Day 3

The morning caught the entire delegation in the face starting from breakfast. Networking is the name of the game and from Jehan Ara to her troupe, every one is busy balancing their own contact cards in one hand and the same of their newly discovered friends in the other.

My day started with a very satisfying interview of Kiran Karnik, President NASSCOM in the lobby [we hijacked the sofas since there is no place anywhere]. Not only does Kiran know what he is talking about, he knows what I want to hear. Which has its pros and cons. Watch out for the interview in the March issue.

Several sessions are taking place simultaneously. I caught the tail end of the Open Source session where Sun CTO was publicizing his newest desktop OS for linux fans. His interview is up tomorrow afternoon.

Diana Farrell, Director Mckinsey Global was one of many pro-outsourcing Americans to hold a session too. She offered several interesting figures advocating the benefits of outsourcing for both the US and India. Unfortunately, she wasnt eager to meet me for an interivew [we'll see how it goes]. Your loss, Di.

I've officially distributed my first 10 copies of Spider and very proud of it. Now 30 more to go before I'm several kilos lighter [and I'm being choosy about them]. The reaction is, for instance from Matt Thoman CTO Sun, "An Internet Mag from Pakistan??? well, well, well, very interesting...". As if. Obviously, surfing the WWW is a hobby for Americans and Indians alone ;~) The PR companies are just as wide-eyed I assure you.

The highlight of the day was my sitting with Prasanto Roy and not because he is a very respectable journo+technophile in India, but he gave me the lowdown on the Indian success like no one else has been able to [Thank you Prasanto!]. Not only was I completely caught up in absorbing the amount of facts coming out of him, I was also very impressed with the way CYBERMEDIA, the company he is a part of, is active on technology issues in India. This is what SPIDER should aim for. I am very excited about connecting him with Jehan Ara and Shahida Saleem who are looking for people like him to talk about India's tremendous growth in creating a partnership between the public-private sector which is working, very well.

I spotted only one delegate lounging in the lobby which is not too bad for a delegation of 15. Jehan is busy with a series of interviews today while sessions on BPO and offshoring have been a hit with the Pakistani delegation so far.

Will any of this bring any business to Pakistan? Too big a question to put forth to a delegation that is making its first trip to India and letting companies know here that we exist.