FORMED: 1996
OBJECTIVES: To act as a catalyst for growth of IT industries in South Gujarat and maintain state-of-the-art database of hardware, software, peripherals and other IT sections
MEMBERS: 91

OFFICE BEARERS
PRESIDENT: Jwalant Shroff
Vice president: Kaushal Choksi
GENERAL SECRETARY: Hiten Shah
JOINT SECRETARY: Paresh Babaria
TREASURER: Bhavesh Tailor

An instrumental body that is working hard for the upliftment of the channel community in Surat and other cities of South Gujarat is South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA). The new President for 2005-06, Jwalant Shroff is the first president who has a software background. "So far, the past presidents have been from the hardware community and hailing from a different one, I want the solution providers to be given their due recognition now," affirmed Jwalant. The association was ranked 18th in the recent survey carried out by DQ Channels on the top channel associations of India.

Apart from that, another problem that SITA is facing and it plans to resolve is the poor turnout of members in the association meetings and their lack of proactivity in various activities. Jwalant has taken the initiative of meeting members on a personal basis and interacts with them on a one-on-one basis. "I meet five to six members every week and I discuss with each one about their business developments and whether they are facing any problems in particular," said he.

There is another major change in the association's activities. SITA does not plan to do the IT Expo this year. The Expo is apparently the most important event not only for the association, but channel partners as well. "There are a lot of legal formalities to be completed to conduct the expo, and the refunding of last year's expo from the Municipal Commissioner of Surat is yet to come. We do not want to face these problems," explained Jwalant.

Instead, the association is going to come up with another event. It wants to conduct a trade show at a much smaller scale than the IT expo, with only about 35 stalls. Jwalant informed that they plan to have this event in early 2006 and aims to have the show's emphasis on solution providers, as till now they have been on the backburner. "The show will be a three day event and like prizes being given away to hardware service providers every year, this event will felicitate software developers," said Jwalant.

On a closer date, the association plans to organize yet another event in September or October of this year. This will focus on mobility. That apart, SITA wants a fully computerized office, and aspires to maintain all its data on the PC. On a personal level, SITA organizes cultural programs, cricket match and even trekking programs so that members, along with their families get an opportunity to know each other better.

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