CloudBus

This is the text of the keynote delivered at the Project Management Conclave organized by PMI Mumbai Chapter on 10th January 2015. I would  like to thank you very much for having me as part of  your conference and I am sure that the next two days will be rewarding for all of you. Stakeholder Management is key to success of any project; there are primary stakeholders and secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders are those who are directly involved in the project and secondary stakeholders are those who are not directly involved buy may be affected by the project. Both Primary and Secondary stake holders may positively or negatively affected by the project, hence stakeholder management calls for good communication and people management skills and many a time political acumen. I would today share with you some instances of stakeholder incidences and how one had to manage them. We once had to pull a cable from under the premises of a particular shop in a large socie...

It is rare to find a Make in India Cyber Security Solution in an exhibition, conference or seminar, as one scans the various forums one finds a few Make In India Cyber Security Solutions. If India wants to be a Digital State then there is an urgent need for Cyber Security Solutions Made in India for Indians and managed in India. We do have a few home grown OEM security solutions but their engines are loaned from foreign security companies.  We claim to be an IT superpower, does it stop with being cyber coolies? or does it go beyond that in making world class solutions to protect our Digital environment.  All our mobile data is stored in a foreign country, we use solutions that we find free or paid from foreign shores, of course the internet is one world but who controls the data controls the digital world. There were enthusiastic Indian entrepreneurs who did try to make Security solutions in India but I have not see any of them making it to the big league. Maybe Indian CIS...

You are all set for the final of the cricket match and you have bought seats with vantage points and are now on the way to the cricket stadium. Your mobile tells you where you will get parking for your car and you smoothly ease into the designated parking space. No tokens, no slips, nothing; you park and then the mobile guides you to the bus that will take you to the stadium. As you ride the bus, the mobile highlights the various important landmarks on your way to the stadium. In the next ten minutes you learn everything that is of interest to you. The mobile tells you to get off the bus and then guides you to your gate. You wave the mobile and the stadium gates open for you. Before that you have already been beaconed and tagged an a non-security risk. As you enter the stadium, your body and clothes are fully scanned for explosives, guns, drugs, and other hazardous substances. Your mobile guides you to your seat and the layout of the stadium pops into your screen and it gives you a 36...

This article was published in Information Week India on 10th October and is reproduced in this blog. India is poised for a digital revolution. With a government pushing digital services, and a huge focus on on empowering every citizen with an identity card, a bank account, insurance and a digital interface, the future is bright for IT in India. With the announcement of opening local data centers in India by Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, Microsoft is well placed to explore the huge opportunities that will be unfolded in the days to come.  The Microsoft India cloud proposes to begin with three data centers and will provide the world's best cloud computing that India needs so desperately to handle the large volume of digital transactions,  need to cut down costs and handle the data that will be generated by digitally enabling a billion Indian citizens. Additionally, Microsoft will be able to offer their cloud services in a number of Indian languages, thus eliminating the need...

India's biggest challenge has been to empower its citizens with financial inclusion by providing banking to its unbanked population to Banking. The government's initiative of opening 15 million accounts in one day sets the tone to make sure that every adult citizen has a bank account in India.  Critics say it cannot be done, but we know from history that carpet bombing is the best way to overcome a challenge. The Indians have set out to a economic transformation in their country, by empowering its unbanked citizens the menace of cash in the system can be overcome thus improving the GDP of India. It is estimated that the cash economy in India is bigger than the legal economy in India, the cash in this system is known as black money in India and has strong parallel network for banking in cash. If you use a credit or debit card with an Indian merchant he will charge you about 2% to 3% extra as the transaction fee for using the card, this encourages customers to pay in cas...

A contentious issue  is about Governments and our personal data; but the Government already knows more about us then we can imagine. At Birth our parents get a Birth Certificate and the Government records this in their data base, our date and time of Birth, hospital where born, your parents names and address and of course your gender is recorded in a data base. When we join school our personal data is collected and during a Census personal data is again collected. When we get our Driving License we need to give data including our name, parents name, date of birth, address, physical deformities and some bio-metrics. When we apply for our Passport the Government collects data about us including bio-metrics; when we apply for a Visa to visit another country we readily give our personal data including bio-metrics. We pay tax to the Government and have to provide both personal and financial data to the Government. Central Library - Bangalore The Government is the Custodian of...

If you want to convince your Board of Directors on cloud adoption, a good place is to begin is with a SAAS (Software as a Service Solution) for the Members of your companies Board. Do you  know  in every board meeting confidentiality, integrity and availability are the key for Board members and they also need to be kept informed of various actions taken by your Company. The  important events are the quarterly Board Meeting, Extraordinary Board Meeting and the Annual General Body Meeting. Most Board Meetings start with preparing a Agenda and a Board Note which highlights the points to be discussed and approved by the Board of Directors. This has to be prepared and circulated among Board Members with utmost secrecy since any leakage will harm the company and may lead to regulatory non-compliance. It takes a number of days to prepare the Board Notes and the weight of the completed Board Notes paper dossier is heavy and need to be securely delivered to the Directors...