Bengaluru, October 22, 2016 — The EFY Group, India’s leading technology media house, hosted Open Source India 2016 on October 21-22 at the NIMHANS Convention Centre in Bengaluru. The thirteenth edition of the iconic convention was attended by a large number of technology enthusiasts from across the globe.
The event witnessed major participation by industry professionals, starting from developers to IT managers and CIOs. Also, it emerged as a one-stop event for many evangelists and entrepreneurs who wanted to catch the latest from the world of open source.
“There were more attendees than we expected. It was our first experience with Open Source India. There was a lot of interest among visitors for iText. Many people who attended my talk had great questions and several high-quality candidates even applied for our openings in India,” said Bruno Lowagie, founder of iText Software.
This year’s convention included nine tracks and over 60 speakers. To inform the audience of all the latest updates from the open source world, there were talks on trending topics such as the cloud and Big Data, IoT, Web and mobile app development, and databases.
Additionally, those at the event showed keen interest in OpenStack India Day that was co-located with Open Source India. Renowned CIOs and IT heads from various Indian organisations also kept audiences engaged with their inspiring talks at the Success Story track.
“The event was well planned in terms of the separate tracks for informative presentations and technical workshops,” said Debabrata Nayak, project director — open source collaboration, National e-Governance Division. “We are glad to have presented DigiLocker as an open source success story from within the government at such a platform. We are really overwhelmed and excited with the response of the open source community to our story, at the event,” he added.
Apart from all the technology sessions, the event featured hands-on workshops on open source hardware, software architecture, Web application security, Docker, DevOps and Data Lake. There was also a panel discussion on cyber security, called, ‘Advanced cyber attack vectors using Web-based systems’.
Companies like Microsoft, Fiorano Software, iText Software, Wipro, Mafiree, Huawei, Lyra Infosystems, Citrix, 2ndQuadrant, Siemens, Ashnik, Cloud Enabled, Asttecs and Zoho participated at the convention to support the growth of open source in the country. Also, the Indian government backed the initiative through the participation of its National e-Governance Division.
Some of the eminent speakers who conducted noteworthy talks at the event included Andrew Aitken (GM and global open source practice leader at Wipro), Balaji Kesavaraj (director, platform strategy at Microsoft), Virendra Gupta (senior VP at Huawei India) and Debabrata Nayak (project director — open source collaboration, National e-Governance Division).
Sharing his thoughts, Ramesh Chopra, executive chairman, EFY Group, said: “We are delighted to have hosted another incredible edition of Open Source India this year. This was far bigger and more exciting than our expectations. We hope that the trend of supporting open source in India will continue in the future and that Open Source India will become the first choice for worldwide industry professionals as well as young developers and enthusiasts.”
Live updates from the convention were posted directly on Facebook and Twitter. Also, the event’s inaugural sessions were broadcast live to the world through Periscope.
What major exhibitors and speakers at Open Source India 2016 had to say
Tony Van den Zegel, director of sales, iText Software
“The organisation of the event was excellent. Also, the attendees showed lots of interest, came on time and stayed till the last sessions. I have witnessed different situations in the past, in India.”
Monojit Basu, founder, TechYugaddi
“OSI Days 2016 offered a balanced content focused on sharing technical knowledge as well as trends in the adoption of open source in the enterprise. The technical sessions were well chosen, particularly in the areas of the cloud, DevOps and Big Data. The event also answered questions about open source and IP, open source adoption in the government sector and choosing the right open source platform for a project. Moreover, it was a thoroughly engrossing event.”
Ajay Bidari, VP, Cloud Enabled
“Indeed, it was great to be at Open Source India. We have received superb leads and exceptional support from the entire EFY team, which made us feel proud to be at such a highly organised edition.”
Chanchal Bose, CTO, Prodevans Technologies
“Open Source India has emerged as a platform for people to communicate with experts who are already engaged in open source developments. It has become a great place to get training related to various software and hardware. Additionally, we got an opportunity to know what the computing world demands from a solutions provider like us. It has been a very exciting experience.”
Dr. Devasia Kurian, MD, Asttecs
“It is a great feeling to be here and quite interesting to see how the event has developed over the years. Today, several of the big guys are here — Microsoft, Citrix and some other tech giants who are interested in supporting open source. Also, the talks at the convention were done by some of the industry’s prominent speakers. The event has also attracted companies that are into the proprietary business but are embracing open source. Overall, I would like to express my appreciation for the whole Open Source India team.”
Sandeep Khuperkar, MD, Ashnik India
“It was a pleasure attending Open Source India. This is a platform where the community can meet the industry and enterprises, while the industry can understand better how technologies in the open source world can be used in the mainstream. Likewise, the industry feedback through the event helps the open source community to know the best ways to participate further, to bring these technologies into the mainstream. The event was also very well arranged, and sessions were well-timed; I did not see any delay. All in all, the EFY Group conducted the event quite well. I look forward to continuing to participate in Open Source India in the coming years.”
Ankit Panchari, technology evangelist, Zoho
“This was the first time we participated in Open Source India. It was a wonderful experience to have interactions with the developer community here. The sessions here were quite informative. Since we were aiming to reach the developer community through the convention, we met the right people. Overall, everything at the event was good.”
Asheem Enoch Bakhtawar, regional director for India, 2ndQuadrant
“I really enjoyed this event, especially our lead generation, which went quite well. In fact, there were certain leads that I would never have gotten. It was a great motivation for us to reach out to the people whom we dreamt of meeting. At the same time, it gave us the opportunity to meet the open source community at one place. I am very grateful to EFY for hosting this convention.”
Krishna M Kumar, lead architect and delivery head for cloud and PaaS, Huawei Technologies
“I have been associated with Open Source India since the last three to four years. Thus, I can say that it has been improving every year. I felt the audience has grown and the quality of the sessions this year is much enhanced. There were several international speakers like Andrew Aitken and Bruno Lowagie, sharing their in-depth knowledge about the open source world.”
Rahul Singh, marketing manager, Lyra Infosystems
“It was indeed a pleasure to be part of Open Source India. The event was professionally managed. Speakers and panellists were carefully chosen. The topics were very relevant and sessions were highly participative. The event was a great success for our team. We had the opportunity of meeting the extremely receptive (target) audience. The OSI team was very accommodating and helpful.”
About Open Source India
Open Source India (formerly known as Linux Asia) started in 2003, with the mission to accelerate the adoption of open source in Asia. Till date, the overall mission of Open Source India remains the same. A key attribute of the event is that it tries to bridge the gap between the community and the industry. It is organised by Open Source For You magazine and powered by the EFY Group of publications. For more information, visit https://www.opensourceindia.in.
About EFY Group
Over the last four decades, the EFY Group has become synonymous with information on cutting-edge technology. Starting with its flagship publication, Electronics For You, which is South Asia’s most popular electronics magazine, the group now offers a bouquet of specialised publications like Open Source For You and Electronics Bazaar as well as Web portals such as electronicsforu.com, opensourceforu.com, electronicsb2b.com and eleb2b.com.
The group also publishes directories and books, and organises several leading technology events like Open Source India and IoTshow.in. The EFY Group has offices in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. Besides, it has representatives in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune. It also has distributors across South East Asia. For more information, visit https://www.efyindia.com.