“THE industry is looking for new places to enter and people are experimenting with concepts like rural BPO. Now, all that will come to an end as there are no incentives,” said Kiran Karnik, former president of Nasscom during E-revolution, 2006 —a two-day event to propel innovation and create a synergy in entrepreneurship in the region — in an interaction with ET. Post E-revolution, Chandigarh administration has been able to erect a regional cyber security centre, an education city spanning over 150 acres, develop an entrepreneurship development cell and become one among the first states to introduce NAC test. However, the development of the IT Park has seen its ups and downs with the Punjab and Haryana High Court staying acquisition of 270 acres land for development of Phase III. Now, that the Union Territory has the court’s decision in its favour, the city is taking the plunge to make the region an entrepreneur’s hub. Chandigarh is pegging entrepreneurship as the theme for this year’s E-revolution. The Band of Angels, Indian Venture Capital Association and The Indus Entrepreneurs will come together for the two-day event in association with the Chandigarh Administration and the governments of Punjab and Haryana. “It has to do with the policies that the governments adopt. Karnataka projected Bangalore and Chandra Babu Naidu, the former Andhra Pradesh chief minister, promoted ‘Cyberabad’ by being highly proactive and inviting companies like Microsoft to set up operations. Kolkatta followed suit by offering near-to-the-ground attrition rates to companies like IBM. Activity on the IT front in Punjab began four to five years back and things have moved slowly,” says Saurabh Srivastava, chairman of India Venture Capital Association, the apex body of VC funds in the country. He went on to say that Chandigarh would have to grow along with Punjab and Haryana since the city would act as a focal point for IT development in the region. It seems that Chandigarh is taking the entrepreneurship development theme a league ahead this year by bringing Lakshmi Narayanan, Chairman, Nasscom and Vice Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solution, who would address issues of changing landscape of India’s emerging knowledge economy, talent management, performance issues, building an ecosystem, deploying the power of online resources, and achieving excellence by adapting global standards. In addition to APS Kairon, Minister for Information Technology, Vishnu Dusad, managing director, Nucleus Software Exports and Srinath Batni, director and group co head (Worldwide Customer Delivery), Infosys Technologies will address issues of changing trends and future opportunities in global outsourcing.