21st VARINDIA INFOTECH FORUM: Re-emphasizing the Power of Digital Transformation

The 21^st edition of the VARINDIA INFOTECH FORUM 2023, a day-long hybrid forum held in the national capital of New Delhi on 21^st July has set a new benchmark again of being a prestigious end-customer event. Themed this year - Optimizing Digital Transformation, the carefully curated event saw power-packed sessions of technical presentations, panel discussions and discourses on issues impacting the technology landscape and, most importantly business networking.   

Now in its 21^st year, the forum manifested itself as the perfect opportunity for enterprise-level decision-makers to explore and evaluate new technologies and strategic approaches to drive innovation in their business, through day-long discourses and discussions.   

The eminent guests present at the event included Sanjay Kumar Das, MD -WEBEL; Manoj Chugh, Advisory LLP; Vijay Sethi, Chairman- Mentorkart; Prof Triveni Singh, Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime, Uttar Pradesh; Rishi Mehta, President & CEO- WAISL Limited; Manoj Kumar, ED & Head of International Marketing- BEL, Subhashish Gupta, Country Manager India & SAARC, Allied Telesys; Dr. Pavan Duggal, Expert in Cyberlaw and e-commerce law- Supreme Court of India; Dr. Ajai Garg, Director & Head (Tech & Law)- Anand & Anand , Dr Debabrata Nayak, Head of Cyber Security- Ericsson; Dr. Karnika Seth, Managing Partner- Seth Associates; Col. (DR) Inderjeet Singh, Chief Cyber Officer- Vara Technology; Saurabh Gupta, Group CDIO - Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd.; Kumar Ravi, CISO-Teleperformance India; Rohit Raman, Managing Partner & APAC Head- Etek; Mohit Puri, Country Manager India/SAARC, SonicWall; Nikhil Dudwadkar, Head of Marketing, Kaspersky; Atul Govil, Chief Transformation Officer & Head (SAP & IT) - India Glycols; Sanjeev Sinha, President- IT & Digitisation- India Power Corporation Ltd.; Dr. Sindhu Bhaskar, CEO - EST Group; Vijay Anand, Sr. V.P. Global IT & IS – CorroHealth; Kapil Mehrotra, Group CTO - Dhanuka Group; Pankaj Mittal, Founder & CEO- Digizen Consulting; Rahul Dutta, Country Head- Microsoft Surface; Ritesh Dhawan, General Manager - Redington Ltd.; Anita Kukreja, Head - Marketing & Channel Sales- IceWarp India; Nationalist Umesh Gopinath Jadhav; Dr.Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA; and S Mohini Ratna, Editor – VARINDIA.   

In the inaugural speech, Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA and Group Publications, while expressing his gratitude towards the audience, explained how the tech leaders are struggling to adopt new age technologies, implementing new business models, creating new organizational structures, and making their processes more intelligent. “From the inception of fire to the brilliance of smartphones, the human history is marked with innovations that have upended civilizations, reshaping our lives in unimaginable ways. We are on the cusp of the next technological revolution, the dawning age of artificial intelligence - an invention that, in retrospect, may leave us wondering how we existed pre-AI.”  

The opening note for the day was given by Manoj Chugh, Advisory LLP, who emphasized on how everyone is embracing digital transformation in life. VARINDIA also took the opportunity to honour Manoj Chugh as the IT Man of the Year 2023 and a video was played that corroborated his achievements, his visionary leadership and his contributions to the tech world.   

The next speaker, Subhashish Gupta, Country Manager India & SAARC, Allied Telesys presented his views on the Best Practices for smart AI driven networks.

Rishi Mehta, President & CEO- WAISL Limited delivered the keynote in which he talked on Digital Transformation Learnings, using Airport eco-system and Digiyatra. 

Sanjay Kumar Das, MD - WEBEL (WBEIDCL) & Joint Secretary, IT& Electronics Department, West Bengal, in his address spoke on an important topic - Cyber Assurance- The Ubiquitous Answer to Cyber Ails. 

In the corporate presentations, Anuj Kumar Singh, Senior Solution Specialist, Hitachi Vantara enlightened the audience on how Hitachi Vantara’s strong vision and with the power of data helps align the partners with the customer ecosystem.

Naveen Kumar, Sales Director, North & East - Sophos India, on the other hand reprised the guests on how Sophos is on the forefront, analyzing every threat and cyberattacks.   

The afternoon session was started with the presentation of Debasis Satapathy, The presentation from Debasis Satapathy, GM (HR) - NBCC Ltd. was an eye-opener in which he addressed the gathering with Management lessons from the great Mahabharata. Through his presentation, he stressed on the important characteristic of a leader to infuse confidence in his team and always keeping them in high morale.

The Fire-Side chat session, on the topic, Policy - A Maker and breaker of innovation, Entrepreneurship in Tech start-ups, saw Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA and Rameesh Kailasam, CEO- Indiatech.org discussing on the role that policy plays in fostering and limiting innovation and entrepreneurship in tech start-ups. 

