Digital Disruption & Transformation rule the roost at the 17th Star Nite Awards 2018

{From L to R): S N Tripathi, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs - Govt. of India; Manjit Nayak, Addl. Director - STPI; C P Gurnani,  MD & Chief Executive - Tech Mahindra; Dr. Deepak Kr. Sahu, Publisher - VARINDIA; Shyam Jaju, Vice President - BJP; S Mohini Ratna, Editor - VARINDIA; Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director - C Dot; A N Rai, Advisor to Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways, Govt. of India; Deepak Chanduka, Deputy Director General - DoT, Govt. of India and Alok Gupta,  Managing Director - Unistal

The most coveted IT Awards Nite - the 17th edition of VARINDIA Star Nite Awards 2018 concluded in the capital city of New Delhi amidst the presence of the who’s who of the ICT industry. The event provided a platform for all to discuss latest technological disruptions that are going on in the Information Technology industry, technical presentations and also business networking

The evening commenced with the lamp lighting ceremony that was graced by dignitaries including S N Tripathi, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs - Govt. of India; Manjit Nayak, Addl. Director - STPI; C P Gurnani, MD & Chief Executive - Tech Mahindra; Dr. Deepak Kr. Sahu, Publisher - VARINDIA; Shyam Jaju, Vice President - BJP; S Mohini Ratna, Editor - VARINDIA; Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director - C Dot; A N Rai, Advisor to Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways, Govt. of India; Deepak Chanduka, Deputy Director General - DoT, Govt. of India and Alok Gupta, Managing Director - Unistal. The presence of all these dignitaries raised the bar to a different level never witnessed earlier.

Dr. Deepak Sahu, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Kalinga Digital Media in his evening welcome speech highlighted that India is becoming the global hub for manufacturing, the measures taken by the government will surely grow confidence amongst the manufacturers which will eventually create business opportunities. “Unique IDs for companies will definitely go a long way in contributing towards interest of the nation and increasing transparency by corporate. The iconic BharatNet project, where the government’s announcement to promote digitization through greater connectivity will fuel uptake for collaboration and remote working solutions resulting in a more productive and connected India.”

In her keynote address, S Mohini Ratna, Editor – VARINDIA said that India will remain the top-most offshoring destination for IT companies across the world. “In order to prove capabilities in delivering both on-shore and off-shore services to global clients, leading IT firms like Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Accenture are diversifying their offerings and showcasing leading ideas in blockchain, artificial intelligence to clients using innovation hubs, research and development centres, in order to create differentiated offerings.”

C P Gurnani, MD & Chief Executive – Tech Mahindra, who was the special guest at this year’s event was honoured as the IT Man of the Year by VARINDIA. In his speech, Gurnani while lauding VARINDIA’s contribution in propagating the PM’s vision of Digital India explained how this ambitious initiative can be turned into a reality.

S N Tripathi, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs – Govt. of India in his speech said that today is the age of ‘Dataway’, or like PM Modi calls it as the ‘Infoway’, which can literally take anyone literally anywhere if it is able to be managed.

A N Rai, Advisor to Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways, Govt. of India while addressing the guests said that he belongs to a profession that is related to connectivity and that this connectivity is not always visible to the people as they are in the background.

Shyam Jaju, Vice President – BJP while highlighting the special initiatives of the BJP govt. said that he came to Delhi at that time when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM of India, when trunk or STD calls used to be made to call relatives and friends staying far-off, but a lot of revolution has taken place in the telecommunication field post that.

In the corporate presentation Hursh Chetan, Consultant – Solutions Presales Group, HPE spoke about various initiatives of Hewlett Packard Enterprises.

In the Tech Talk session, Shailendra Mandrawadkar, VP – Enterprise Sales – Happay; Sunil Sharma, MD (Sales) – Sophos and Harsha Bennur, Enterprise and Government Marketing Lead – India, NetApp presented their respective company’s transformation process and its key growth and success factors.

Like every year, Star Nite Awards took the opportunity to recognize the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), and the top performing IT Vendors (Corporates) serving the Indian ICT Industry. The Awards Nite saw 11 CMOs being recognised. The top CMOs felicitated during the event ceremony are from NetApp, Adobe, Lenovo, NVIDIA, Suse, HPE, Barco, Netmagic, Seagate, UiPath and Veeam.

In the vendor award ceremony, close to 40 vendors have been recognized in various categories, based on the feedback received through an online voting from channel partners and VARs.