Kolkata has been the capital of India earlier and has historical significance in Indian business. The city is still the gateway of not only Eastern part of India but also to the neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan too. CIO Klub’s Kolkata region has been formed recently and is transforming as one of the vibrant IT forums in the city. In a short while, the forum had met its milestones like strengthening the members, collaborating with the government agencies and other forums. The current office bearers of the forum include Man Mohan Goyal, Vishnu Gupta, Subhamay Chakraborty, Syed Kadam, Sourav Das, and Arijit Dasgupta. In a quick chat, Sourav Das, one of the office bearers speaks of the plans of the forum. Edited Excerpts.
How is the investment scenario in West Bengal?
There is a perception across the country that Kolkata or East region is not growing. Even when you ask any OEM in their priority regions, many will have East as least priority and few do not even have it in the priority list. However, that perception is wrong. One should understand the ground-reality, visit the outskirts of Kolkata and see what is happening actually. There are plenty of investments entering West Bengal across various industries, thanks to the economic-friendly policies of the government. There is a general perception that government employees are not supportive of entrepreneurs which is also not true. Officers here are working beyond office hours, taking feedback from industry and trying to make policies.
How important is a CIO forum for a city like Kolkata?
The government is investor-friendly. With investment coming at large, there is a huge need for technology across the various industry. Believe me or not, there are more than 250 IT decision makers are based out of Kolkata. The IT purchase trend of the CIOs here is that, if they find a right product matching their requirement, they will never shy away from buying it. We felt there should be a common platform of IT decision makers to meet, greet and share knowledge on the latest in the technology industry. That is why we felt the need of a community. Thus we had created this chapter and we are emerging as one of the vibrant forums in the region.
How is your community performing both quantitatively and qualitatively?
Our official registered members are close to 50. We include other stakeholders in the community. Like government executives, PSUs, who are part of the IT ecosystem of the city. Our Whatsapp group is having close to 100 members.
What are the key activities of your chapter?
Beyond our regular gatherings and meetings, we focus mainly on knowledge sharing. We discuss internally on what technology is doing good and how effective the other CIO had utilized a technology. We do Saturday morning connects and other mentorship programmes too. We will be doing regular partnership events, OEM-driven events, anniversary event. We are also focusing big time in terms of CSR.
What are the key plans for the CIO Klub in Kolkatta?
CIO Klub has several plans. Firstly, we plan to host a series of ‘Knowledge Workshops; in various Emerging areas of IT; next a few team bonding events like Anniversary or CIO Connect; CIO Klub also is doing several CSR activities like recycling or donating old IT assets as well as facilitating tech education to the needy; we also have a special focus on the health consciousness of the member CIOs as we partner with health and fitness specialists; but the jewel in the crown is our elite 1st Saturday connect which has Peer-to-Peer Discussions, CIO agenda Discussions, Specific Tec
hnology Knowledge Sessions (Special Interest Groups), the Mentor-Mentee program and much more.
How is your partnership with other forums in and around Kolatta?
CIO Klub is actively and closely partnering with other forums. Firstly, we collaborate with the Department of IT & Electronics, Govt. of West Bengal, on several knowledge exchanges very closely. Similarly, we collaborate with other government organizations like WEBEL, whose leadership frequent CIO Klub workshops with their dynamic point of views. CIO Klub is also working with other chambers like the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industries (BCCI), as well as other Special Interest Groups in IT Security etc.
How much are you planning to work closely with the Government and other agencies?
We propose to work jointly with the Dept of IT & E as well as WEBEL is developing an App-based IT Asset recycle /donation program, with the development is done in-house and the project to be powered by CIO Klub. There are several other major collaboration assignments in the pipeline, and CIO Klub has also had a detailed discussion with very senior leadership like the Additional. Chief Secy, IT & E, Govt. of WB as well as MD-WEBEL, exploring possible areas where the IT practitioners like CIOs can effectively collaborate with the policy-makers like these Govt. institutions.