[Inaugural ceremony( From L-R) Mr. Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor – WIPRO LIMITED, Shri Deepak Ku. Sahu, Chief editor, VARINDIA, Mr. Nihar Chakraborty, Sr. V.P.& COO-East & SAARC- Sify Technologies, Mr. R.N Palai, ITS,Spl. secy. to Govt., IT department,GoO, Mr. Vipin Tyagi, E.D. – C Dot, Government of India, Mr Nilanjan Mukherjee, Senior Vice President, Fourth Dimension Solutions, Mr. Soubhagya Routray, President-ITAO , Mr. Gopal Krishna Nayak, Director-IIIT(Bhubaneswar), Mr. Suvrendu Mitra, IMS Div.East India - Canon India, Mr. Ashok Mohapatra, Organising Committee- VARINDIA Cricket]
Post demonetisation and the crisis faced by the country, the 9th Odisha Information Technology Fair – 2017 (OITF) holds much more importance to understand the actual groundwork going on the smart city front. The Department of IT, Odisha, STPI, UCCI and C-Dot supported the conference. The conference chose “Digital Transformation” as its theme and the focus of the meet was to popularize digital transaction, Digital India and to understand the investment opportunities in Odisha as Bhubaneswar has been declared as the first Smart City in India.
Around 250 delegates including top executives from across verticals comprising of government, academics, corporate world, IT services companies and VARs attended the event. Organized by VARINDIA (India’s Frontline IT Magazine), the event was held at Hotel Mayfair, Bhubaneswar on 24th January, 2017, which served as a unique platform to discuss under one roof the vital issues concerning the IT landscape in the state.
The delegates exchanged their views on the next-generation technology which is going to disrupt the industry with the introduction of IoT devices in the Smart City projects for the future. C-Dot spoke on how Indian products are most suitable with their state-of-the-art digital innovations for transforming India to come up with Smart Cities.
Shri Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA, Bhubaneswar, who graced the occasion as a Special Guest, marked the beginning of the event by lighting the ceremonial lamp. He was joined by other distinguished guests – Shri R. N. Palai, ITS, Special Secretary to the Government, IT Department, GoO; Shri Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director, C-Dot, Government of India; Dr Gopal Krishna Nayak, Director, IIIT, Bhubaneswar; Shri Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor, WIPRO Limited; Shri Nihar Chakraborty, Sr Vice-President.& COO – East & SAARC, Sify Technologies; Shri Sameer Bhatia, Country Manager – India & SAARC, Seagate Technology; Shri Nilanjan Mukherjee, Sr Vice-President, Fourth Dimension Solutions; Shri Suvrendu Mitra, IMS Div. East India, Canon India; Shri Soubhagya Routray, President, ITAO; and Shri Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA.
Shri Deepak Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA, while addressing the guests, remarked at the fabulous digital story that India is seeing. He spoke on how VARINDIA continues with this spirit to provide a real-time update on the industry – be it Digital India, Startup India, Stand Up India, Make in India, and now one of the important subjects which is Digital Payment (the recent matter be it demonetization), and the most important – Securing India. “The assets are being created either by you or the state, but they are under threat by cybercriminals. Businesses have to yet wake up to the grave risks posed by social media. Unless companies come to realize that their security perimeters must grow beyond the corporate firewall to encompass social media networks, then the global cost of cybercrime will continue to reach US$2.1 trillion by 2019,” he said.
Shri R. N. Palai, ITS, Special Secretary to the Government, IT Department, GoO, spoke on the Government’s commitment for the growth of IT, ITeS and electronics manufacturing in Odisha. “We have a friendly ICT policy for promoting this sector. IT exports from Odisha increased to Rs.3,000 crore during 2015-16 and are increasing at the rate of 15% per year. The Government of Odisha welcomes IT companies to invest in the state. With a stable Government in Odisha and the appointment of Dr Sam Pitroda as the Technology Advisor, we are expecting a positive growth of IT in Odisha.”
