About: Star Nite Awards 2017

As evening descended, the air at the Ballroom of Hotel The Lalit, New Delhi was pregnant with hope and anxiety to understand this year’s verdict on who are the winners of the Annual Star Nite Awards. But once the awards were announced, the mood changed to one of celebration - with the joy of the winners overshadowing the disappointment of those who did not make it.

A number of government ministers, officials, as well as top industry executives from around the world, spoke in all 5 different sessions. India is experiencing unprecedented digital growth. As its citizens embrace new technologies, a massive number of connections are coming online. These users are expecting more services and better experiences-as a result, consumption is pressing heavily on the limits of the country’s current broadband infrastructure.

Star Nite Awards also took the opportunity to recognize the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), Value Added Resellers (VARs) and IT Vendors (Corporates) serving the Indian ICT Industry. There were Technology showcases by 16 Corporates that included Vodafone, Canon, Vertiv, Dell-EMC, HPE, Ingram Micro, Inspira, Acer, Cambium Networks, eScan, ALIMCO, Digisol, Epson, Gemalto, RAH Infotech, LG and IndiaSoft-ESC that promoted their products and solutions.

The Awards Nite was also supported by IT associations from across the country - FAIITA, PCAIT, COMPASS, FITDAK, TAIT, ASIRT, FITAG, CONFED-ITA, ITAO, CMDA, RCTA, JCDA,ISODA, UPCDA, AIT, VCMDWA & ADCTA who also attended the Industry Round table to discuss and understand the theme “Vendors Commitment for the VARs”. The meet was also attended by ACER as the key vendor. The key discussion was on the ‘On-line versus Traditional Resellers’.

Key Highlights of Star NIte Awards :

• Industry Presentations, Tech Talk and Industry Aanalysis
• Channel Leadership Awards Ceremony
• Recognising the Best CMO's of the Year
• Recognising Best performed VARs in the country
• Technology: Today & Tomorrow

Speakers: Star Nite Awards 2017

Digital India will lead the country into a digitally empowered society

Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group editor, (VARINDIA & SPO INDIA), in his welcome address spoke on the need for increased access to internet, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), connectivity and social media, and how they have completely changed our lives and the business landscape as a whole. "There is huge potential for ICT to drive sustainability forward, and both businesses and national players have a crucial role to play in this. We at SPO INDIA is committed to leveraging technology to solve some of India’s most urgent environmental issues, and focusing on key areas where we believe we can have the most positive impact by bringing together our another flagship publication, VARINDIA. We are trying to bridge an alliance between the industry, the Government, the social sector and the society at large.

To complement the efforts, Digital India will leapfrog the country into a digitally empowered society in the next five years by enabling consumers, citizens, small businesses, traders and farmers to harness technology for efficiency and productivity. Digital offers significant economic and societal opportunities and benefits to multiple stakeholders from consumers, business, government and citizens in areas like digital democracy, together with communication, participation, engagement and feedback of one or more citizens in the democratic process. Digital India will be the major accelerator of economic and societal transformation and will impact all stakeholders enhancing their quality of life."

(From Left to Right): Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Ajay Choudhary, DGM – Marketing ALIMCO; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group Editor, (VARINDIA & SPO INDIA); Chief Guest, Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head - Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Mr. Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India; Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities & Administration, Thomson Reuters and Mr. Rajeev Gupta, CIO - Air One Aviation.







Cyber crimes have evolved to a great level in recent years

Prashant Gupta, Partner – Grant Thornton
“Cyber crimes are evolving day by day around the globe. In past, it used to be like we would look into crime incidents and work with the clients to come up with a defensive strategy by analyzing the problem and then resolve it. But in recent 4-5 years, the kind of attacks or risk factors that is coming out has really awaken the industry. The most recent Bad Rabbit attacks that revolves around vulnerabilities on the website, created quite a stir in the last few weeks. Similarly the WannaCry that revolved around systems working on Microsoft systems was another such attack that squeezed the security industry and made them think about of what can be done to avert such threats.”


Computer technology has developed to a point from where there is no looking back

Dan Mishra, Chairman and CEO-CSDC and Executive Chairman – ICAD Investments LLC
“There is a saying which says that when a wave comes, either you swim or sink. This is true with the digital wave too, where the level of preparedness decides how well you would be able to adapt to digitization. When I left India in 1969, computer technology was still at a nascent stage. There were only 4 computers in the country at that time. I remember travelling to Bombay to do our programming project. The other 2 were in Kolkata and 1 in Delhi. In computer programming, ‘Zero defect’ is very important and this determines the success of a business. The ancient computer systems however no longer exist but the heritage still remains and we have all readily accepted it.”


Essentially we need 3Es as best practices for conducting business in India

Mr. Vineet Goenka, Member – IT Taskforce, Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways said, “When we started the journey in 2014, we started addressing corruption, curtailments, curtails, complications and compulsions in public life. Taking this to the next level was more disturbing because there was delays, debts, diseases, more disabilities, distortion of facts. As we progressed, we thought that we have to stop this, which was going on in this country for several years. What was the element that can change this corruption, curtailment, disturbance etc. When we took it further, we talked about three Es - ethical business, the environment and economic viability. So even if you are ethically correct, environmentally right, we should not do a business which is not economically viable. We have to be practical and so let’s run this government with e-Governance.”




The Govt. is working towards realizing a complete digital economy

Mr. A Sheshagiri Rao, CMD – TCIL said, “On 2nd July 2015, when our Honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi launched the three pillars of digital infrastructure as utility, digital service and also digital empowerment to the citizens, it was then that the wave of digitization started. The complete government and industry is working towards it. The schemes which are developed and implemented by government or PSUs are converging towards it. Today, everything wants to be in a digital fashion. If we talk about the readiness, we are actually trying to implement it and maybe we are 20% ready. There is however a gap of 80% which needs to be bridged by all of us.”



It is time to unleash our potential to create a New India

Mr. Vipin Tyagi, Executive Director – C-DOT while addressing the audience said, “This is the time to create in India the new India. What can be created and what can we do so that we can realise the new India. It is the best place in my assessment as we have hardware and software capabilities. We are all geared up but the only thing is that this is the time for us to really think of what we want to create. The potential, ability, creativity that we have in this country which is bottled up should be realised.”