Bigger, Better, Brighter: Infotech Forum 2018 sets a new benchmark

[(From Left to Right) Harpreet Singh, Territory Manager- Kaspersky Lab, Nirav Biswas, CTO- NHBC, Dr. Herald Dcosta, Director- Intelligent Quotient Security, Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Kalinga Digital Media Pvt Ltd, Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, DMD – Digital Business & New Business-SBI, Subroto Panda, CIO, Anand and Anand, Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia- NVIDIA, Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry advisor- WIPRO, Shankar Aggarwal, OSD- ASSOCHAM, S.N Tripathi, Secretary-Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs- Govt. Of India, Suresh Kumar, Partner & CIO, Grant Thornton, S Mohini Ratna, Editor-VARINDIA]

Infotech Forum 2018, the much awaited annual event for the industry to interact with end customers from various verticals, was held on 25th May 2018 at Hotel Shangri-La. The event witnessed the presence of 400 high-profile guests comprising of CXOs (CIO/CTO/CISO) from government, PSUs, enterprises, IT consultants and marketers from various verticals, all gathered under one roof for an impactful discourse on the topic: ‘Disruption - A new Reality’.

The forum provided a platform for all to discuss and brainstorm on latest technological disruptions that are taking place in this digital age, with  technical presentations, panel discussions, thus proving as the biggest business networking event. The event also witnessed the unveiling of the 7th edition of India’s first coffee table book, capturing the successful journey of the Top 25 brands and Most Admired Brands in the Indian ICT industry.

Prominent Speakers from diverse sectors like Government, Telecom, Security, BFSI and IT services to digital and the corporate world shared various ideas and best practices on how technology and the industry is moving. The event also proved to be a game changer for the CIO community. 

S.N Tripathi, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs- Govt. Of India and Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, DMD, Digital Business and New Business – State Bank of India graced the Infotech Forum event as special guests. The other eminent dignitaries who’s presence raised the bar of the event include Shankar Aggarwal, OSD- ASSOCHAM; Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia- NVIDIA; Pawan Duggal, Cyber Expert-Supreme Court of India; Dr. Herald Dcosta, Director- Intelligent Quotient Security; Bharat B Anand, CIO- NATGRID; Suresh Kumar, Partner & CIO, Grant Thornton; Dr. Rajeev Papneja, COO- ESDS Software Solutions; Nirvan Biswas, CTO- NHBC; Ricky Bindra, Group Sr. VP-JIO; Harpreet Singh, Territory Manager- Kaspersky Lab; Subroto Panda, CIO, Anand and Anand and Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry Advisor- WIPRO.

The event commenced with the welcome speech given by Deepak Sahu, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Kalinga Digital Media. In his speech he threw light on the digitization and the scope that digitization brings to people. “Digitization is creating tremendous opportunities for economies across the globe, and India is an example of a country that not only understands this opportunity, but it has embraced it. As a media house, our focus has been Technology, that is at the forefront of everything we do."

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia- NVIDIA in his speech highlighted the opportunities of AI and hinted that firms across the globe are fast becoming aware of the power of Artificial Intelligence, Mixed reality, Deep learning and Blockchain technology. While Shankar Aggarwal, OSD-ASSOCHAM shared his perspective on the economic growth and sustainability, S. N Tripathi, IAS, Secretary-Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs- Govt. Of India shared his perspective on Digital India and the scope that e-governance offers to every citizen. 

Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, DMD – Digital Business & New Business – SBI in his keynote address, enlightened the audience on how banks always want to understand their customers better and improve their relationships. "Technology could cut banks' infrastructure costs by up to $20 billion each year by 2022," he said.

The previous data protection laws were put in place during the 1990s and haven't been able to keep pace with the levels of technological change. On this background, Pawan Duggal, Cyber expert-Supreme court of India spoke on how GDPR will bring the biggest change in data protection laws in more than 20 years.

Dr. Rajeev Papneja, EVP & COO, ESDS Software Solution in his speech spoke on the innovative solutions the company offers in its state-of-the-art data centers.

In the evening session, Dr. Herald Dcosta, Director- Intelligent Quotient Security spoke on India’s present security landscape.

The event also witnessed the recognition of 100 Eminent CIOs of India, India’s Top 25 Trusted Brands along with the Top 50 Most Admired ICT Brands. This was followed by the recognition of the Top 10 Brands Icons of India.

Moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA, the first panel tried to highlight the point that digital innovation and transformation have emerged as one of the top boardroom priorities. “Digital Transformation is all about Digitisation and Disruption,” said Deepak. “There are panellists among us who have embraced digital business models to transform their organizations and from them we will understand how modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, IoT, and Augmented Reality will transform work and customer experience. Artificial intelligence has the potential to create trillions of dollars of value across the economy.”

