So, I am looking at the agenda for Nasscom's upcoming Leadership Summit - its annual event in Mumbai and I see the speaker list is mostly vendors and "influencers". From past visits, I can assure you it is a great place to meet offshore vendors not just from India but E. Europe, Egypt and other countries. But I had hoped, now in its 18th year, the flagship event would have evolved to have a more balanced buyer presence and perspective.
Probably more concerning, given the talk about "transparency" I do not see any sessions on the agenda with the name Satyam anywhere on it. Or the post-terrorism Mumbai. Or the rupee devaluation and lowered inflation pressures in India. I am sure these topics will dominate the conversation in the hallways, but should they not also be part of the conference agenda?
Finally, while Nasscom has its own blog on the event, bloggers are noticeably absent in the agenda (with the exception of my friend Ray Wang of Forrester who is also a prolific blogger - but I am positive he is there because of the brand he represents). Ironic given the global blog and Twitter coverage in the last few months about Mumbai and Satyam. I am not saying Nasscom should fly global bloggers in - but there are plenty of Indian bloggers and very active Indian participants in SAP's community SDN.
The Nasscom blog has a post titled "India to be safe haven for sourcing". I hope the conference has a little less emphasis on marketing and a bit more on introspection. I will request some friends who are going to "report" the mood of the event.
