Kolkata, 9th December 2017: The 16thedition of INFOCOM 2017 entered its third and final day with the Entrepreneurship forum and Security Forum, followed by INFOCOM Hackstars (Workshop) at ITC Sonar, Kolkata. The final day also proceeded in two tracks, Track A and Track B.
Track A hosted the Entrepreneurship forum. The forum kick-started with a panel discussion on ‘Beyond Calcutta – Opportunities for IT Starups’ which was chaired and moderated by Mr. Nirupam Chaudhuri, Regional Director – East, NASSCOM and the panel constituted of eminent speakers like Mr. Indranil Dutta, Founder and CEO, 1to9solutions, Mr. Sushanta Banerjee,Managing Director and Cloud Technology Trainer, Accuserves Infotech, Mr. Mantu Malakar, Managing Director and Co-Founder, Codeachi Technology, Mr. Himadrisekhar Nandi, Founder Director PageLinko Technologies, Mr. Sanjay Sinha, CEO, MeMe Information Technology and Mr. Aniruddha Biswas, Director, Fixfin Technologies.
The second session was a keynote address by Sri Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, Hon’ble Minister for Power and Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Government of West Bengal on ‘Building Sustainable Power to aid Bengal’s Growth Story’. He emphasized on the importance of sustainable power and how the state is taking measures and steps to build the same that will in turn help in the growth of Bengal.
The third session commenced on the topic of ‘Digital Transformation driving Customer Value’ by Mr. Abhishek Chakraborty, Executive Director, DTDC Express Ltd. He stressed on how digitalization is aiding in better customer relations and values at DTDC.
This was followed by another session on ‘IT Investment Opportunities in Jharkhand’ that hosted speakers Mr. Amit Khare, IAS, Development Commissioner & Additional Chief Secretary, Planning-cum-Finance Department, Government of Jharkhand and Mr. Satendra Singh, IAS, Secretary – Department of IT & eGovernance, Government of Jharkhand. Jharkhand is one of the partner states of INFOCOM 2017. The speakers emphasized on the opportunities that IT investors can explore in the state.
The next session was on ‘Sikkim – Taking the Long View’ by Sri Prem Das Rai, Member of Lok Sabha (Sikkim), Representing Government of Sikkim. Sikkim is a partner state for INFOCOM 2017 and the session focused on the offerings of the state.
This was succeeded by a panel discussion on ‘Transforming India through Entrepreneurship’ which was chaired and moderated by Mr. Aparup Sengupta, Founder & Chairman, AAJ Global Foundation; Co-Founder and Partner, Capital Square Partners. The prominent panelists who spoke on the idea were Mr. Aritra Sarkar, CEO, Wedoria Technologies, Mr. Bimal Patwari, Founder and President, Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, Mr. Purushottam Saraf, Eastern Region Head, BSE SME, Mr. Suvra Chakraborty, Director, AMC Overseas and Mr. Amit Ladsaria, Co- Founder, Chai Break (ALP Retail)
The ‘INFOCOM Future Leadership Award 2017’ took place on the final day of INFOCOM 2017 post the networking lunch along with the presentation by the finalists and the Jury interaction. The Award was a business ideas competition and an initiative to promote next generation entrepreneurs who have new ideas and passion to execute the same.
Bengalathon – India’s first State level Hackathon – Ideas that drive progress was a special session hosted by the Department of IT and Electronics, Government of West Bengal. The session was presented and conducted by Mr. Suvayu Ray, Project Director, PwC PMU Team attached to Department of IT & Electronics, Government of West Bengal along with the winners of the pilot event.
INFOCOM Future Leadership Award 2017 continued with the Jury members sharing their own perspectives followed by felicitation of the winners.
The first half of Track B hosted the Security Forum. The initial session was a Keynote on Building Cyber Security Architecture: Models, Frameworks and Future Trends. The Speaker was Mr. Bikas Barai, Co-Founder of Fire Compass & CISO Platform.
This was followed by a session on ‘Deep Dive in the Dark Web’ by Mr. Burgess Cooper, Partner – Advisory Services, Information and Cyber Security, Ernst & Young LLP. He shared his views on how the internet is being misused across the globe in harming the society.
A panel discussion on ‘Maintaining a Digital Trust in the age of BOTs and APIs’ was next that was chaired and moderated by Mr. Partha Sengupta, Vice President – IT Services, ITC Infotech India. The panel consisted renowned speakers like Ms. Maya R Nair, Head – Information Security, Idea Cellular Ltd., Mr. A Shiju Rawther, Head – IT Infrastructure & Security Operations, TransUnion CIBIL Ltd and Mr. Sebastian Joseph, Assistant Executive Director (Information Management), Dalmia Cement Bharat Ltd. The panelists shared their views about how maintaining a trust has become vital in a day and age where Internet Bots and Application programming interface are control everything.
