Visit from Mongolian delegates – 10 June 08

A warm welcome to our guests from Mongolia

SiTF Members and Secretariat welcomed our guests from the Ministry of Finance, Mongolia on 10th June 08. Amongst the delegation were Mr Demid Dovdon, Director, IT Division, and Mr. Oyun Darikhuu, Director, Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Ministry of Finance.

Mr. Eddie Chau, SiTF Councillor and SEC Chairman, kicked-off the session with an introductory of himself and SiTF members to the delegation team. Mr. Gary Tan, SiTF Secretariat, then gave a brief presentation on SiTF and its charter.

What can we do for Mongolia?

To get to know more about the local industry, four speakers representing Asiasoft (S) Pte Ltd, Elixir Technology Pte Ltd, Netrust Pte Ltd, and 3i Infotech Asia Pacific, gave a short presentation of the organization, their products and solutions.

The delegates from Singapore and Mongolia continued to network and mingle. By exchanging name cards, a win-win situation was potentially built as SiTF members looked to explore the options available to them in Mongolia. Ending the session on a pleasant note, Mr. Demid and Ms. Ho Semun exchanged a token of appreciation.

With hope of future collaborations, SiTF wishes participating members and delegates from Mongolia all the best!

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The Day We Walk Like Egyptians - 19 Jun 08

SiTF eGov Chapter is honoured to have the opportunity to host our friends from the land of the pyramids!

The delegates from Egypt comprised of government officials, head honchos of Egypt MNCs, businessmen and people from the Egyptian media. His Excellency Dr Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) lead an entourage to an ICT sharing session with SiTF.

Egyptian Delegates

With a population of 80 million people, Egypt is an emerging market strategically positioned in the Middle-East. In addition, with its close proximity to Europe, it is also a preferred gateway to the EU market.

Dr Kamel also highlighted to SiTF in the roundtable dialogue session some of the benefits the Egyptian government has to offer for Singapore businesses and companies to setup shops in Egypt. Such as:
· An abundant of Arab speaking talent pool in their IT workforce
· Low and attractive staffing cost
· Liberalisation of telco industry to foreign players
· 33 million of mobile phone users
· Internet penetration rate of 13%
· Egypt as BPO destination

Dr Foong, Chairman of eGov Chapter gave a welcome speech and introduced to our friends more about SITF and eGov Chapter.

With free flow of foods and drinks, our Egyptian friends and SiTF members had a good opportunity to network and explore business opportunities.

iX Conference - 18 June 2008

The much anticipated iX Conference 2008 was held on 18 June 2008 (Wednesday), 8.30am to 5.30pm at Suntec Singapore. A total of 400 participants attended the conference.

RADM (NS) Ronnie Tay, CEO of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Pek Yew Chai, SiTF Chairman

The conference was opened by Pek Yew Chai, SiTF Chairman, who gave a warm welcome to all the participants. Next, RADM (NS) Ronnie Tay, CEO of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) presented the iN2015 Business Forum. He shared the updates on the latest national infocomm initiatives such as the Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (NGNII) and programmes for the various sectors that will provide new possibilities and opportunities for Singapore and the industry.

Following that, Paul Slakey, Enterprise Director (Asia Pacific & Latin American) of Google, gave a creative presentation on Cloud Computing. He explained how Cloud Computing complements iN2015’ programmes by increasing capacity and capabilities that leverage on our Nation’s current infrastructure. Paul’s presentation was one of the highlight that received resounding feedback from the delegates.

Leslie Loh, Chairman of NextVIEW Group ended the first half of the conference with his presentation on “Growing a Successful Software Company”. He shared his experience on how he built his company, and growing it to the level that captured the attention of international players.

The participants were then escorted to the concourse where they were treated to a sumptuous lunch buffet. Other than the delightful food and drinks, the round table seating arrangement also facilitated discussion greatly. Participants enjoyed the relaxing networking over lunch and prepared themselves to the exciting series of Panel Sessions in the afternoon.

Sumptous Lunch Buffet

Virtualization Panel

The afternoon panel sessions which were brought to the audience by Fuji Xerox kicked-off with the Virtualisation panel. As the hottest subject in 2008 and beyond, the speakers shared their views and perspectives on this revolutionary and growing technology area. The speakers were Brian Higgins, Channel Director – Pacific, Citrix Systems, Aman Dokania, Director & General Manager, Hewlett-Packard APJ Infrastructure Software BU, Hewlett Packard, Jim Lenox, General Manager, ASEAN and India, VMware and Frank Feldman, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Red Hat. The discussion was facilitated by Raju Chellam, Vice President (Asia-Pacific-Japan), AMI-Partners Inc.

Software as a Service Panel

The second panel was on Software as a Service. Participants learned the developments of this new technology through the insightful presentations of the speakers and the interactive Q&A session. The speakers were Mark Glikson, General Manager (APAC Developer and Platform Evangelism), Microsoft, Frank Koo, Managing Director, Oracle Corporation Singapore, Lim Seng Kong, Vice President (Global Accounts), SingTel and Andrew Leong, Regional ISV Market Development Manager, Sun Microsystems Inc. The moderator who led the discussion was none other Brian Prentice, Research Vice President, Gartner Advisory.

Service Oriented Architecture Panel

Lastly, Tom Hutchinson, SOA Evangelist, IBM ASEAN lead the discussion on Service Oriented Architecture. Participants were introduced to a technology which encourages the creation of multiple business services that can be easily composed together to support business processes. The speakers were Kenny Goh, General Manager, SOA Fusion Middleware, Oracle Corporation, ASEAN, Ong Whee Teck, Partner, Technology Consulting Lead, ASEAN, Accenture and Gary Wong, Chief Architect, iLog Singapore. With that, the conference came to a close at 5.30pm.

We believe that this has been an enriching and meaningful session for all and we would like to thank our sponsors: Fuji Xerox, IBM, HP, Oracle and iCell; IDA; our speakers and participants who have made this a successful event. We look forward to meeting you at iX Conference 2009!

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SiTF InfoSecurity talk @ NYP

SiTF Security & Governance Chapter (SGC) held its first series of National Education Event at Nanyang Polytechnic on the 4th June 2008, 2pm to 5pm. Over 200 students in their second and final year from Diploma in Information Technology and Diploma in Business Informatics attended the event.

Mr Wong Loke Yeow
Chairman, Security & Governance Chapter (SiTF)

The session was opened by Mr Wong Loke Yeow, Chairman of Singapore infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF), Security & Governance Chapter (SGC). He shared with the students on the role and responsibility of SiTF, SGC and the importance of information security. The session was very well received by the students as they actively participated in the quiz being asked upon them.

Mr Thomas Lim
CEO, COSEINC

The second presentation was from Mr Thomas Lim CEO of COSEINC. He talked about the undeniable fact of vulnerabilities in our software and systems. As such, it is critically necessary that all software should be tested before they are operationally deployed or continually tested on a periodical basis even after they have been operationally deployed. The students are given a first hand look in the importance of their future jobs.

Q & A Session

The education event ended on a high note when Mr. Fang Wai walk away with a ticket, which worth $300, to Symposium on Security for Asia Network (Syscan) 2008 by providing a perfect answer to the question of the day.

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