In what promises to be a massive churning of ideas to be kicked off by chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, captains of IT industry and academe will lay out the route map for Hyderabad's quest to be top of the IT pile.
Ideas will be tossed up, concepts debated. But this will only be the big bang that'll give birth to a universe of opinions. Among those who'll address Tuesday's session will be Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Raju, an icon in the field of IT will deliver the keynote address. His address begins around 9.35 am.
Expect some scintillating speeches from B V Naidu, head of the Software Technology Park of India (Hyderabad/Bangalore), Bob Hoekstra, MD, Philips Software, Subroto Bagchi, COO, MindTree, and Romi Malhotra, MD, Dell International Services. IT majors that they are, they'll speak on how Hyderabad can be put on the fast track to progress.
And then, look forward to the Debate of the Day, in which a panel of speakers will slug it out over whether our city is yet a true blue IT destination. Among those who are participating are Dr Santanu Paul, general manager, Virtusa (India), and secretary Ajay Sawhney. The debate will be anchored by Arnab Goswami, vice-president and editor of the TV news division of The Times of India. This one promises to be a major draw and out of the heated debate will emerge the guide map to a bright future.
Two sessions on unleashing Hyderabad's IT potential follow thereafter. The first one will revolve around the question of human resource and infrastructure, where the panelists — J C Mohanty, principal secretary, IT, Srini Koppolu of Microsoft, Ninad Karpe, MD, Computer Associates, and Srikant Sunderrajan, CTO, Cognizant — will seek ways of building further from where we've reached thus far.
The second part of the panel discussion unfolds thereafter. Given the concerns expressed by the industry on the quality of manpower we churn out in Andhra Pradesh, a panel of eminent academics will discuss the issue threadbare. The panelists for this session are Sabyasachi Mitra of ISB, Prof. Sadagopan of IIIT Bangalore, Prof. Govindarajulu of IIIT Hyderabad and G Subba Rao, who heads the Institute of eGovernance. Former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu will deliver the valedictory address.
