Padmasree Warrior lists upcoming tech trends at Bangalore IT.Biz

 
Edition 12 of annual event is a Second Coming of sorts after a few years in the dumps
“Soon, you won’t say, ‘I’m going to work’. All you say is ‘I’m doing work’. Your work place will be where ever you are”, suggests networking leader Cisco’s Chief Technology Office, Padmasree Warrior. She was listing key tech trends in the near future – that’s less than five years from now – in her keynote on day #1 of Bangalore IT.Biz, the Indian Silicon City’s annual IT showcase.

Having morphed in 12 years from IT.com to IT.in to IT.Biz – and almost sunk without trace after a few listless years, the event had something of a Second Coming, this year, thanks to slowly returning industry support and more professional event management* which saw the annual IT ‘mela’ , tightened and shifted to the comfortable ambience of a large hotel – the Lalit Ashok -- after many years, in the soggy grounds of the Bangalore Palace, followed by a disastrous spell in the far off Bangalore International Exhibition Centre.

Collaboration is the key to the future of work, play and connected life, Warrior suggested – and video would be the next killer app. , after Internet, with the cloud the ultimate destination for businesses as well as lay users. Here too, today’s private and public clouds would soon merge into a hybrid cloud that she called Inter-cloud, like Inter-net.
In his opening remarks, WiproChairman Azim Premji suggested that India had a leading edge in the knowledge society because she was in a sense a late starter and carried no legacy baggage -- but government’s many worthy initiatives were often fragmented and needed to be shared among the states to obviate ‘reinventing the wheel’ again and again.

In his inaugural address, Karnataka state IT Minister, Katta Subramanya Naidu invited the industry to join the newly created IT Infrastructure Region -- a 16 sq. km tract near Nandi Hills , on the outskirts of Bangalore. The days of industry coming to government are over, now we are reaching out to you, he added

Chile is this year’s partner nation and Mario Castillo, Head of Invest Chile, invited Indian IT players to make Chile their launch pad into South America.

The exhibition accompanying the event featured a number of innovative local companies which we will cover in a separate feature on this page, as the three-day IT.Biz ends Nov 13.

*Bangalore IT.Biz 2009 has attracted over 1000 delegates and 100 exhibitors .It was organised for the Karnataka state IT/BT and S&T Ministry by event partner “MM Activ” and event managers “Events Ten”. Apco Worldwide provided the media services.
Bangalore Nov 11 2009