Agartala, Dec. 4: The region’s biggest and all-encompassing IT showpiece, NICT-2008, will have a new home tomorrow when the day-long Northeast Information and Communication Technology conference moves to the capital of Tripura, bringing together captains of the high-profile industry and government policy-makers for drawing up an IT roadmap in the far east of the country.

Agartala’s newly built government auditorium, Pragna Bhawan — set against the backdrop of lush greenery — will host the daylong conference for the first time in Tripura after four consecutive years of success in Guwahati, Assam.

Organised by The Telegraph, NICT-2008 has found a strong supporter in the Tripura government which has joined the conference as a co-partner, part of its policy to promote information technology and stimulate the process of e-governance in the state. NICT-2008 will have the largest-circulated local daily Dainik Sambad as its media partner.

Chief minister Manik Sarkar and his senior cabinet colleagues Jitendra Chowdhury, Manik Dey, Tapan Chakraborty and veteran Anil Sarkar will attend the conference along with top government officials. All of them are eager to woo the industry to set up base in the state and give it a pride of place on the IT map of the country.

Manik Sarkar will also be the key person in an interactive session billed as Tripura CM’s Interactive in the evening.

D.D. Purkayastha, managing director and CEO of ABP Pvt. Ltd and chairman of the organising committee, NICT-2008, Tripura, put the conference in perspective on the eve of the event. “We believe that ICT will play a major role in integrating the Northeast and raising the living standards of its people. Infocom, the biggest ICT event that we have been organising since 2002, has hugely contributed to the growth of West Bengal. We want to replicate that in the Northeast through NICT.”

Officials of the state government have evinced keen interest in NICT-2008. “We are really happy that NICT-2008 is being held in Agartala for the first time. It will stimulate growth and development of the crucial IT sector in this state and that is why the state government is co-partnering it,” said joint director of IT department, Salil Das, adding that his department was also “fully prepared” to contribute to NICT-2008.

The day’s conference tomorrow has been divided into five parts. The inaugural session will commence at 11am with a speech by the chairman of the organising committee, NICT- 2008, Tripura (Agartala), followed by the addresses of four senior ministers of the state government. From noon, the one-and-a-half hour theme session, Enabling the Northeast, will have several industry bosses and government officials as speakers, including R. Srinivasan of TCS, Debanjan Dutta, managing director and CEO, Webel, A.K. Mangotra, principal secretary and Amit Malik, vice-president, Cisco.

This will be followed by two more sessions on building an “eco-system for sustained growth of skilled workforce” and “leveraging IT for improved healthcare”.

The vice-chancellor of Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, N.R. Banerjea, will act as moderator in the first session while Y.P. Singh, principal secretary of the Tripura government, will be the main speaker on healthcare.

The venue for NICT-2008 has been spruced up for the big event, which is expected to draw a large number of reputed organisations and individuals with interest in IT.