Emphasizing on how digital transformation has become the motto today for every organization, Suresh Kumar, Partner & CIO, Grant Thornton said that they have created an advisory team focussed only on digital transformation and technologies. “We have a large team which is working with various organizations on their digital transformation journey. More than having the latest digital technologies, the important part is how businesses strategize to have an effective digital strategy in place.”

Col. Ajay Purohit, Cyber Intelligent Expert says that whenever we talk of disruption in today’s scenario, it will come in the grey zone. “Take for instance cyber security that needs more of a tactical approach. So when we talk of cyber intelligence, we look at the entire spectrum of what are the events happening and we become more proactive so that such events do not repeat again.”

Dr. Herald Dcosta, Director- Intelligent Quotient Security pointed out that higher amount of technology can lead to large amount of desperate activities wherein systems can be compromised. “Today intelligence data is the backbone of any organization. If that becomes compromised, then it becomes a big fall or doom to the concerned organization. So the need of the hour is an effective legal framework.”

Nirvan Biswas, CTO- NHBC said that if the problem is articulated well and matches the problem the business has today, many levels of digitization could solve it. “if you understand the problem, then it becomes quite easy to map the required technology or technology framework to adopt to it.”

Manish Gaur, Head, IT- Patanjali remarked that it is good to digitize but it should be to certain limits. “We understand digitization can lead to disruptions and there are also risks associated with it. So I believe that post digitization analysis is a must, like is it taking away our jobs.”

Chetan Hingu, Country Category Head - Workstations, Virtualisation, RPOS - HP India said that whenever there is any digitization happening, there is a fear for disruption. “For instance when Uber first came, there was a fear for lots of drivers to lose jobs but they soon found out an alternative and it is no longer seen as a challenge.”

Damodar Sahu, Partner & Industry advisor- WIPRO looks at digitization from a different perspective. “Being from a digital consultancy background, I feel that if digitization does not impact millions of lives I don’t call it disruption or digital transformation. The Digital revolution in food safety that is taking place in many countries today through IoT and blockchain can be a good example of disruption.”

The 2nd panel was moderated again by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Chief Editor, VARINDIA and it tried to emphasize on the fact that the time has come to change the game when it comes to dealing with cyber-threats and data protection. “It is very important for governing bodies to ensure that their people’s data and privacy are safeguarded and in this regard we feel that GDPR is a good step,” he said.

Bharat B Anand, CIO- NATGRID said that technologists around the world have to face the same problems day in and day out, though the scale or the line of business might be different. “Because technology is developed by us, the human angle will always be there and this will result in more errors and threats to occur. Probably we should come to a point where we start allowing people to take actions at a strategic level and this will be a real aspect of technology enablement.”  

Dr. Herald D’costa, Director- Intelligent Quotient Security perceived that security threats from the digital perspective will be more on the financial domain. “Digital space has got its own cup of threats, but I personally believe that the financial industry is more prone to such security threats. Also these threats are going to increase as we expand into a cashless economy.”

Col. Ajay Purohit, Cyber Intelligent Expert said that if software, networking, and computing devices are connected through communication technologies, there are many  loopholes and failure points that can be found. “We are living in very exciting times. Today we have different communication technologies deployed and software created, the codes of which are an invention of human minds. So you cannot overrule any errors and breaches to take place.”

Alok Gupta, Managing Director- Unistal said that there are two kinds of environment we are living in the digital age. “One is the personal data that everyone is consuming and the second is the corporate environment. Both of them are intertwined and irrespective of whether you incorporate a law or not, consumer data will be used for doing business in India.”

Subroto K Panda, CIO- Anand & Anand said that threats would increase as we continue to adopt digital technologies. “Threats can come from any place – be it a city or a village. It is not that only professional hacker or a cracker would give you a threat. There should be a framework created of how to detect or measure the threat which is coming.”

Meetali Sharma, Corporate Risk & Information security leader- SDG Software said that a threat gives the opportunity to develop a new product. “Threats will always be there, but we should keep in mind that whenever we as a CIO/CISO deploy any new product we should not do it just because we have the budgets but there needs to be a thorough risk assessment done before deploying anything.”

Ravinder Arora, Head, Information Security - IRIS Software said, “As a CISO of my organization, one thing I think we really need to work on is employee awareness. Since my data is available everywhere today, I feel that a phishing test essentially needs to be done on a regular basis, because a click on a malicious link or mail can drag us into trouble.”