Connect 2007 brings academia, IT, govt under one roof

DQW NEWS BUREAU Chennai, Sep 12

ICT event CONNECT 2007 took place on Sep 15. “The event started with
pre-conference technical sessions and ended with a seminar where prominent
speakers including CEO from the IT-enabling industries rendered their speeches
on the development and measures taken to develop the industry in the state,”
sources reported.

CONNECT is an event run by Confederation of India Industry in association
with the Government of Tamil Nadu and Ministry of Communication and Information
Technology to bring together all the delegates of ICT industry, both
international and domestic; all the constituents of knowledge ecosystem-academia,
industry, government, bio-network facilitators and patrons on one single
platform.

“CONNECT is entering into the seventh year through which Tamil Nadu has
emerged as the destination of choice for knowledge-based industries and has
projected it as the leading electronics manufacturing hub of Asia. 15 percent of
total revenue in software comes from Chennai and it has constituted almost Rs 5
billion in revenue till date and is said to grow more,” said Gopal Srinivasan,
Chairman, CII.

“As far as the investments are concerned, we have got more investments from
abroad and MNCs after the CONNECT program, and the development that Tamil Nadu
has attained is enormous. More and more IT concerns are looking for investment,
and apart from software, the hardware industry is also looking good, and more
entrepreneurs are getting into the business,” said S Mahalingam, Chairman,
CONNECT 2007.

“Many IT concerns have been targeting tier-2 cities and few are following
them in cities like Madurai, Coimbatore, and Tiruchy. We are also focused on
developing the tier-2 and 3 cities.

While speaking on the occasion, C Chandramouli, Secretary-Information
Technology Department Government of Tamil Nadu said, “The number of
professional graduates increases year by year, but still we have not met with
the quality. The MNCs are going for only tier-1 colleges, which would be just a
handful. But the rest are left out. The only reason behind this is quality of
education. We have planned to revise the syllabus and improve the standard of
education provided to the students, by providing more quality materials and
other stuffs. We have also planned to improve the ITI students and make them a
software professional by giving quality training and improve their levels so
that there would not be any shortage of computer professionals, as the demand is
more and the government has taken a step forward and has started language labs
in government schools, so that the students do not face any hardship while
getting technical education. These initiatives would provide a strong base for
us to meet the demands of qualitative computer professionals, as more and more
IT investments are planned in the state. And as a result of the past six years
of CONNECT program, various IT investments are in the queue. And the government
has planned to open seven SEZs out of Chennai very soon. There are other plans
too to develop the tier-2 and 3 cities, where ITparks would be developed soon.
The announcements for the same would be made shortly.”

M Karunanidhi, CM, Tamil Nadu would inaugurate the event along with AM Raja,
Minister of Communication and IT, Government of India.