Hi all,

As you all may know, MIC and MDEC jointly organised the 1st Malaysian Indian IT Conference yesterday, 26th March 2007 at PWTC. The event also marked the launch of MIC’s Malaysian Indian Technology and Innovation Bureau (MITIB – www.mitib.net).

Registration began at about 8.15am. There were few booths set up outside the hall for the sponsors – Murawa, Celcom, Aptech, Nestle. The event began slightly late, I think at 9.20am. By then, there were about 1000 participants, nearly double the earlier estimates. Many students/youths were there, as was businessmen, IT professionals, those interested in IT, MIC members, and even insurance agents :). Dato Veerasingam as organising chairman gave the opening speech followed by Datuk Seri Samy Vellu, and then keynote address by Dato Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis (MOSTI Minister). The Minister held an impromptu Q and A session, before he launched MITIB and the conference. One of the hot question was why “bumiputra status” was needed when want to register company. The minister managed to evade by citing that competition is now at global level and so on. Then there was a surprise birthday cake presentation from him to Datuk Seri Samy Vellu. The participant sang “Happy Birthday” while Datuk Seri cut the cake. Following that there were 3 MoU exchanged between various local IT companies and Mimos. Tea break and press conference were next.

The conference continued after tea break with 2 keynote speakers. Sadly, about 10% of the crowd had dissappeared when Dato Seri Samy Vellu left, probably MIC members. The first speaker was Mr Badlisham – CEO of MDEC. He spoke on the role of MDEC, the various grants available, and how MDEC can help IT ventures. This was followed by, (in my opinion, the best part of the conference), a speech by Mohandas Pai of Infosys India. His topic was the IT Revolution in India and how Malaysia (and Malaysian Indians) can learn, adapt and use the strategy implemented by the Indians. His speech was full of facts and figures, and he captivated the audience well. However, those not fluent in English would have had some problem understanding. Among the points mentioned were establishing excellent education centers, introducing meritocracy, allowing tax breaks, inviting MNC to set-up in Malaysia, provide role models in IT for Indian.

By the way, there was one question from the floor about why ATM machines does not have Tamil language option. As expected, Dato Veerasingam declined to answer.

After lunch, the event continued with speeches by the persons below. About 50% of the participants were still around.

– Azlin Alias (MTDC) – focused on types of funds available at MTDC and its role

– Ms Janice (MSC) – focused on funds available at MSC Technopreneur Development Programs

– Anand Sudarshan (Manipal) – Manipal’s role in education

– Mr Vignesh (Jobstreet) – current job situation, problems getting employment, what employers want etc.

– Mr Kumaran (CISCO) – his rise in IT industry, background on Cisco, Cisco certification

– Mr David Kuchommen (InSyncro) – problems with starting a own business and hurdles of being entrepreneur

– Mr Leo (Scicom) – opportunities in BPO, Call Centers

– Mr Jacques de Villiers (QuickTrak) – new technology using DSS (radio frequency) communication

One common theme was advice to students to master English, improve on people and communication skills, and to get employed even if salary is low so that can gain experience.

Finally, Dato Vijay Eswaran of QI international – known for Questnet (and gold coin?) and other businesses came on to the stage followed by another 30 plus entourage. He was personally introduced by Dato Veerasingam. We had a video on him before he began his speech. Dato Vijay talked about Information Technology, relating to ancient India. He covered a little his experiences, his business and so on.

The event ended with a closing remarks by Dato Veerasingam in which he mentioned that MIC will come out with a book that highlights Indian ICT giants to be a role model to current young generation. The books will be distributed to schools and hopes that the student will emulate the successful ICT entrepreneurs.

The event ended with tea at about 5.45pm.

Overall, I feel it was a good effort, being a first for the newly launched MITIB. However, the conference covered too wide an area – entrepreneurs, students, employees etc. Perhaps they should run parallel sessions in the future. I did not hear much about emerging technologies, and the coverage on the funds was vague, with the speakers keep on repeating about “it is all on the website”. Personally, I enjoyed the talk by Mr Mohandas, Mr Kumaran, Mr David, and Mr Leo. Others were average. There were some problems with lighting syncronisation, video projection etc, which indicates lack of rehearsal or miscommunication between the organising team members.