Connect 2005

Connect 2005 was held recently at the Chennai Trade Center, on the 8th and 9th September 2005 by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Tamilnadu State Government. The overarching theme of the conference was “Strategies to accelerate the Indian IT industry”. The conference brought together industry experts and opinion leaders both from India and abroad who spoke about the trends in the Indian IT industry and where they see the growth opportunity. The conference spread over 2 days attracted some of the best minds in the industry. The conference also saw the release of the ITES policy of the Tamilnadu State Government, which focused on making Tamilnadu an investment destination for the IT industry.

Mr. R.Ramaraj, Managing Director & CEO, Sify Ltd. was the Chairman of Connect 2005 and was the session chairman for the panel discussion on Strategies to Accelerate the Indian IT Industry and the valedictory session on Opportunities and Challenges in Data Security.

The conference also had specific sessions focusing on the trends of IT in the Telecom and BFSI sectors, and the potential opportunities for growth in these sectors. These sessions had speakers of the caliber of Mr. Kiran Karnik, President, National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), Mr. Deepak Kapoor, Executive Director, Price Waterhouse Coopers. The sessions focused on how the BFSI and telecom sectors have evolved over the past decade and the new vistas of opportunities available for IT companies in these sectors.

Connect 2005 brought together some of the top minds in the IT industry including Mr. Subrato Basu, Vice President & Head, Executive Program Asia Pacific, Gartner Singapore, Mr. Lakshmi Narayan, President & CEO, Cognizant Technologies, and Ms. Neelam Dhawan Managing Director, Microsoft India who gave their views on how the Indian IT industry could grow in the coming years

The valedictory session was on the theme of Opportunities and Challenges in Data Security. This session had some of the most eminent personalities from both industry and academia including Prof. S V Raghavan, Computer Science and Engineering Dept, IIT Chennai, Mr. C R Nagaraj, Senior Vice President – Quality, Satyam Computers Ltd. and Ms. Shivangi Nadkarni, General Manager, Safescrypt Ltd. The topics covered included Network Security, Business Continuity Planning, and Transaction Security for E-Businesses. The discussion also addressed the regulatory perspective in Data Security.