46th CSI Annual National Convention 2011
Report - 46th National Annual Convention of Computer Society of India
Hosted by CSI Ahmedabad Chapter
• Prof. R.P. Soni, Convention Chair
• Prof. Bipin Mehta, Finance Chair
• Dr. Nilesh Modi, Convention Secretary
46th National Annual Convention of Computer Society of India was successfully held from 1st to 3rd December 2011 at Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad.
It was the vision of some of the senior members of Ahmedabad Chapter to host National Annual Convention of CSI in Ahmedabad after a gap of 14 years. It was the first time in the history of CSI that National Annual Convention preceded by International Conferences and Tutorials on Grid Computing, Cloud Computing, Sensor Networks and ICT for Education. The convention exhibited a rich combination of plenary sessions, tracks on emerging technologies, paper-poster presentation and doctoral colloquium. The galaxy of speakers was from various disciplines and organization including Government of India, Government of Gujarat, ISRO, IEEE, IITs, Reputed Academic Institutes and leading Indian IT Industry including MNCs. Each session of the convention was telecasted live through the infrastructure provided by ‘AttendByVideo’. This was viewed by more than 5,000 viewers across the globe.
Inaugural Function of CSI 2011 was held at IIMA in the evening of 1st December, 2011. The function started with a prayer followed by a song “Jai Jai Garavi Gujarat”. The Chief Guest was Shri A.K Joti, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Gujarat. Shri Ravi S. Saxena, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Dept of Science & Technology, Govt. of Gujarat, and Shri R.Ramanan, Managing Director and CEO, CMC Ltd. were Guests of Honor. The Keynote Address was given by Dr. D.B Phatak, S.Nilekani Chair Professor, IIT Mumbai.
Prof R.P.Soni, Convention Chair, CSI 2011, welcomed the dignitaries, awardees of life time achievement awardees, fellow awardees, CSI ExecCom Members, National Council Members, delegates and invitees. He shared the building blocks of CSI Ahmedabad Chapter and mentioned that the chapter had hosted three conventions till date. He said that Gujarat Government is in the forefront of imbibing technology in almost all the spheres of services for the benefits of citizens. He expressed his gratitude to all who contributed immensely as founders of CSI.
Mr Sunil Kakkad, President, GESIA and CMD, Sai Info Systems (India) Ltd. welcomed delegates and said that GESIA is actively involved in promoting ICT industries in Gujarat. He said that ICT4U is proper theme of the convention as Information and Communication Technologies are pervasive. He appreciated the efforts of CSI in organizing conventions and conferences that bring the stakeholders on a common platform.
Dr. Haresh Bhatt, Programme Chair, CSI-2011 gave the Convention programme overview and told that the theme ICT4U, where U stands for individual, industry, academia and Government, while ICT has different perception as it covers all spectrums. He told that during this convention more than 600 delegates would have privilege to attend sessions having 90 expert talks.
Shri M.D. Agarwal, President, Computer Society of India appreciated the effort of CSI, Ahmedabad Chapter in hosting this convention and wished success to the convention. He said that Gujarat is a pioneer state in e-Governance and ICT for citizens. He said that interaction with academia, industry and Government is the focus of CSI and ICT solutions are must for the society, societal growth and inclusive growth.
Shri R.Ramanan, Managing Director and CEO, CMC Ltd. talked about the role of IT industry for the common person. He said that the mission is to bring the benefits of information and communication technology to the millions of people. He shared the growth story of India. He said that the biggest challenge is that only 25% of the population is in urban metro, 25% of the population is below poverty line and remaining 50% of population is scattered in several rural areas. He added that ICT growth should not be limited to few thousands of people. He emphasized the need of today is mobile applications for common man.
Shri Ravi S. Saxena, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Dept of Science & Technology, Govt. of Gujarat gave details of ICT implementation by Government of Gujarat, including internet connectivity in 14,000 villages, computerization of land documents, e-Gram Kendra in each village etc. He said there is a need of converting the mobile device as an affordable device for common man.
Dr. D.B Phatak, S.Nilekani Chair Professor, IIT Mumbai, said that IT is for every citizen and IT enabling people to realize their aspiration of prosperity, opportunity and peaceful life. The ICT progress lies on the research and development in the field of ICT. India is emerging as a country providing services of maintaining and modifying existing systems, which are used elsewhere. He strongly stated that the academic excellence could not alone get recognition unless is supported by industry. He narrated a that the manufacturing industry is moving towards India and if we grab the opportunity of innovation with development then we could be the leader due to large pool of expertise in technology.
Shri A.K Joti, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Gujarat, gave details of e-Governance implementations and prospective in Gujarat. He said that the motto of Government of Gujarat is that IT should be used for empowerment of every citizen and to reduce the time for obtaining the services from various departments. The Government initiative SWAGAT (State Wide Attention on Public Grievance by Application of Technology) is widely appreciated and has won many awards. He told that introduction of integrated financial services has lead to better and transparent financial transactions at each level in Government departments.
After inauguration of convention, Lifetime Achievement Awards and Fellowship awards were presented. Prof P Thrimurthi, Chairman-Awards Committee and Mr M D Agrawal, President, CSI graced the awards ceremony. Shri Hemant Sonawala, Maj Gen (Retd.) A Balasubramaniam and Prof V. Rajaraman were awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards. Mr N R Diwanji, Prof U K Sinh, Mr Surendra Kapoor, Dr Himanshu Kumar Mohanty, Mr Ravindra Nath Lahiri, Dr Deepak Shikarpur and Dr Suresh Chandra Bhatia were awarded fellow awards.
