Chandigarh, September 21, 2011: The two-days annual event, eRevolution 2011 which opens on 23rd September at JW Marriott, would have the small and medium business enterprise on the agenda with a view to pave way for their growth.

Both Chandigarh and Punjab are building a supportive ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and with tech SMBs becoming the backbone of Indian IT industry, eRevolution shall not only help them in building strategic linkages with some of the big players but also reach out to bigger domestic and overseas markets.

The region has already been acknowledged as the fastest growing knowledge hub in the country, informed Mr. V.K. Singh, IAS, Secretary to the Information Technology, UT, Chandigarh addressing the media here today.  He said already some of the companies based in this region are contributing to the world economies through their innovative products. 

There are more than 2500 SMEs in the city alone and quite a number of them in IT/ITeS sectors, contributing to the 85% of the city’s GDP fuelling growth, Mr V.K.Singh, IAS, Secretary Information Technology & Finance, added.

This year we shall be showcasing the success stories of some of these enterprises during the event named ‘Innovation Walk-through’, he said.

Mr. Rakesh Nangia, Senior Executive Director, Punjab Infotech, said that Punjab has floated prototyping fund to encourage innovation in this region, and already major steps have been undertaken to encourage entrepreneurship by setting up incubation centres in nearly 50 engineering colleges in the state, besides the InnCube in Mohali which has already attracted 9 companies employing more than 80 people, and very soon additional 12,000 sqft area would be added to it.

With institutions like IIT Ropar, ISB in Mohali, and a large number of research and development centres like NIPER, CSIO, NABI, IMTECH, eRevolution in the past six years has helped bring together diverse stakeholders on single platform for exchange of meaningful ideas.

eRevolution would be inaugurated by the Governor of Punjab and Administrator UT, Chandigarh, Shri Shivraj V. Patil, who is deeply concerned about using technology, research and development for economic inclusion and prosperity for all.

The region is already a home to many mobile and VAS product companies like Bursys Infotech, NetSmartz, Connoisseur Infotech, Nama Solutions, SEBIZ, and Packet Video, which is catering to overseas customers. According to a Dataquest-CMR survey, more than 80% of hardware and package software business in India is done through channel partners, and almost 50% of domestic software services is delivered through tech SMEs.

Besides Mr. S.C. Aggarwal, Chief Secretary Punjab, other key speakers at the inaugural would be two Nasscom’s executive council members, the father of Indian BPO industry, Mr. Raman Roy, CMD, Quattro Global Services, and Mr. Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, Managing Director, Dell India who played a key role in making India one of Dell's largest tech support centers in the world.

Other prominent speakers include Prakash Kumar, Director IBSC, Cisco Corp who is currently working on projects for establishing intelligent cities; Alok Gupta, president Indian Software Dealers Association that is engaged a a big program to move small tech firm from box pushing to services; Nitin Shah, MD of Allied Digital, and Ranjan Chopra, MD, Team Computers, oft quoted examples of small tech companies becoming big; Rajiv Ranjan Jha, Editor, Money Mantra, Zee News; Gagan Bhargava, HR head of NDTV; Dr. Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI; Rajiv Vaishnav, Vice President, Nasscom that is now focussing on this region;  Manish Verma, CEO, Startup Farms International with a fund of $500 million dollars; Kunwar Sachdev, Managing Director, SuKam Power Systems, and one of India's most celebrated entrepreneurs who changed the UPS business models. 

The technical session shall cover diverse topics including, Building Capabilities to Compete in Global Markets, Leveraging the New Business Channels, Crossing Rs.100 Million Mark, Innovation for Business Development, The New Markets: Domestic and Emerging Geographies, and Getting the Best Knowledge Workers.

Like every year, the evening highlight of eRevolution shall be ‘Jewel of the Crown’ session, where some of the top performing software companies in the region would be recognized. 

The event is hosted by the Department of Information Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park, Chandigarh Administration, Punjab Infotech, and Government of Punjab, in association with SPIC, and STPI as the co-host. Nasscom, TiE, PanIIT, Indian Angels Network are the knowledge partners of this conclave.

For further information:
Mr. Vineet Verma, PIO, Deptt of Information Technology, M: 9463400064
Mr. C.J. Singh, CorePR, M: 093161 33924