Satish Babu Heads Computer Society of India

>>Well-known IT professional, entrepreneur and FOSS advocate, Satish Babu, took over as the President of the Computer Society of India (CSI), at a function held in the Mumbai Headquarters of CSI.

CSI, founded in 1965, is committed to promoting the use of Information Technology in all domains of life for every citizen of India. The main objectives of CSI are to promote exchange of information between IT specialists and the public, to assist professionals maintain competence as well as professional ethics, to foster a sense of partnership among IT professionals, and to encourage socially relevant computing applications. It has a current membership of about 90,000, spread across the country in its chapters and student branches.

Dr. S.V. Raghavan, Scientific Secretary at the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, joined the incoming team as the Vice President and President-elect of CSI at the same function.

“CSI would also like to create new initiatives in areas of contemporary interest to India such as Green Computing, e-Waste Management and climate change adaptations. At the organizational level, my priorities would be to enhance services to all stakeholders, to strengthen Chapters, Divisions, Regions and Special Interest Groups of CSI, and to create a single-point Open Access repository of all content generated through CSI conferences and seminars so as to be useful to all information consumers”, Satish Babu said.

Satish Babu will also be one of the representatives of India in the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP), the apex organization of national societies in IT. Established by the auspices of UNESCO in 1960, IFIP has over 50 national societies and academies of science as members.

Further, as the incoming President of CSI, Satish Babu will also be taking over as the President of the South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC) from Mr. MD Agrawal, the outgoing CSI President. Founded in 1978, SEARCC is a regional forum of national Information Technology professional societies in the Asia Pacific region.

Satish Babu has been based at Technopark, Trivandrum, for over 12 years, where he was earlier the President and co-founder of InApp Infotech, a CMMI Level 5 IT services company with offices in the US, Japan and Europe. Presently on sabbatical, he is now the Director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), an autonomous institution of the Government of Kerala, also based at Technopark.