Dr R Nandakumar, Organizing Chair and Chairman, CSI, Ahmedabad Chapter, proposed vote of thanks. He thanked CSI, Shri Ravi Saxena, IAS, Dr Ranganath R Navalgund and Shri Sudhir Nanavati for their support. He thanked all the members of Advisory Committee, Organizing Committee, Program Committee, Volunteers and Sponsors for their wholehearted support to the event.
The second day of convention started with the Plenary Session by Dr. Sam Pitroda through video conference that was attended by majority of delegates. Dr. Pitroda answered various questions of the members in the audience. During the day, technical sessions on IT Entrepreneurship, ICT for Society, IT Security, Cloud for Enterprises and Government, ICT for Citizens, ICT for National Security, Emerging trends in GIS, and E-Governance were conducted by distinguished speakers. A panel discussion on “E-Governance Implementation Issues” was held. In the evening, second plenary session through video conference by Mr. R. Chandrashekhar, IAS, Chairman, Telecom Commission & Secretary, DIT & DoT, Government of India was held. After this plenary session, CSI-Nihilant eGovernance Awards were presented by the Chief Guest Prof V. Rajaraman. The IT Excellence awards were also presented in the evening.
On the third day, in the plenary session, the speakers were Mrs Jayanti Ravi, IAS, Commissioner, Higher Education, Government of Gujarat and Prof R K Shyamasundar, Senior Professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. This was then followed by technical sessions on ICT for Higher Education, Trends in Space Application, Mobile Computing, Ph.D colloquium etc. Many papers and posters related to theme were presented.
In the evening, the valedictory function was graced by Shri Guru Raja Rao, CMD, GIL Ltd., Dr Neeta Shah, Director, e-Governance, GIL Ltd., Shri Satish Babu, Vice President, CSI and Core Committee of CSI 2011. The Function started with the award ceremony of Young IT Professional Award for Region-III, which was conducted by Shri Bipin Mehta, National YITP Award Convener and Shri N R Diwanji, Regional YITP Award Convener.
Prof R P Soni, Convention Chair shared how CSI 2011 was given to Ahmedabad Chapter by CSI. He appreciated efforts of everyone of core committee, managing committee and various committees to make the convention a success. He thanked Dr. R. Nandakumar, Organizing Chair; Dr. Haresh Bhatt, Programme Chair; Prof. Bipin Mehta, Finance Chair; Mr. Nikhil Jain, Vice Chairman, CSI, Ahmedabad Chapter; Shri Pradip Jain, Imm.Past Chairman, Ahmedabad Chapter; Dr. Harshal Arolkar, Programme Secretary; Dr. Nilesh Modi, Convention Secretary and Shri R.S. Parmar and Shri Altaf Kotwal of CSI 2011 secretariat for their all round support to the convention.
Dr Harshal Arolkar thanked team members of program committee. Dr Nilesh Modi thanked members of organizing committee for managing entire event gracefully. Dr R Nandkumar expressed his gratitude to all the senior members for their constant support and guidance. Dr Haresh Bhatt thanked the stalwarts of program committee for generous support in making the convention knowledgeable and informative. Prof. Bipin Mehta shared his experience of earlier conventions held at Ahmedabad. He thanked Shri Ravi Saxena, IAS and Dr Neeta Shah for their generous support to CSI 2011. He thanked all the sponsors for supporting the event. He specially thanked Mr M D Agrawal, ExecCom and CSI HQ team for their inspiring support.
Mr Guru Raja Rao thanked the CSI Ahmedabad Chapter for hosting CSI-2011 in Ahmedabad. He said that Gujarat has taken a road map of how IT can be beneficiary for societal activities and how it can reach the grassroots level. Prof P Thrimurthi congratulated the program committee for plenary talk by Dr Sam Pitroda and Shri R Chandrashekhar. He congratulated organizers for the commendable event.
Mr Satish Babu offered his concluding remarks and praised the efforts put-in for the success of the event.
During the convention, various meetings of CSI including ExecCom Meeting, National Council Meeting, Annual General Meeting, Regional and Divisional Meetings, Meeting with the Auditors were held.
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| Dignitaries on dais during inauguration of CSI-2011 | Lightning of the lamp by Shri M.D. Agrawal, President, CSI during inauguration of CSI-2011 |
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| Prof. R. P. Soni, Convention Chair and dignitaries on dais during inauguration of CSI-2011 | August audience during inauguration of CSI-2011 |
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| Convention in progress - CSI-2011 | Mrs. Jayanti Ravi, IAS and Dr. Haresh Bhatt, Prof. R.P. Soni, Prof. R.K. Shyamsundar, Dr. S. Ramakrishnan and Prof. Bipin Mehta |
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| Shri M.D. Agrawal, President, CSI presenting CSI Nihilent e-Governance Award to Dr. Neeta Shah, GIL and Mr. Rajnish Mahajan. Dr. R.K. Bagga and Prof. V. Rajaraman also seen the photograph | Delegates and Invitees during inauguration of CSI-2011 |
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| Shri Ravi S. Saxena, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Dept of Science & Technology, Govt. of Gujarat delivering his speech | Dr. D.B Phatak, S.Nilekani Chair Professor, IIT Mumbai delivering key note address |
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| Shri M.D. Agarwal, President, Computer Society of India addressing the gathering. | Prof. V. Rajaraman being conferred CSI Lifetime Achievement Award by Prof. P Thrimurthi |
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| Maj Gen (Retd.) A Balasubramaniam being conferred CSI Lifetime Achievement Award by Prof. P Thrimurthi | Shri Hemant Sonawala being conferred CSI Lifetime Achievement Award by Prof. P Thrimurthi and Shri M.D. Agrawal |
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| Shri A.K. Joti, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Gujarat delivering his inaugural speech | Shri R.Ramanan, Managing Director and CEO, CMC Ltd. delivering his speech |