Seminar on

 “Information Technology Standardization – National and International Scenario”

 

Bureau of Indian Standards organized one day Seminar on “Information Technology Standardization – National and International Scenario” held on 12 April 2007 at Bangalore. The objectives of the seminar were to create awareness on:

a)     IT standardization at national & international levels, problems & issues surrounding standardization in the field of IT and ideally to arrive at some common implementable solutions.  

b)    What are Information Technology standards, how one can benefit from using these standards as also participate & influence the development of standards at national & international levels.

 

The seminar was attended by around 125 delegates representing various interests groups like IT Manufacturing Units, Retailers, Manufacturers & Suppliers of IT products, HODs & Senior Personnel of Production & Quality Assurance Dept., Executives of Software Developing Firms & IT Solution Providers, Personnel from Research Institutions & Academicians, Small & Medium Entrepreneurs and Govt. Bodies.

 

The seminar was inaugurated by Shri Rakesh Verma, Additional Director General BIS. In his inaugural address, Shri Verma stressed upon the need for standardization in IT field using collaborative approach which in turn would have a powerful effect on business strategies leading to optimum utilization of resources in the country. Shri M.N.Vidyashankar,  Secy IT, BT, Govt of Karnataka, in his address mentioned that standardization is needed as it leads to innovation. He also urged to come out with an open model to ensure no hurdles in the path of growth. Shri Harish K Grama, Vice President IBM Software Lab, India in his keynote address mentioned that the future of IT Services depends on adopting global standards. He said that the standards form the basis of Service oriented architecture and web services. Shri Sukh Bir Singh DDG(PP&C), BIS in his welcome address briefed the house about the objectives of the seminar efforts being made for standardization in this field by BIS. He called upon all the stakeholders to actively participate in this activity and give their inputs and feedback.

 

The Inaugural Session was followed by three interactive Technical Sessions in which speakers from BIS, Sun Microsystems, Infosys, Redhat, IIM (Ahemadabad), National Law School, Bangalore, Institute of e Governance (Hyderabad) gave very informative and useful presentations.                                                                                                           

 

The recommendation which came up during the discussions in this seminar are as given below:

i)                   Standardization in field of IT needs to be strengthened as IT Standards enable software applications to interoperate, enable better management and visibility of IT assets and ensure quality of IT products and services.   

ii)                 A  special group consisting of organizations from IT, academia, Govt. Deptt., users and NGOs to be created which will be deciding on priority subjects of IT to be taken up for standardization and the group would also act as national mirror committee for JTC1 of ISO/IEC.

iii)               There is need to consider creation of separate Information Technology Division Council for laying special emphasis on IT standardization.

iv)               All IT standards published and drafts standards under process at International level to be examined and considered for adoption as Indian Standards by the corresponding national mirror committees of BIS as a first step towards standardization.  And in the next stage few areas  to be identified where indigenous standards to be formulated.  

v)                 All  IT standards to be formulated using fast track procedure.

vi)               While preparing IT standards, interoperability should be ensured in the Hardware as well as software. 

vii)             While drafting IT standards, Integration of Business Model with IT Model using collaborative design approach should be considered.

viii)           Due to wider use of IT products, safety & security of common consumer has become important and therefore IT standards should address issues pertaining to safety & security of consumers.

ix)               Participation in International IT standardization activities should be enhanced through participation in JTC 1 & its Sub Committee’s activities by giving comments on draft International documents from the preparatory stage itself. It is also required to ensure that the Indian viewpoints are taken care of while preparation of International Standards to safeguard National interest particularly in area of trade impacts. 

x)                 by attending the technical committee meetings

xi)               Industry and all the stakeholders  to give feed back for revision of existing Indian standards on IT products depending upon the current technology needs .

xii)             The following new subjects should be taken up on priority for standardization. Separate Sectional committees to be created for standardization in each of these areas. 

a)     e -Governance

b)    e -Business Infrastructure

c)     e -Learning and training

d)    Indian Language Technologies and  Products

e)     Information and Communication Technologies

f)      Data Management System

g)     Smart cards/Identification cards

h)     Information Security

i)       Biometrics

j)       Interconnection of IT equipments

k)     Data management & interchange

l)       Assessment of electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields associated with human exposure

m)  Software Engineering

n)     Software testing and validation

o)    Networking and communications such as LAN, WAN, MAN, WiFi etc.

p)    e-commerce

q)    Automatic identification & data capture techniques

r)      Computer Graphics, image processing and environmental data Representation

s)     Coding of Audio, Picture, Multimedia and hypermedia information      

 

List of Presentations