[Fsf-friends] Natl conf on 'Open Source software: a new direction for India?'
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fred@bytesforall.org
Fri, 21 Feb 2003 00:53:10 +0530 (IST)
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Should you require any additional information, please do contact me.
No.730, CMH Road, 1st Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore ? 560 038
Telefax: 080-5215556, 5219016, 5202313
Email: maitsr@vsnl.com Website: www.mait.com
PRESS RELEASE
MAIT ORGANIZES
NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
"OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: A NEW DIRECTION FOR INDIA?"
Sponsored by IBM India Ltd.
at Bangalore
=B7 The Event is to explore and pave a new direction for the Country in
its stride towards e-enablement and e-Governance.
=B7 Exhibition by leading Vendors coinciding the Conference
Bangalore, February 20, 2003: MAIT, with the support of IBM India Ltd. and
Department of IT & BT, Government of Karnataka is organising a one-day
National Conference on "Open Source Software: A New Direction for India?"
on the 26th of February, 2003 at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore.
The Conference will be inaugurated by Mr. R V Deshpande, Hon'ble Minister
for Large & Medium Industries, Government of Karnataka and the Keynote
address and Valedictory address will be delivered by Mr. Abraham Thomas,
Managing Director, IBM India and Mr. Ashok Soota, President, CII
respectively.
The event would witness a Panel Discussion on "Proprietary Vs Open Source
Software" where the IT Secretaries of leading States and other Govt.
officials who drive the IT in their respective States will be the
Panelists. To name some of them would be, Mr. Rajeev Chawla, Secretary,
e-Governance, Govt. of Karnataka; Mr. Vivek Harinarain, Secretary ? IT,
Govt. of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Sanjay Singh, Secretary to CM & Secretary ? IT,
Govt. of Madhya Pradesh and Dr. Harbakhsh Singh, Secretary ? IT, Govt of
Haryana. Mr. Vinay Deshpande, Managing Trustee, Simputer Trust will be the
Moderator of this discussion.
The eminent speakers at this Conference also include Dr. Nadadur Janardhan,
e-Governance Advisor & Program Integrator, DCA21; Prof. S Sadagopan,
Director, IIIT Bangalore; Mr. Sandeep Menon, Linux Business Manager, IBM
ASEAN/SA; Prof. D B Phatak, Head-KRSIT, IIT Mumbai; Mr. Sachin Dabir, Head
Enterprise Sales, Red Hat India; Mr. Ashok Pandey, President & GM,
Turbolinux Inc., Beijing, China; Mr. Frank Luksic, Country Manager,
Software Group, IBM and Mr. Srikant Sundararajan, Vice President,
Professional Services & CTO, HCL Infosystems Ltd.
The implementation Case Studies from prominent foreign countries and also
by NIC and C-DAC will be featured at this Conference.
Coinciding the event, leading vendors like IBM, HCL, Red Hat, Netcore
Solutions, Turbolinux, Altosys, etc. will be exhibiting their products.
Describing the objectives of this Conference, Mr. Venkat Kedlaya, Chairman,
Southern Region, MAIT, told ? "the event is to emphasise the importance and
usage of Open Source Software as a viable alternative for rapid deployment
of e-Governance in Government departments and other Government owned
organisations. One of the key issues in deploying Information Technology
solutions to improve Governance is the need for using non-proprietary
software platforms. The Government agencies in Japan, France, Germany,
China and the United States are adopting Open Source Software (OSS) in a
big way. Developments and advances in OSS have helped user agencies to move
to Open Source. Even big companies like IBM, Sun, and HP are supporting the
OSS platform.
He also said that the added benefit to Government is the ability to reduce
Total Cost of Ownership when OSS is chosen. Government can now specify OSS
as an alternative to proprietary software.
Mr. Abraham Thomas, Managing Director, IBM India said, "As the importance
of open source grows in the marketplace, governments around the world are
increasing focus on Linux. Linux brings together all the essential features
for an operating system like security, flexibility, independence, reduced
cost, good performance, reliability and ease of migration. The use of open
computing in the Government IT infrastructure would result in improved
service to the citizen. We at IBM India have undertaken various initiatives
to build awareness and encourage government policy makers to understand the
value open computing brings to the national IT strategy"
The conference would debate on issues and concerns like support, local
language interface, stability, inter operability with legacy applications
and the viability to use OSS in desk top environment.
More than 200 delegates from Central and State Government Departments/
Agencies, Public Sector Undertakings, Corporate Sector and other Users of
OSS and representatives from both IT and Developer communities will be
taking part in this Conference.
About MAIT:
Set up in 1982 for purposes of scientific, educational and IT industry
promotion, MAIT has emerged as an effective, influential and dynamic
organisation. Representing hardware, training R&D and associated services
sectors of the Indian IT Industry, MAIT's charter is to develop a global
competitive Indian IT Industry, promote the usage of IT in India,
strengthen the role of IT in national economic development and promote
business through international alliances.
For more information on MAIT please visit www.mait.com
Thanks and regards,
Vandana
_________________________________________________________________
Vandana Rao
Corporate Communications, IBM India Limited, 1st floor, Express Building,
Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002 (INDIA)
ph # 91-11-23702020 Extn: 573 fx # 91-11-23702021
E-mail: vandanar@in.ibm.com