Amity's CONFLUENCE 2013 — The Next Generation Information Technology Summit

The entire event is partitioned into 13 tracks which are based on 3 plenary sessions covering the core areas: Software Engineering, Social Media, Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, Cloud and Virtualization, Data and Application Security, Data Mining, Computer Networking, Cloud Computing, Geometric Modeling, Graphics and Virtualization.

The inaugural ceremony commenced with the lamp lightening by a group of dignitaries namely, Prof. (Dr.) Balvinder Shukla, Acting Vice Chancellor, AUUP, Prof. (Dr.) Ravi Prakash, Director, Amity School Engineering and Technology, AUUP and Co-Chairperson, CONFLUENCE 2013, Shri Suresh Chandra Gupta, Dy. Director General, Department of Telecommunications Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt. of India, Mr. P.K.Gupta, Senior Director and Chief Architect, EMC Corporation, Singapore, and Prof. (Dr.) Abhay Bansal, HoD (Computer Science & Engineering) and Director, DICET and Coordinator, CONFLUENCE 2013, and Ms. Nitasha Hasteer, Acting HoD, IT, ASET and Coordinator, CONFLUENCE 2013.

Prof. (Dr.) Abhay Bansal, HoD, Department of Computer Science & Engineering and Director, DICET and Coordinator, CONFLUENCE 2013 introduced the gathering with the theme of the CONFLUENCE 2013. Prof. (Dr.) Ravi Prakash, Director, Amity School Engineering and Technology, and Co-Chairperson, CONFLUENCE 2013 formally welcomed all the dignitaries and the participants from the various parts of the country. This was followed by Chairperson's address by Prof. (Dr.) Balvinder Shukla, Acting Vice Chancellor, AUUP. The Proceedings of Confluence 2013 were then officially released. Following that, Shri Suresh Chandra Sharma, Dy. Director General, Department of Telecommunications Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt. of India delivered his address. This was ensued with an address by Chief Guest Mr. Rajiv Mehrotra, Founder and Chairman, Shyam Telecom and VNL and President, MTS. In the Keynote address by P. K. Gupta, Senior Director and Chief Architect, EMC Corporation, Singapore threw Light on the thrust areas of theme of Confluence 2013.

This was followed by address by the Guest of Honor Prof. (Dr.) Dilip K. Bandhyopadhyay, Vice Chancellor, Guru Govind Indraprashtha University. Prof. (Dr.) Ravi Prakash described Amity University as ‘a temple of learning' and very rightly called it a research and innovation driven University. Prof. (Dr.) Balvinder Shukla addressed "the world as a global Village" and boosted the student's morale with her words of wisdom. Mr. Rajiv Mehrotra revealed that innovation is good only when it reaches the market and the end customers. Mr. P. K. Gupta spread delight among the crowd by making them do the ‘gangnam style'. He emphasized that Data scientist is the most trending job of this era. He also explained the 4 V's of Big Data - Velocity, Value, variety and Volume.

In the end, Ms. Nitasha Hasteer, Acting HoD, IT, ASET and Coordinator, CONFLUENCE 2013 offered a vote of thanks to all and acknowledged the invited guests for gracing the occasion by their solemn presence and all the participants who were the main ingredients of this conference.

The discussion on research papers and poster presentations came out to be very educative and enlightening. It received enormous response from students, academicians and industry, which were discussed on 6 tracks. The first track addressed by Prof. Tapie Rohm, California State University, USA focused on Social Computing. In Track 2, Mr. Saket Modi, CEO, Lucideus and  S D Saxena, PTC, India Foundation discussed the Next Generation Information Technology - Challenges & Future ahead. Dias was graced by many dignitaries, Dr. S.R. Subramanya, School of Engineering Technology, National University SanDiego, CA, USA, 
Dr. A.K. Mishra, Scientist (SS), Simulation & Informatics, Indian Agricultural Unit of Research Institute, New Delhi, India, Mr. R K Singh Retd. EinC, DDK and Mr. Anurag Sharma, GM, HCL Technologies. Prof. W. M. P. van der Aalst, Eindhoven University, Netherland addressed the next track on process mining. Track 4 considered the topic of Social Media where Dr. S. R. Subramanya, Professor, National University, San Diego, CA, USA spoke about the Technical Advancements in Social Media and Mr. Kapil Gupta, CEO, Omlogic and Mr. Kamlesh Kishore Singh, 
Managing Editor, India Today expatiated about Security and Collaboration and Role of Social Media in shaping mainstream Media respectively. Tracks 5 received an address by Prof. Alferd Vaccaro, University of Sannio, Italy on Security. In the last track of the day, the topic of Mobile Computing was reviewed by Mohd. Irshad Saifi, General Manager-IT, Ranbaxy, Jitin Narang, COO, Teachaheadcorp and Asheesh Kumar, Head of Infrastructure Operations, Orange.