President's Desk

Dear Members,

While emphasising the urgent need to focus on various issues related to the management and organisation of SEARCC-CSI 2008 Conference in association with Confederation of Indian Industry during September 11-13, 2008, on the theme “Connected Society”,  I feel the necessity to put in extra dedicated efforts for ensuring participation of large number of IT professionals, Researchers, Academicians and practitioners from India and abroad. We may identity the ICT practitioners in the field on various sub-themes already set for this mega event and invite them for their active participation. Wide publicity through websites of societies of SEARCC member countries  (including potential /prospective member countries) and  website of CSI may be ensured to highlight the importance of this mega event in the south east region of the globe.  I am hopeful, by this time, the details regarding call for the papers, registration of delegates, itinerary of participants, accommodation / transport, media coverage arrangements for video conferencing / tele-conferencing, preparation of proceedings and the arrangements for cultural / entertainment programmes must have been worked out very minutely.  This is a great occasion for all IT professionals of the world in general and for India in particular where the delegates and participants from India and abroad will converge.  Time schedules should be properly drawn and strictly adhered to initiate marketing activities so that maximum international participants who need to plan their travel, visas, stay and other related business travel in various parts of India may complete the formalities regarding approval from the concerned authorities to enable them to participate in the conference.

A brochure on CSI Nihilent e-governance Awards 2007-2008 giving details of ON-LINE nomination process for Best e-governed States / Departments / Districts and Best e-Governance projects has already been out.  This is the sixth year for these prestigious awards and it shall be our endeavour to ensure healthy participation within the country for these awards.  We may also plan to launch e-governance awards for international nominations in near future.  It will go a long way to identify successful efforts for best practices in IT and e-governance being undertaken and at the same time encourage participants to share their experience, knowledge and vision for developing citizen centric global facilities for one and all as well as to connect society.  

Going by the findings of research groups as published in the print media recently, the number of PCs in use around the world has already crossed the figure of one billion and it is going to be doubled by the year 2014.  As per the statistics quoted by another  market research firm, there will be over 800 million people in the world who will be socially linked through mobile phone network by 2012.  In India alone, we now have about 275 million mobile phone users and expect to have more than 500 million by 2010.  These mobile phones will have internet connectivity, imaging (camera), radio, music and video capability.  We have already seen the sporadic growth of e-governance in India. The day is not far off when it will be taken over by m-governance.  Progress has already been made by some of the state governments in India who have started digitising land records by using mobile phones to make the whole process easier for the farmers.  Whether, it is e-governance or m-governance, it will be the development of new software system which will enable the mobile users to obtain location specific, real-time information from other mobile users across the world. The convergence of technologies has already paved the way to combine various ever increasing applications out of distributed networks, social networks, computer networks, mobile phones with GPS and Wi-fi capabilities.  It is heartening to note from a Nasscom Mckinsey report that the annual revenue for the IT industry in 2008, will be to the tune of $ 87 billion.  There will be significant growth in IT services, software products, IT enabled services and e-business.  We have to make ICT as our partner for global positioning and generating higher revenues. As per the report published in a section of press, IT and BPO business in India is likely to grow by 2.5 times in 10 years and will generate jobs for around 3.5 million people.  This entails large trained /qualified and experienced workforce in the IT sector.  At the same time, improvement and growth of IT and BPO industry infrastructure has been felt very essential to ensure the continued competitiveness of IT and BPO industry. Considering the forecast of various research groups / analysts, Planning Commission of the Government of India has recently cleared the proposal to build 43 new IT cities across the country and 40% of the business is expected to be shifted to these upcoming IT cities by the year 2018.  The overall success of these new IT investment regions (ITIRs) will largely depend upon the qualified and experienced workforce with innovative ideas, scientific temper and aptitude for development of ICT.  We as the largest body of IT professionals in India, have a bigger role to play to successfully materialise the plan of GOI.  The initiative of CSI in reviving the publication of “Adhyan” with articles / topics of interest and education for the Young Students highlighting the importance of Computer Science, IT Communications, Cyber Security, Dos and Don’ts on computer ethics etc is highly welcome.   In this way, CSI can catch and groom them young to make them responsible IT professionals and meet the growing demand of qualified and experienced IT workforce. 

Mr. Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft has hanged his boots on 27^th June 2008.  He started Microsoft in 1975 at the age of 20. Mr. Bill Gates would always be remembered for the enormous contribution that Microsoft made for spreading the IT revolution in the world.  Nobody can forget the huge contribution of Bill Gates to the world for the software revolution and philanthropic efforts he made. I, on behalf of CSI fraternity and on my personal behalf, wish him a very bright future, a happy and long, healthy life ahead.  CSI salutes him!

With warm regards,