Osmosis, a day-long celebration of MindTree’s technological expertise, was held in the MindTree West campus on December 14, 2005

Wednesday, December 14, 2005 was a red letter day at MindTree Consulting - the formal launch of the much-awaited tech-fest ‘OSMOSIS’. It was the culmination of an event that was 6 months in-the-making and was preceded by 3 months of paper presentations, technical talks and panel discussions on a host of technology-related topics.

This unique festival of technology was started last year and was a resounding success. It was inaugurated by Dr. Kiran Karnik, President of NASSCOM – the apex industry association of India’s software and IT services companies and Mr. Kee Chua Thiam, Head of IT at the Singapore Port Authority, was the guest of honour. In the run up to the event, nearly 100 technical papers were submitted by MindTree Minds and an equal number of invited papers from leading educational institutions.

This celebration of MindTee’s wide-ranging technology expertise across diverse platforms and domains was held at the West Campus, Global Village.

Mr. Subroto Bagchi, COO, kicked off the proceedings with welcoming the Chief Guest, Dr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM and Guest of Honour, Mr. Chua Kee Thiam, IT Head, PSA Corporation, Singapore.

Mr. Ashok Soota, in his welcome address, reiterated MindTree’s Mission Statement – “Deliver business-enabling solutions and technologies by creating partnerships with our customers in a joyous environment for our people.” Mr. Soota went on to say that OSMOSIS was the celebration of MindTree’s technology prowess that had manifest itself in myriad projects and solutions for customers around the globe. He dwelled on the events that preceded OSMOSIS, the award-winning projects being demonstrated and touched on the participation of various exhibits that included MindTree’s Bluetooth and RFID expertise, Remote Testing practice, RUBIC (BI frameworks) and Knowledge Management, among others.

Mr. Soota said that OSMOSIS was a revelation and eye-opener of sorts, for, the management was going to critically study the many papers and presentations that would contribute to the strategic direction of company in the months and years ahead.

He spoke about MindTree’s corporate approach to technology development comprising original initiatives that included our collaboration model similar to OpenSource, MindTree’s OpenMind repository and patenting. He spoke about MindTree’s enhanced learning opportunities and e-learning platforms that included access to various technology-related subjects and courses on soft-skills that were crucial to defining career paths of MindTree Minds. He alluded to the exercise conducted by a Swedish company to measure the intellectual capital at MindTree, the first organization in India to be so measured.

Mr. Soota averred to synergies between MindTree’s IT Services and R&D Services divisions while speaking about the path-breaking accomplishments at MindTree’s R&D division under the MINT & MIST initiatives and IT Services’ ability to manage large complex projects and its excellent competency centers.

National Association of Software and Services Companies President Dr. Kiran Karnik delivered the inaugural address. Dr. Karnik spoke about industry trends and talked about IT services being the number one exporter, contributing to $17 billion last year, achieving a 34% growth last year and a projection of around 30 – 32% this year. He referred to the findings of the McKinsey study that projected figures of $60 billion in revenues and generating 2 million jobs by 2010. Dr. Karnik emphasized on software services being a dominant global industry from India in the years to come.

Dr. Karnik stressed that in addition to increased efficiencies, innovation would define the industry’s future advantage; in a word, ‘Innovation’ would be the new imperative. He spoke about the diversity of India as a country, its rich history and culture that had fostered innovation, creativity and ability to handle ambiguity over the millennia. He said there was a need again for inter-disciplinary thinking to cross-pollinate other spheres – technology, culture and music need to complement and enrich each other. “That’s the legacy that we need to leave behind for the next generation.”

Mr. Kee Thiam, who was the Guest of Honour, drawing from Dr. Karnik’s address, said that in addition to innovation, diversity and creativity, there was a 4th dimension and that was ‘value-addition’, in that what more could we give the customer who were getting more and more demanding as the differentiators between the competition was thinning out and the customer had ever-greater expectations. Mr. Kee Thiam made a presentation on port and transshipment/container management. He spoke about the complexities involved and how PSA Corporation had leveraged technology to handle the volumes that had grown exponentially in the last few years, making PSA, Singapore, the world’s largest transshipment hub accounting for 6% of the world’s throughput and 17% of the transshipment throughput.

Mr. Kee Thiam spoke about MindTree’s partnership with PSA and praised MindTree’s unique culture and values, in particular, the transparency reflected in its project estimations. He made a special mention of MindTree’s ability to bounce back in the face of project delays and over-runs.