-B Swaminathan (bswamivinoth@gmail.com)
The Infotech Software Dealers Association had recently concluded the 10th edition of its flagship event TechSummit – TSX at Baku. The event promised to provide a solid platform for technology companies to network and grow their business along with some of the largest Channel Partners in the country.
Tripwire was the Gold Sponsor for the event. The other sponsors included A10 Networks, Carbonite, ESET, Extreme Networks, Sophos, Soti, TeamViewer, Zoho, Parablu, Crayon, CoSoSys, Radware, RAH Infotech, Rapid7, Shivaami Cloud Services, AntMyERP, Apical Impex, Choice Solutions, Professional Softec – Computax. Enjay IT, IT Simple, ACPL – Klassify, Satcom and Technobind. According to the association, this has been the maximum number of sponsors to date during their tech summit event. The event also marked another key achievement of having a maximum number of first-time participants for the event.
“We managed to get 115 registration and 23 sponsors and the total delegation was around 135 including media were present for the event. Out of the registrations, there were 25 first-timers for the event.”, says Jiten Metha, who is the chairman of the tech summit for this year. According to him, there were full house attendance and the participation level from the members was also high and the database of the members was given to the sponsors were given even before the event which helped them for better engagement. The majority of the sponsors had witnessed the commitment of the sponsors and almost all of the sponsors had given a commitment for participating in the next time. From the members’ part, we see the level members had shown to promote the new products. We designed the event flow which ensures learning, networking as well as fun.
“All these years, the event happened only in a South Asian nation. We wanted to explore a West Asian nation with European culture and food. Thus we finalized Azerbaijan which not only a perfect location but as a country, they are spending on infrastructure too. If Baku, as a location was an advantage for us, the climate over there was another advantage. We are hoping to see the sponsors once again in TS11”, Jiten concluded.
Partnering with the government:
The ISODA team had partnered with the Azerbaijan Government to enhance the business possibilities and opportunities between the two countries. The event witnessed Almir Velizadeh (Transport, Communications and High Technologies, Republic of Azerbaijan) and Indian Ambassador to Azerbaijan B Vanlalvawna (Government of India) at the inauguration event. In his speech, the Minister talked about how the government is serious about promoting technology in the citizen-levels and their views on the increasing partnership with Indian counterparts.
Manasi Saha, President, ISODA, said, “We are happy with the support that the Government officials provided to ISODA. Post-Event, we managed to meet the officials from Government and discussed how the members can work with the government in their various initiatives.” She also said that the intent of the Government of Azerbaijan was indeed in sync with that of the ISODA TechSummit – Reform. Perform. Transform.
Jiten further said, post-event, the association is in regular interaction with the Government as they are spending a lot of infrastructures. He also hinted on sending one more delegation soon to Baku to explore business opportunities. In Azerbaijan, the ISODA team was invited to visit the Innovations Center which was the place of strategic research and development of the government. The officials responsible for the innovation center wanted ISODA to partner with the Innovations Center and promised to work on a framework where ISODA partners could set up their businesses at Azerbaijan and help in local employment as well as technology adoption.
