The IT phenomenon has brought companies closer to their customers and suppliers. This has cut product cycle time and also improved productivity. Consumers can now buy commodities at a lower cost by avoiding intermediaries. This all round improvement is bound to change the way we live in the future. The future seems to be better for everyone - more choice for consumers, higher productivity for companies and more responsive governments for citizens.

Through the high-value Conference Technologies for the Future held in November 2000, BangaloreIT.Com intended to get some of the best brains behind a large number of technological developments that are likely to influence the Internet Economy over the next few years. The Speakers in the conference had an in-depth knowledge of the technology and spoke from the perspective of an academician / researcher and corporate leader.


November 2, 2000 - Inaugural Session

The inaugural session was held at Hotel Le Meridien on 2nd November at 9.00 AM. The dignitaries on the dias included the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Karnataka, S M Krishna, Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Group, Clarence Chandran, Chief Operating Officer, Nortel Networks.

Session I (1000 - 1130 hrs) Software Production

Though the IT and communication technologies have reduced the barrier of distance between the producer and the consumer, software production is not distributed uniformly across the globe.

This session examined why the software industry remained highly localized by analysing the software production in Silicon Valley and Bangalore.

Session II (1200-1330 hrs) Access

The Internet requires a variety of means and methods to reach the end user that may be corporate houses, government or education. The means may call in for different infrastructure/set up that depend upon the nature of transactions of the end user. Therefore, each user group's needs are different and hence need different delivery and access mechanisms.

This session outlined the potential of next generation networks for supporting advanced teaching, research, collaborative work and e- learning.

Session III (1500 - 1630 hrs) Devices

An overview of some research systems was taken up in this session. Emphasis was on the next generation technologies that will empower, enrich, and inter-connect a lot many under the network.

LINCOS, a multipurpose community tele-centre, Novel e-commerce environments that support agri-business and other new low-cost diagnostic technologies that help people to monitor their health were the focus areas.

Simputer: This session described the development of the Simputer, a low-cost information access device with multiconnectivity options, its architecture and the application frameworks.

November 3, 2000

Session IV (1000 - 1130 hrs) Tools and Processes

This talk briefly surveyed the contemporary ideas in software technology that offered promise in managing software architecture complexity and programming effectiveness.

Session V (1200 - 1330 hrs) e-commerce

In this session, the focus was on various aspects of e-commerce like Realities in e-commerce and e-security. Larry Tanning held a session on the realities in e-commerce. He is a pioneer in the client-server industry and has been providing enterprise solutions for over ten years.

The presentation on e-Security educated corporate leaders on how to ensure productive work environments within their organizations and discussed current threats in the IT environment. The session also highlighted the criteria for implementing a safe network and steps for developing an effective security programme.

Session VI (1500 - 1630 hrs) Infrastructure & Content

Systems Infrastructure and trends in data mining aspects was the focus in this session. The presentation on system infrastructure laid out the infrastructure requirements for doing e-business over the Internet.

The recent technological advancements that are expected to avoid the shortcomings in data mining like difficulty in the use of the system, poor data quality and impedance mismatch with the enterprise applications were also discussed in this session.

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