He also spoke on the electronics manufacturing cluster, about manufacturing which is to start in Odisha in Info valley – II. “Going forward, initiatives made by VARINDIA for organizing Cricket tournament is really commendable and rejuvenates the minds of the young generation working in the SME and corporate sectors in Odisha, in the present demonetization saga,” he said.
Dr Gopal Krishna Nayak, Director, IIIT, Bhubaneswar, addressed the audience on the importance of economy. “Deglobalization is happening, across the world. Firstly, the countries which were promoting free trading now are slowly becoming insular. It is stated with Britain and Now President Trump’s announcement on the barrier on imports and outsourcing is a dangerous thing for the Indian IT industry and hope globalization will not stop. Secondly, with the rise of robots, in the manufacturing industry, it is expected to replace the skilled workers. With the rise of robots, many jobs are at stake. Lastly, with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, blue and white collar jobs are also going to vanish and some newer form of jobs will get introduced. This year, it has started with a gloomy note like demonetization unlike other years. What we see VARINDIA is changing this time for better, and brings a great platform like this with the industry and the stakeholders for business networking.”
Shri Vipin Tyagi, Exedcutgive Director, C-Dot, Government of India, spoke on the presence of good education in Odisha and manufacturing cluster. “C-DOT is ready to give any manufacturer in Odisha to manufacturing technology products to get manufactured, since technology will work shoulder to shoulder with any partner and will come forward.”
He further spoke about reliable communication which is a must. “Networking has to be on priority. Without right networking, nothing will work including any sensors and for this we would require integrated core-based IP network to get success of the smart city objective in the country. C-DOT has built the entire model which has four objectives for the smart city, that include Physical (energy, water, transport, connectivity and waste), Social (Education, health, building homes, city – inclusive development, entertainment and economy. We can give this model to the manufacturers which is end-to-end well fit for the smart city. Just build it and deploy it. We have also developed a solution like WhatsApp, in the name of SAMVAD. With this, your information will not go to US. This is being deployed in the security and sensitivity agencies for doing their normal communications. The Government has planned for 25,000 connectivity through Wi-Fi for creating the hotspot, through our GPON networks. From one point of wireless connection, we can create 20 kilometre distance hotspots and through Gyansetu we connect to the villages to get all Internet-based services in the country. In NOFM side, we have connected to 25,000 Gram Panchayats and another 25,000 to get connected before March 2017. The technology has been designed by the Indian minds.”
Shri Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA, Bhubaneswar, North, spoke on his regular interaction with the IT companies in Bhubaneswar, where most of the IT corporates are present in his area. “Bhubaneswar has achieved yet another milestone in its journey towards becoming a Smart City. Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar has bagged a prestigious second runners-up position at the Barcelona Smart City Expo World Congress organized in Spain. The ranking was based on the proposals submitted on various developmental projects in the cities. Bhubaneswar was competing in the innovative global south category.”
In the corporate presentations section, Shri Nihar Chakraborty, Sr Vice-President & COO –East & SAARC, Sify Technologies, spoke about digital transformation and connectivity. “As a technology services company, we offer the entire range of unified services to the customers (end to end) through our state-of-the-art data centers. Uniqueness about Sify is seamless cloud infrastructure. It is always advised to have one service provider to get various seamless services.”
Shri Sameer Bhatia, Country Manager – India & SAARC, Seagate Technology, spoke on how to save data which are going to generate from many sources – be it individual, SME or enterprise. “Seagate is the company that will hold all your data generated by you all and we are the brand behind the brand. Seagate holds the data of the world and pioneer in the storage industry by offering you storage and live streaming experience both. Talking about future data generation, in the coming two years there will be very challenging in terms of Data generation, and in the coming four years the data generation will be on the higher side, which had generated worldwide in the past 35 years. Our association with Skyarch worldwide to store all heritage places promises to bring exciting opportunity in the storage space. Storage is a growth area and will transform to the range from petabyte to hexabyte.”
Shri Suvrendu Mitra, IMS Div. East India, Canon India, shared his experience about the importance of digitization and documentation which Canon expertise’s as an enabler with various range of scanner products. “We can make data secure at various levels, which is growing at the rate of 15% annually. Scanning is the most important component in the Smart City sector.”
