Silicon City ready to receive galaxy of global personalites

Our Economic Bureau

Bangalore, Jan 2: Infosys Technologies Ltd, the cynosure of India’s IT revolution, is beginning the year 2002 literally on high by hosting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, WTO director general designate Supachi Panitchpakdi and a slew of other global leaders.

The sprawling campus of the IT major in the Electronics City has been chosen as the venue for the inaugural session of the six-day CII partnership summit beginning here on Saturday.

Earlier the inaugural session was to take place in the Vidhan Soudh hall but the constraints of space has forced the organisers to look for some other venue.

Sources in CII said that the hall in Vidhan Soudh could accommodate around 700 to 800 people while the inaugural session of the summit is expected to be attended by nearly 3000 people. In the inaugural session Mr Blair will be flanked by communication and IT minister Pramod Mahajan and state chief minister SM Krishna.

With Mr Blair and slew of other global leaders in its kitty Infosys seems to have moved one step ahead of the other IT major in the city — Wipro Technologies — that had the honour of hosting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder during his visit in October.

The six-day summit with its theme local boundaries and global frontiers would cover issues ranging from the current tension in the Indo-Pak border to how dangerous is tomorrow’s world. The CII’s flagship event would cover a broad spectrum of issues concerning business strategy, competition, trade, technology and management of
people.

Detailed sessions include What drive’s China: Learning from the People’s Republic, The World Trade after Doha: WTO and new world order, global finance: overcoming the slump, IT co-operating beyond the boundaries, Nuts and Bolts of globalisation of Indian Industry, firm analysis and competitive survey - a World Bank-CII Report, Role of the government: Needed a facilitator not a headmaster, Competitiveness: new business paradigms in an uncertain world, restructuring global industries: A role for India, The Media: wrong footed by events and technology.

The scope and themes of the summit was expanded as the number of days also got extended. According to the earlier schedule the summit was to take place from January 10 to 12 but it was now preponed to January 5 to 11 as the orgainsers received overwhelming response.