OITF 2011 turns three!

Syeda Beenish, Associate Editor, VARIndia Reports

Once again, Kalinga Digital Media successfully organized the Orissa Information Technology Fair - 2011 (OITF - 2011) on 28th January, 2011. Bhubaneswar witnessed coming together of the Government PSUs, large institutions and SMBs under one roof to understand the trends and progress of Information Technology in the State. Shri Pradeep Kumar Jena, IAS, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Department of IT, Government of Orissa, and Shri P. Krishna Mohan, IFS, Director, Biotechnology-cum-Additional Secretary to the Government of Orissa, inaugurated the fair by lighting the ceremonial lamp.

Other dignitaries who graced the event included Prof. M. Chakraborty, Director, IIT, Bhubaneswar; Ashwini Aggarwal, Executive Director, MAIT; Manu Vinod, Country Category Manager - StorageWorks Division, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd.; Angelo Barboza, Product Manager - IT Infrastructure, Rittal India Pvt. Ltd.; Gagandeep Nagra, Google Enterprise Business Development & Channel Management, Google India; Rajan Verma, Sales Director, Alvarion; J. P. Pandey, Vice-President, PRESTO; Gagan  Verma, National Head - Government, Polycom; and Kapil Awasthi, Security Consultant, Checkpoint.

Addressing the audience, Shri Pradeep Kumar Jena, said, "The State currently has the conducive investment climate. In the past 12 months, the investment has happened in the biotechnology sector. The same importance is being given to IT. However, the full potential has not yet been realized. But events like this are surely a helping hand and I appreciate VARIndia's efforts." 

This year, the event was a full-day seminar divided into two sessions broadly. The day comprised of vendors sharing details about their technology and products and their relevance to the state of Orissa. It was used as a platform to provide networking between the vendors and the Government of Orissa and various potential market verticals. Shri P. K. Jena further added that they wish to make every government job accessible to the common public by way of efficiency and transparency. And to make this happen, there are a number of e-government initiatives undertaken by the State Government. Under one of these initiatives, the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Orissa inaugurated the Orissa State WAN (OSWAN), which will provide connectivity within the state, starting from the state headquarters. This would enable the various agencies and the Government departments to interact with each other and ensure smooth functioning. This is also directed at giving better service delivery to citizens also. 

Congratulating VARIndia's efforts and addressing the audience in the inaugural session, Prof. M. Chakraborty,  shared his views, "We often talk about the progress of the country and people, but that should not primarily mean progress of a few. The developments in the field of IT and the whole revolution in the computer world has brought about a very significant change. So much so that information can now be exchanged at just the click of a button. Nevertheless, we still have a long way to go. The last century has seen tremendous technological developments and while we are basking in the glory of having achieved so much, we should not forget the myriad problems that we are sinking in. The rate at which we are growing technologically is not at par with the rate at which the population is growing. Today, it is a must that we should expand our vision and horizons as there are many information technology takers awaiting still to be touched.”

Prof. Chakraborty also added, " Lack of education and awareness at one particular level of the society is giving rise to this problem. This is something that is unacceptable and detrimental to the society. And I hope this is one area where IT should focus and do its part to bring the much anticipated change.”

P. Krishna Mohan, echoed the same views. He said, "I am delighted to announce that we are developing biotechnology industries in the State. To give shape to this plan, we are coming up with a state-of-the-art facility that will help in the research-related activities. Students, researchers, industries from Orissa and also from outside the state will benefit from this facility. Set up in 10 acres of land and spanning more than Rs.22-30 crore, the facility is going to house the most sophisticated instruments and devices. Apart from this, a whole lot of biotechnology and other related projects are in the pipeline." 

Soon, IIT, Bhubaneswar, is expanding and shifting to a new campus. Prof. Chakraborty opined that to provide study material and technology updates, they are developing a huge datacenter within the campus with cloud services. “We are inviting the audience present that includes vendors and partners to come forward and be a part of the expansion.”

The first part of the event was a pure industry networking platform, comprising of corporate presentations about the latest technologies and their specific respective usage vertical wise. Since the IT product companies are dependent on Channel and Value Added Resellers (VARs) for sale and services for them, the evening session was used by the vendors to share their strategies to enable the Orissa IT channel community tap the potential and enhance their businesses. The event saw discussions on Storage virtualization by HP, followed by Google speaking about Cloud Computing. In the midst of all the technologies, how can one miss the "talk of the town" concept, Green Computing, which was very nicely presented by MAIT. Alvarion touched upon WiMAX and WiFi and Checkpoint brought to light the importance of being secured. 

Manu Vinod from StorageWorks Division, HP India, in his presentation talked about Storage virtualization and the recent developments and innovations from the house of HP. 

Claiming Alvarion to be a partner-driven company, Rajan Verma, in his presentation highlighted the potential of the state (Orissa). He also shared that Alvarion products were RDSO approved which makes them most suitable for the Indian Railways.  

Gagandeep Nagra from Google, not only talked about the relevance of shifting to Cloud Infrastructure but also the business benefits both for the customers and the partners. He also shared different possible solutions offered by Google when it comes to Cloud.

Kapil Awasthy of Checkpoint, started with the key buzzwords like Cloud, Virtualization and UTM. Later, he highlighted the importance of security and their company offerings, followed by the dynamics of the security industry. Concluding, he said, "Anything constant in the security industry is 'The Change'."  

MAITs Ashwini Aggarwal, took the most talked about trend of “Green Computing”. With simple examples, he brought to light that it is not only the role of the vendors to come with green products but it has to be a conscious effort from the users' side as well. He cautioned the gathering that if we do not wake up now, then soon India would become the dumping ground of most of the world's sub-standard IT and telecom products.

The event concluded with the prize distribution ceremony for the recently organized first VARIndia 20-20 Cricket Tournament by the Kalinga Digital Media. Besides the Man of the Match, Man of the Series and the runners-up team award, the most-awaited award for the winning team of the tournament was bagged by STPI.

In total, not only vendors, SIs and resellers across the State but also IT heads of the engineering colleges and various departments of the Government of Orissa attended it. The event meant business and fun for all. "This attempt was purely for the purpose of understanding IT corporates (vendors) and to enable their mechanism to create custom-built solutions in a cost-effective manner for the state of Orissa. We are expecting two hundred guests comprising CXOs and Government officials cutting across various verticals of the InfoTech industry," concluded Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher, VARIndia.