Dattatray Katkar, Head of Business & Strategic Alliances (INDIA & SAARC) - Allied Telesis, through his presentation, shared more insights on the various products and services of Allied Telesis.   

Prof Triveni Singh, Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime, Uttar Pradesh shared his experiences and insights on new forms of criminal practices prevailing globally and the Criminal Misuse of DLT, Bulk SMS Services platform by foreign Fraudsters.  

Vikas Jain, Team Lead - Systems Engineering – Nutanix presented his views on how Nutanix provides cloud computing and hyperconverged infrastructure solutions and technology, which integrates computing, storage, virtualization, and networking into a single, unified system. 

O P Kukreti, Manager- Aditya Infotech spoke on how its brand CP Plus created a revolution in the Indian manufacturing market, while securing millions of lives and assets in the country and abroad.

Piyush Verma, Partner Account Manager, North India – Kaspersky highlighted the USP of the Kaspersky brand and how its advanced and comprehensive portfolio of security solutions and services are evolving from “cybersecurity” towards the wider concept of “cyber-immunity”. 

The Infotech Forum was very informative and positioned as usual a knowledge sharing platform, where experts from the industry , academia and the marketing leaders from corporate world has participated in the three tracks of panel discussion sessions.

Session I: Accelerating Data-Driven Growth( Participated by the CIO/CTO)

Session II : Need for value marketing in unprecedented economic times( Participated by the CMO/ Head of Marketing)

Session III : Unifying digital agenda ( Participated by the CDO/CISO)

The evening started with stand-up comedian Ravi Khurana, who entertained the guests with his antics and corporate puns.

Umesh Gopinath Jadhav, a Nationalist, ignited the nationalist sentiments in everyone through his presentation and with his “Nation First” commitment, which according to him signifies putting the interest of the nation and its citizens before anything else.  

S Mohini Ratna, Editor - VARINDIA formally started the evening session with her welcome speech in which she ran through a recap of the day’s proceedings while also briefing about the IT industry and its trends at present. 

Dr. Pavan Duggal, Expert in Cyberlaw and e-commerce law- Supreme Court of India spoke on the current security landscape while also throwing some light on some recent cyber practices.

The last two presentations of the day were by Rahul Dutta, Country Head- Microsoft Surface and Venkataraman D, Exec. Dir. - Sales & Strategy, Crayon Software Experts, who shared wonderful insights into AI and security respectively.  

There was a total of three panel discussions during the full-day event. The first panel was moderated by Vijay Sethi, Chairman- Mentorkart and was themed ‘Accelerating Data-Driven Growth’. The session highlighted how CIOs/CTOs are utilizing data to efficiently drive business growth, innovation, and decision-making, while leveraging analytical techniques to gain insights, make informed strategic choices, and optimize business operations. The panellists who were a part of this discussion were - Atul Govil, Chief Transformation Officer & Head (SAP & IT) - India Glycols; Sanjeev Sinha, President- IT & Digitisation- India Power Corporation Ltd.; Dr. Sindhu Bhaskar, CEO - EST Group; Vijay Anand, Sr. V.P. Global IT & IS – CorroHealth; Kapil Mehrotra, Group CTO- Dhanuka Group and Pankaj Mittal, Founder & CEO- Digizen Consulting.   

The second panel, themed Need for value marketing in unprecedented economic times, was moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA. The panellists who joined as speakers during this session included CMOs/Marketing Heads of leading brands - Kaustubh Patki, Head India Marketing – OpenText; Nikhil Dudwadkar, Head of Marketing, Kaspersky; Shanker Sareen, Marketing Lead, India & SAARC- Sentinelone; Ritesh Dhawan, General Manager - Redington Ltd.; and Anita Kukreja, Head - Marketing & Channel Sales- IceWarp India. 

The third panel was moderated by Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-chief, VARINDIA and was themed Unifying Digital Agenda. The discussion tried to delve into the role of CDOs and CISOs in navigating the complexities of the digital era and how do they outline their key responsibilities, skills, and the impact on business success. The panellists were - Dr Debabrata Nayak, Head of Cyber Security- Ericsson; Dr. Karnika Seth, Managing Partner- Seth Associates; Col. (DR) Inderjeet Singh, Chief Cyber Officer- Vara Technology; Saurabh Gupta, Group CDIO - Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd.; Kumar Ravi, CISO-Teleperformance India and Rohit Raman, Managing Partner & APAC Head- Etek.  

The unveiling of the 12th edition of the VARINDIA Brand Book on the Indian ICT Industry was however the major highlight of the day, for which the audience waited with unabated interests. The Annual Coffee Table Book chronicles the journeys, marketing and channel policy of the featured brands along with the GTM strategy of the Corporates and VARs that participate in the Brand Book.   

The event also witnessed the recognition of 100 Eminent CIOs of India, India’s Top 25 Trusted Brands along with the country’s Top 50 Most Admired ICT Brands, and the Most Influential CMOs in India.