VARINDIA played host to the 7th EIITF (Eastern India Information Technology Fair – 2016) that concluded successfully in Kolkata, amidst speeches and presentations from corporate houses on the opportunities for capitalizing the Indian SMB sector. The topic for this year’s event was – “IT and Security Frameworks to protect Information Assets of SMEs”. Besides providing a common platform for the corporates to share ideas, discuss issues and challenges targeting the growth of SMBs in the region in particular and the country in general, the event brought together around 200 senior officials from the IT Department, dignitaries from other Central and State government departments and spokespersons from IT corporates.

The Chief Guest of the event was Shri Kaushik Haldar, Commissioner – IT and Telecom, Government of West Bengal. The other guests who attended the event and were present at the lamp lighting ceremony were Col A. K. Nath, ED, C-DAC; Col HPS Bawa, CEO, WTL; Shri Manjit Nayak, Additional Director, STPI, Kolkata; Mr S. P. Toshniwal, Chairman, Roshni Lights, besides the presence of other bigwigs from the industry.

Giving his opening remarks, Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA, spoke about the digital journey that SMBs and their workforce are starting to embark and how it is becoming increasingly important to protect themselves against cyber-attacks. “This would contribute to two strategic programmes of the country that are Make in India and Digital India. Research indicates that only 25 per cent of organizations are capable of responding effectively to a cyber-incident. Yet, the impact of a cyber-attack could be wide-ranging and costly. With the increasingly interconnected nature of our critical infrastructure and data, organizations must approach cybersecurity more proactively than ever before in order to safeguard assets and data.”

The Chief Guest for the evening Col A. K. Nath, ED, C-DAC, enlightened the audience by speaking on how to empower SMEs for a better India, while Mr N. G. Sarkar, DGM – Telecom, Power Grid Corporation of India, spoke extensively on the role of Power Grid in providing connectivity for availing services.

During the corporate presentations, Mr Chandrashekara H.G., Business Manager – Enterprise, Supertron Electronics Private Ltd, and Mr Shamik Roy, Product Specialist – Pre- Sales, Cloud Client Computing, Dell India, jointly gave a presentation on the contribution of Channel Partners in bringing success to the emerging system integration business in Eastern India. Mr Satinder Singh, Head, Systems Engineering (Government & Commercial), NetApp India, also gave his perspective on how to protect the growing SMEs in India. Mr N. C. Mohapatra, Director – Alliances, CSDC Systems, took to the dais to give his presentation on CSDC’s specialized offering solution in the space of e-governance, smart governance and Smart IoT solutions.

The panel discussion on the topic “Security Frameworks for Smart city in India” was moderated by Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA. The panel included speakers like Shri Manjit Nayak, Additional Director – Officer-in-charge, STPI, Kolkata; Mr HPS Bawa, CEO, WEBEL Technology Ltd; Mr K. L. Lalani, Chairman, Lalani Infotech; Mr Satinder Singh, Head, Systems Engineering (Government & Commercial), NetApp India, and Mr Uday Bhaskar Rao, MD & CEO, IRam Technologies, who stressed on how the growth of Smart Cities will potentially attract cybercrime and there needs to be a curb on it. Going forward, the huge increase in data that smart cities’ connected infrastructure will raise privacy issues that may be beyond the scope of existing laws. The current IT Act might not give adequate protection to the citizen data that smart cities will generate and there is need to put in place an appropriate legal framework to address such activities in the smart city ecosystem.

Towards the end of the event, the Best B2B Partners from the Eastern region of India were recognized in the categories of Best Retailer, Best Reseller, Best VAR, Best Solution Provider, Emerging IT Vendor of the Year Award, Best System Integrator and Best National Distributor. The winners in the award categories respectively were Supreme Technologies Private Ltd, Lalani Infotech Ltd, Technocrat Infotech Private Ltd, Embee Software Private Ltd, FOXIN – Balaji Solutions Private Ltd, Wizertech Informatics Private Ltd and Supertron Electronics Private Ltd.