OITF 2019 highlights the growth areas that is transforming the state
Bhubaneswar, Odisha recently played host to the VARINDIA 11th edition of Odisha Information Technology Fair - OITF 2019 that provided a platform to the IT industry to converge and discuss some of the key vital issues concerning the state. The invitees to the event included IT & Telecom honchos, senior Government officials, industry leaders, VARs and SIs.The evening commenced with the ceremonial lamp lighting ceremony in the presence of high profile guests that included Dr. Prasanna Kumar Patasani, Member of Parliament, Govt. of India; Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA-Bhubaneswar (North), Govt. of Odisha; C J Venugopal,IAS, Principal Secretary, Electronics & IT department, Govt. of Odisha and Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI and Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA.
While talking about the growth of start-ups that are emerging in cities such as Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Pune and Ahmedabad in his opening speech, Dr Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA said that as per the survey done by VARINDIA, there are around 15,000 start-ups in the country that is slowly moving towards 20,000. “India continues to rank third in the global pecking order of start-ups ecosystem, after the US and Israel,” he said. “These start-ups are rapidly embracing the smaller cities over the bigger metros by targeting the growth of key industries such as fintech, health tech, SaaS, agritech, Taxi aggregators, B2B enterprise products (e-commerce) and deep technologies etc. Now the start-ups are really growing to solve the regional specific issues with deep learning and special designed AI techniques. It’s really an amazing experience. During our survey, we visited a few start-ups and found out that they are aiming at solving immediate issues that are affecting people at the grass root level.”
The evening saw the government officials, as well as top industry executives present speak on topics concerning technology in the state. C J Venugopal, Principal Secretary, Electronics & IT department, Govt. of Odisha enlightened the audience on the opportunities in Bhubaneswar and it could be turned into a smart city. He said, “We have a very good ICT policy which brings very good incentives for the ICT sector. We have moved a proposal to set up a mobile manufacturing unit here in Odisha. We are also in the process of discussing with several other manufacturing vendors to make the electronic manufacturing cluster in the state.”
Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI spoke about the telecom and digital landscape in the country, while also giving the roadmap for 5G in 2019. “If we look at the industry today, it has invested 15 lakh crore rupees in terms of spectrum and network investments. Odisha has around 17,000 cell towers and Rs 5,000 crore has been invested already, while looking further for growing the network.”
In the corporate presentations, IT Corporates Sophos and NetApp shared their vision for the state and how to make it smarter. Rishi Sharma, Sales Engineering Leader, Sophos presented his company’s views by co-relating security to the physical world. TausifSiddiqui, Enterprise IT Architect, NetApp spoke on how NetApp is committed to bringing the state-of-the-art technology to bring secure and scalable storage technology to the state of Odisha.
The theme for the panel discussion was "Unlocking the Potential of Odisha" and was moderated by Dr DeepakKumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA. In Bhubaneswar, almost 90% of the smart city budget is allocated towards Area Based Development, which entails retrofitting, renewal and extensions in 985 acres of the city. This includes projects related to infrastructure engineering and building development, slum housing, green and park areas, road development and accessibility. The discussion delved into how it has become important for a robust infrastructure to be there in Bhubaneswar in order for it to become a smart city. The panelists at the discussion were – Dr. Cmdr. J Jena, DDG- COAI,Mr. Rishi Sharma, Sales Engineering Leader, Sophos,Mr. Tausif Siddiqui, Enterprise Architect Leader, Netapp India,Mr. Monoranjan Mohapatra, Founder- Suyog India, Mr. A . K Mohanty, CEO- TATWA Technologies.
The event also witnessed the award ceremony that felicitated two vendors, Cisco and Sophos and the Regionals VARs from the state of Odisha. While Cisco was awarded in the category of Best Converged Infrastructure, the award for Best Security Services Company went to Sophos Technologies. Five Regional VARs were awarded in the categories of The Best VAR, Odisha; The Best Software Distributor, Odisha; The Best Reseller, Odisha; Best Technology Services, Odisha; and The Best Software Services Company. The names of the winners respectively are - Nigama Comptech, Tristar Software and Solutions, Info care Solutions, Tatwa Technologies, and Suyog Computech.
The event also took the opportunity to felicitate the winners of the 9th VARINDIA IT Cup 2018 Cricket Tournament, which was played by 20 teams representing different companies. The cricket matches were played at Kishore Club Ground, Bhubaneswar and was supported by STPI and Electronics & IT Department, Govt. of Odisha.
The first semi-final match was played between Esquare and SPARC, where Esquare won the match by 8 wickets. In the second semi-final match played between TCS and Luminous Infoway, the latter (Luminous) won the match by 10 runs. The final match was played between Luminous Infoway and Esquare, in which Luminous Infoway clinched the title, while Esquare emerged as the Runner-up of the 9th VAR INDIA IT CUP 2019.