CII, Gujarat govt to hold expo to script state's IT plan

The government of Gujarat, in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), will organise a conference-cum-exposition on communication and information technology, 'CIT 2004' in Ahmedabad from January 16 to 18.

The main purpose of the conference will be harnessing information technology for enterprise and socio-economic development in the state.

B H Jajoo, chairman, CIT 2004, on Friday said Gujarat has a good scope for the IT and communications market.

With over 2,000 medium to large enterprises and over 2.72 lakh small and medium enterprises, the state could exploit IT and communications possibilities, he said.

"There is a network of over 50,000 km of OFC, bandwidth above 80 MB is available and the number of computers and ISPs too is high," Jajoo said.

The official, while stating that Gujarat is poised for a leap in growth of IT and IT-enables services, added that the event will also include a two-day conference at the Indian Institute of Management, a three-day exhibition and a one-to-one business meet.

The venue of the exhibition, one-to-one business meetings and the conference will be the IIM campus in Ahmedabad.

The conference will primarily focus on economic impact of IT on the society and digitalising countries, harnessing IT for business benefit, along with the possibilities of developing ITeS and BPO centres in the state.

Chief minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the conference. Union minister for communications and information technology Arun Shourie will be present.

Several top officials of IT companies from India and other countries as well as those working in related fields are slated to deliver addresses at CIT.

Prominent among them include Kar Joo Tan, director, Electronics Services Division of IDA, Singapore, Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Chennai, Anand Patwardhan, director, S J Mehta School of Management, Varun Jha, CIO, TISCO, C N Ram, head, IT of HDFC Bank, Jerry Ra, MD, Mphasis BFL, T S Vijayan, director LIC of India and Sunil Gambhir, COO, Tata Telecom.

Gujarat Informatics Limited, the nodal agency of the state government as far as information technology is concerned, will co-ordinate the event, which is being marketed as the premiere IT event in the state.

The government of Gujarat has been making concerted attempts at attracting IT companies to the state.

State government officials have already held meetings with top IT company officials, exploring possibilities of them investing in the state.

Trends in convergence and last mile technology, virtual computing, managing security in large networks, leveraging IT in financial services, IT for the common man, overview of the global and Indian ITeS industry and harnessing IT for social development are some of the key issues that will be discussed at the three-day event.