The 8th Confederation of IT Associations (CONFED-ITA) Annual Summit 2015 took place in Confluence Banquets & Resorts near Mahabalipuram in Chennai on 23rd and 24th May with the theme” Vidiyalai Nokki’ meaning “Towards Dawn”. Around 500 to 600 IT dealers, System Integrators, Solution Providers from various Tamilnadu and Pondicherry district associations attended the event. It was highly colourful event with dealers wearing a common colour Violet T-shirt which showed the strength of the association. Event started with a prayers song and oath by all the members in the hall.
The Chief Guest of the Summit were A.M.Vikrama Raja, President of Tamilnadu Vanigar Sangangalin Peravai and also Ishari K Ganesh, Chancellor of VELS University. In his speech, Vikrama Raja appreciated the efforts of Confed ITA and also gave confidence by extending his complete support in fighting the unethical practice done by online traders. He also stated that their trade association will sit with government and discuss on the issues and nationwide movement among traders will be brought if things doesn’t come under control. Ishari K Ganesh was highly impressed with the Violet colour code of the members in the hall and offered discount to the members who would like to join their children’s and known to the VELS University.
Senthil, the new incoming president and the chairman of the summit is youngest president ever in Confed ITA. At the age of 35, he is a person of action and makes things happen instead of waiting for things to happen. He has set many such examples under his leadership in Sneham IT Dealers Association in Chennai, especially fighting against online business activities. Lots of hopes has been put on him by the dealers of Tamilnadu and Pondicherry to get major changes in the Confed ITA. Senthil dreams of online portal for the association members to compete the present online traders. The plan is to start an online portal which can route the leads to the dealer community and finally giving business to the dealers. There seems to be mixed reaction about this idea among the dealers, few dealers stated that this would benefit and few other dealers stated that there should not be any business in Association. Time will give the correct judgement whether this will work well or not, but idea seems to be great, said, one of the member.
The other main posts of the new team for 2015-2016 includes J Ramesh Kumar appointed as the Secretary, T Rajesh as the treasurer, GV Ramanan as the Vice-President, P Prabakaran as the Joint Secretary(1), Pratheesh Mathew as the Joint Secretary (2).
Muthiah Pillai, the past president of Confed-ITA explained the benefits of corporate insurance in the event which could be helpful to the district associations. Chartered President Karthikeyan and Past presidents Kuberan and Prakash also gave their note expressing their wishes for the success of the new team. All the Guests, Past Presidents and EC members were felicitated with a memento and a shawl. Natarajan, the recent past president handed over the charge to Senthil and team on the dais expressed his concern on the online business practices and extended his wishes to the new team.
Erode District Information Technology Association was honoured with the Best Association Award for doing various activities in their tenure like Blood Donation Camps by collecting 240 units in single stretch and in that around 135 were fresh donors as the main motto behind this was increasing new donors. Edita celebrated the birthday of their members with cake and by giving memento, the other activities being election awareness campaign in the bus stand and railway station by informing not to waste the votes, fire safety awareness camps in the main areas, Road safety awareness program was also done, Speakers were invited in the association like doctors to educate about the health and safety of the members, go green drive was taken and every blood donor was given a sapling and also it was informed to them that one who can show the growth of the plant will get a gift so that all saplings are planted, family get-together was organised, expo was conducted. Edita also joined with all traders association of Erode to educate 110 various association members, by educating importance on computers like how to use net banking so that the usage of computers increase and finally it could benefit the dealers. One of the major work done was giving basic shop keeper insurance policy for burglary and theft to all the members of association, says, Balaji J, President, Edita.
Tirupur Information Technology Association (TITA) was felicitated for winning the cricket cup.
One to one discussion opportunity was given to the district associations to discuss on the issues relating to their associations and problems in general. Evening event blasted in full fresh green open area with beautiful dancing performances, songs and ending with a gala dinner. The event was hailed by one and all and received great appreciation for organising such an program.