Atsign at the TIA Summit

Atsign® Go To Market Specialist, Anthony Prakash, chronicles his latest trip to Bengaluru, India for The India Advantage Summit.

Not very often in our Zoom meetings at Atsign do we see someone in full business formal. But there he was late Thursday evening in India, onscreen in a suit and tie, Jose Kalayil. Jose was speaking to us about The India Advantage Summit (TIA) and what Atsign could potentially gain from it. It was a fun, 60-minute call where Jose would pull out many stories and anecdotes from previous editions of the event, and how it all came together. Classic Jose!

All of us at Atsign walked away from that meeting excited and thinking about what we should do next. After a couple of weeks of deliberation, Colin and I decided to make the 8,732 mile (14,053 km) trek all the way to Bengaluru from Silicon Valley.

Action before TIA

Our journey to the TIA summit and Bengaluru was quite eventful with a 30-hour journey which probably deserves its own dedicated story. But once we hit the ground, we were running. We started our meetings several days prior to the TIA summit; we got a chance to meet some of our partners (GeekyAnts and Shrish Infotech) with whom Atsign has been working for several years but had never met in-person. Nothing can beat face-to-face human interaction.

Image 1: Anthony and Colin with GeekyAnts; Image 2: With Jagan from Shrish Infotech

TIA Summit – Day 1

The audience at the TIA summit brought in business leaders, country officials, delegates, engineers, entrepreneurs, and folks from so many different backgrounds and various corners of India and the world. The fact that “sustainability” was the central theme across all tracks of the event was heartening. There were plenty of inspiring speakers and companies as part of several tracks. It was also amazing to see the collaboration between different countries.

For our bit from Atsign, Colin talked to the audience about the evolution of different technologies from the different eras, and where the Internet is today. Additionally, he talked about how open-source technologies can make our lives easier by taking care of the underlying layer of the networks all with Networking 2.0. 

We also had a chance to meet up with the great Jonty Rhodes, a South African cricket coach, and hear about his ideologies and thought process. It was fascinating to hear his point of view on success, mindset, and growth as these concepts not only apply to cricket, but to all walks of life. A very long Day 1, but a day filled with plenty of learning and new connections from so many different industries and countries.

TIA Summit – Day 2

The second day had the mighty task of living up to the standards of Day 1. From our end, Atsign had two speaking sessions lined up for the audience. Colin went first to talk about the importance of the quality of data for all businesses, and how networking–especially the pipes that carry the data–will play a crucial role over the next decade and more, particularly in the world of AI. 

Powered by Networking 2.0 concepts Atsign’s atProtocol® provides the backbone, infrastructure, and security for businesses and individuals to imagine new ways of communications and new customer experiences while keeping the integrity and security of the data intact.

I had the opportunity to talk to the audience about the current state of Cybersecurity, and thoughts on how Atsign’s technology “flips” the way Cybersecurity is currently done by most businesses and vendors. In today’s world, Cybersecurity is mostly an afterthought; it takes a security attack or data breach for anyone to take cybersecurity seriously.

Most vendors in the space also cater to this–most of them offer vulnerability management, attack surface management, monitoring-types of solutions which don’t tend to be very fool-proof. Atsign’s philosophy is “why have an attack surface?” In other words, today’s market is mostly focused on the “cure” aspect of Cybersecurity. It is time however, to focus on “prevention.” As we all likely know from experience, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

I must add that the venue, the arrangements, and the setup were all so well put together. Kudos to Jose and the entire TIA team for a great event.

The week that we were there in Bengaluru went by in a flash, but we had so many great conversations and made wonderful memories with plenty of opportunities to keep building on.

We will be back soon!