Dr. Deepak’s contribution to CSI

Dr Deepak Shikarpur honored with Fellowship of Computer Society of India for the year 2011

Computer Society of India is an apex body of Information Technology professionals having 69 chapters, 358 student branches, and more than 70000 members including India's most famous IT industry leaders, brilliant scientists and dedicated academicians. National Convention of the society will be held at Ahmedabad from December 1-3. Hon Chief Minister of Gujrat Mr Narendra Modi will be special guest during the inauguration. During the Inauguration function eminent IT professionals from India will be bestowed upon the unique honor of Fellowship of Computer Society of India. For the year 2011 Dr Deepak Shikarpur an IT entrepreneur from Pune has been chosen. He is the only nominee from Maharashtra state. In the past CSI fellowship honor has been awarded to Padmashri Dr Vijay Bhatkar, Dr Anand Deshpande, Dr Ganesh Natrajan, Mr Nandan Nilekani, Late Dr A K Pathak, Mr Azim Premji, Mr Ratan Tata etc.

Since 1990-2000 as active member of Computer Society of India Pune chapter

From 1991 to 1999, Dr. Deepak served CSI Pune Chapter in all capacities i.e. Treasurer, Secretary, Vice Chairman & Chairman. When he was elected as the Chairman of CSI Pune Chapter in July 97, he was the Youngest Chairman of Computer Society of India Pune Chapter. Under his proficient leadership, Pune won the Best Chapter award for 1998. Late Dr A K Pathak his mentor for CSI, motivated him to undertake several projects and he was part of the team that helped CSI start its own premises in Pune.

During his tenure, several grand IT events such as ERP97, ERP 98, CAE98, Object 98, AD-Trends 99, E_COMM 99, NSQC 99 etc. were conducted in Pune. CSI is synonymous with Best of IT in Pune now. During his tenure he pioneered many facilities like Free Email services for all members, Aptitude Test on the CSI website and so on. In addition, several community projects were started. A PC was donated to the leading National Chess Player in Pune. CSI also started a unique IT literacy project to educate the deprived school Children of the Pune Municipal Schools. Through CSI’s efforts more than 150 computers have been donated in the PMC schools.

Executive Director CSI (2002-2004)

He was appointed as Executive Director of CSI, a post newly created then. He created his mark nationally by taking several initiatives with the help of CSI members, executive committee and chapters. He helped to organise grand IT events, started new courses and certification of software testing. He initiated membership recruitment drive nationally and focussed on young members. Due to his persuasion a new e-Governance award project was started. He persuaded IBM and Microsoft to hold Faculty Development workshops nationally.

As execom member in the past 3 years (2005 onwards)

CSI Divisional Chairman 2004 onwards

After getting elected in his first term as Divisional Chairman, he focussed on organising High Technology Conferences such as Conmicro, Nasik , Educon 2004 Goa /Educon 2005 Hyderabad/Educon 2006 Bangkok. Dr. Deepak was actively involved to help CSI Pune chapter to organise Insights conference 2005 and Insights 2006. He has helped many CSI student branches with speakers, sponsors and articles.

He was the guest editor of April issue of CSI Communications which focussed on CAD/CAM. He handled the responsibility of locating expert authors and created a blend of academic and practical content.

He convinced University Grants Commission and All India Association of Universities for academic alliance with CSI and promoting CSI membership and research in High advancement of IT. As a result of this, ‘Educon conference’ was conceptualised. CSI participated as a co-organiser and had special audience with 80+ IT savvy vice chancellors.

Special Issue of CSI Communications on CAD/CAM May 2006.

The Engineering Services industry mainly powered by CAD/CAM draws parallels with the IT industry due to several reasons. With time, the technology component involved in the delivery of Engineering Services has increased; increasing levels of automation are now seen in this space. The evolution of Engineering Services Outsourcing is bound to reflect positively on the general engineering industry in the country. Fuelled by globalization, the osmosis between the engineering industry & Engineering Services space would enhance the overall capability of the industry in terms of shortened product lifecycles & improved product quality, which would help it become globally competitive. This special issue of CSI had drawn industry stalwarts from CAD/CAM industry and helped bring interest of the manufacturing industry users.

Dr. Deepak had a meeting with the Prime Minister & the IT minister of Mauritius in June 2004 at Mauritius and discussed Trade Promotion in Software field between India and Mauritius. He was given an opportunity to present his views to all the Ministers. After his visit the IT Minister came to Mumbai & Pune for discussing partnership related to e-Governance.

Dr. Deepak is also in touch with the Commercial Consulates & IT Ministers of Australia , China , Japan, Israel , Ireland and UK. He emphasised the need of trade between Indian Software Industry and Academia.

Dr. Deepak is also an active participant of Research team of Pune Vyaspith which has a Joint IT/BT task force. This has helped him to focus CSI in the field of Bio-Informatics.

The theme of the event was ‘Blending knowledge and technology for academic excellence.The meet had two main objectives:

• To sensitize Vice chancellors about technologies and their application that can change ways and means of current/traditional education in terms of its delivery as well as its system.
• To offer for their consideration various solutions as regard to harmonization, as well as quality control tools and programmes for ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality education.
  
  

With these objectives in mind, the event covered the following.

• Vision lecture(s) by national/ international stalwart(s) working on the frontiers of technology and education.
• Presentation of selected success stories where IT companies and universities have worked together towards improving education quality, delivery and systems.
• Globalisation and export of education.
• Technology management, IPR and various legal issues.
• Importance of continuing education.
• IT-assisted e-learning, virtual classrooms, e-teachers, e-certifications.
• Need for excellence in networking and communication technology.
• Open universities of the future. (Here topics such as digital universities contributing, producing or offering dynamic content, creating new course offerings and business models for universities, managing education for optimum flexibility and asset value, managing and communicating in real time infrastructure, using partnership strategies with industry, and so on. Several private institutes have worked out successful business models. Universities need not follow their path. But they enjoy a high degree of credibility and have already invested in land and other related infrastructure. If married with technology, these strengths will enhance financial viability of the universities.)

In addition all delegates were exposed to the activities of CSI and this helped immensely to increase the visibility of CSI in Students and academic space.

Technovation 2008

CSI Student branch of Indira Institute with vision leadership of CSI Division Dr. Deepak had organized an event at Wakad to discuss the latest trends in IT and innovation. Topics such as e-Learning, Information Security, IT for Masses, e-Entrepreneurship, Business Intelligence, Animation and Gaming were discussed in the event. Speakers with international repute such as Dr F C Kohli, Mr. Hemant Soonawalla, Mr Nandu Pradhan CEO Red hat Asia , Mr S Ramkrishnana Director, PWC, Dr Ganesh Natarjan CEO Zensar, were invited to speak.

CSI 2009 national annual convention.

He is currently working as chairman Organising committee of the prestigious event. CSI Annual National Convention is taking place in Pune from October 8-10, 2009. This will be attended by over 1000 delegates from India. Delegate profile consists of Senior IT users, CXO’s, CIO’s, e-Government champions, Academic community and young IT professionals from all over India and abroad. This will help you to establish right connections all over India.

Speakers with global repute will be addressing the gathering. The convention has various tracks such as keynote and plenary sessions, tutorials on advances in IT, technology showcase exhibition, Young IT professional track, e-Governance awards, popular talks etc.