Towards the end of the event, a panel discussion on the topic “Smart City: Smart Bhubaneswar” was conducted that was moderated by Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA, where the panellists were from the government, corporate, SMEs and IT services companies. The discussion with the insights of the panellists threw light on how innovative technologies can be used to make the city smart and liveable. The panellists who participated in this discussion were Nilanjan Mukherjee, Sr Vice-President, Fourth Dimension Solutions; Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor, WIPRO Limited; Nihar Chakraborty, Sr Vice-President & COO – East & SAARC, Sify Technologies; Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director, C-Dot, Government of India; Sameer Bhatia, Country Manager – India & SAARC, Seagate Technolog; and Ayashkant Mohanty, Managing Director, Tatwa Technologies.
[Mr. Deepak Kumar sahu, Chief editor- VARINDIA moderating the Panel Discussion( From L to R): Panel members Mr. Nilanjan Mukherjee, Sr. Vice President- Fourth Dimension Solutions , Mr. Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor – WIPRO LIMITED, Mr. Nihar Chakraborty, Sr. V.P.& COO-East & SAARC- Sify Technologies , Mr. Vipin Tyagi, E.D. – C Dot, Government of India, Mr. Sameer Bhatia, Country Manager- India & SAARC- Seagate Technology, Mr. Ayashkant Mohanty, M.D.- Tatwa Technologies ]
The panellists discussed on Indian cities which are unique in nature so one has to understand the dynamics of the city before designing smart city architecture for the city. Nihar spoke on how IT services companies have to fine-tune their requirements with respect to the city before coming with the architecture once the uniqueness of Bhubaneswar is finalized. Vipin spoke on how Smart City should have an integrated approach and it cannot be a piecemeal approach. Shri Damodar Sahu spoke on how the automobile sector is moving towards transformation and 4th industry revolution to come. Nilanjan spoke about how the city needs to use its existing ICT infrastructure if it wants to leapfrog and wants to save time as all technologies have its life cycle. Sameer spoke about first of citizens need to be smart and awareness to be created to use smart technology and Ayashkant spoke about how Bhubaneswar becomes the best smart city in the country to get the best from all the world and how to tap new innovations back in to Bhubaneswar Smart City.
Finally, the panel agreed that the people have to be smart to make the city smarter and discussed on the role of corporates / institutions in Bhubaneswar to come up with their vision and contribute their ideas to make Bhubaneswar a smart and liveable City.
The event recognized the technology enablers in Odisha. The winners are Nigama Computech, Tristar Software and Solutions, Tatwa Technologies, E Square Systems & Technologies, Printlink Computer and Communication, Info Care Solutions and CSM Technologies, which won the awards, respectively in the segments of Best VAR – Odisha, Best Software Services – Odisha, Best Technology Services, Best System Integrator, Best Distributor, Best Reseller –Odisha and Best IT Consulting Services – Odisha, respectively.
This time VARINDIA organized 7th Cricket Tournament in two different cricket grounds for the IT and ICT companies (Biju Pattnauk Stadium, Utkal University and KIIT Stadium) where 26 IT and telecom companies participated in the tournament and were supported by STPI (GOI), OCAC (GOO). It drew an overwhelming response among the IT majors in Odisha. There is no doubt that good sports also make the city smart. Sports recognize the place, state and the organization they work (helps in brand building/recalling) .The objective of the tournament is to bring the corporate for solidarity, where they can know each other and experience the real spirit of the game. It also brings out the hidden talent of every hard working employee who spends maximum hours sitting in 4 x 4 cubicles and 24x7.
Man of the Series for the IT Cup was Shri Rajanikanta Swain from Tatwa Technologies. VARINDIA ICT CUP 2017 in its first edition was played among six corporates in the KIIT Stadium, Bhubaneswar. The runners-up team was Airtel and the Champion Trophy went to Infosys.
VARINDIA IT Cup 2017 which is in its 7th edition was held in the Biju Pattnaik Stadium (Utkal University) was played among 20 IT corporates. The runners-up team was Infosys and the winner of the Champion Trophy was awarded to TATWA Technologies.
