate affairs officer, Idea Cellular.

The discussed largely pondered on what 3G means for consumers and operators, and how 3G will impact applications such as m-banking, m-commerce, and m-governance. 3G will act as a driving force for the benefit of e-governance to reach the masses, said Sharma as he informed that government is focusing alot on data services. Stressing on the important role that government has to play in this regard, he said, The policy makers need to ensure connectivity throughout the country and set more number of towers to help spread 3G.

Taking over the discussion to whether consumers will have to pay huge amounts to avail 3G services, Gupta stated that with the benefits of advanced technology, higher bandwidth, ease of use and rich-media experience, there will certainly be an added cost which consumers should be expecting. However, it was evident from the discussion that 3G will have a considerable impact on people in the years to come, offering them rich-media experience and will give an extra leap to Internet so that it reaches people faster and with much ease.

Overall, the need to transform this region through an extensive adoption of ITboth in government as well as private sectorsand to work as more pro-active enablers for transforming the region into a knowledge hub was realized.

Drishti D Manoah
drishtim@cybermedia.co.in