This was followed by a session on ‘You are breached! What is your strategic Incident Response Plan?’ which was chaired and moderated by Mr. Sushobhan Mukherjee, Co-Founder and CEO, Prime Infoserve LLP and Chairman of Infosec Foundation and the panel constituted speakers like Mr. Sankarson Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer – Projects, National Stock Exchange of India, Prof. Dr. Triveni Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime, STF, UP Police, Mr. Tanay Bhattacharya, Senior Scientist, NCIIPC and Dr. Nabarun Bhattacharyya, Director, C-DAC Kolkata.
The Security forum of Track B concluded with a session on ‘Strategy for a Digital Business Security’ by Mr. Vijay Sethi, CIO and Head – CSR, Hero MotoCorp Ltd where he shared various strategies that digital businesses can adopt to secure themselves.
The INFOCOM Hackstars (Workshop), commenced with a panel discussion on ‘Entrepreneurship & Startup Opportunities in Information Security’ chaired and moderated by Mr. Sandeep Sengupta, Founder and Director – ISOAH Data Securities. The eminent speakers on the panel were Dr. Sudip Sinha, Technical Manager – Global Network Services, Linde Group, Mr. Pallab Ganguly, Deputy Manager – Corporate Information System, CESC Ltd., Mr. Swarup Kumar Roy, Advisor – Department of IT & Electronics, Government of West Bengal, Mr. Kanchan Mallick, Regional Manager, Eastern India, Nepal, Bhutan & Bangladesh, Trend Micro, Mr. Somak Shome, Director –Cyber Security Practice, PwC India and Mr. Nirupam Sen, Business Head – East, BSI Group India.
A gaming session on ISEC Risk Management was conducted by the ISOAH Team on the final day of INFOCOM 2017. This was followed by a workshop and presentation on Model Projects byCyber Club of Schools of Calcutta.
The concluding session was on, ‘Xtreme Hacking’ conducted by Team ISOAH.
INFOCOM 2017 hosted a valedictory keynote by Dr. Amit Mitra, Hon’ble Minister for Finance, Industry, Commerce & Enterprises and Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises & Textiles Departments Government of West Bengal who spoke on ‘Visions for Bengal 2025’.
The highlight of INFOCOM 2017 was the spotlight session ‘Masterclass with the Legend’ that witnessed internationally acclaimed Tabla maestro in Hindustani classical music, Ustad Zakir Hussain having an interactive leadership session on his life and learnings followed by his solo performance.
The conference ended with a vote of thanks and closing address by Mr. K K Mahapatra, Organizing Secretary and Associate Vice President – – INFOCOM and Chief IT Advisor, ABP Pvt. Ltd., where he talked about the digital age is transforming every sector and the importance of being digitally advanced and knowing the pros and cons of being technologically equipped.
INFOCOM 2017 is supported by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India along with the Digital India Plan.
Department of IT and Electronics, Government of West Bengal and Webel are partnering with INFOCOM 2017 as the Host State.
Other Partner States for the event are: Bihar, Jharkhand, Sikkim and Madhya Pradesh
Tourism Partners for the event are: Jharkhand Tourism and Telangana Tourism
The event is being supported by SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industries and NASSCOM. The event will bring together over 1200 delegates from large Corporates, IT, SMEs and Government with close to 100 Speakers from Business, IT, Government and SMEs and over 55 Sessions on Strategy & Leadership, Technology & Information Security, State Offerings & Tourism, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. More than 250 top CIOs/CISOs from across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and other SAARC Countries also participated in the event.
The Make in India Partner for INFOCOM 2017 was Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. Delegate Partner-JIS University, CIO & Security Forum Knowledge Partner – Ernst & Young, Theme Partner – Ericsson, Learning Partners – Rice Education and Adamas University, Innovation Partners – Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Savex Technologies, Keynote Partner: LIC, Co-Host – STPI, Technology Partner – Microsoft India, Industry Partner – WBIDC, Cyber Security Partner – Palo Alto Networks, Managed Hosting and Hybrid IT Partner – NTT Communications and Netmagic, Digital Transformation Partner: Cisco Systems, Digital Partner-TCG Digital, Cloud Partner – Amazon Web Services, Open Source Partner-Redhat and Exchange Partner – BSE SME. The Associate Sponsors for the event were: Accenture, Avaya, Redington, Commvault, Macaws Infotech, Experis IT, Micro Focus, Invenio Business Solutions, Trend Micro, PMI – Project Management Institute, Arodek India, Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, Techno India University, AAJ Global Foundation, Team Computers, Srijan, Smart Planet, Powergrid Corporation of India, SOPHOS, Xiphos Technology Solutions, Neotec Hub – Ambuja Neotia, Indian Oil Corporation of India, Wow! Momo and Chai Break. TV Partner – ABP News, Community Partners – CISO Platform and Infosec Foundation, Webcast Partner – Reach Webcast and Social Media Marketing Partner – Fame Per Second.
