Held on 20th & 21st January 2020, the yearly techno-event of NIC was power packed with inspiring talks and deliberations by eminent IT experts and techno-leaders from industry. NIC TechConclave is a two-day long technology event organized by National Informatics Centre annually. With all fervour, the Conclave this year (NIC-TechConclave2020) was held on 21st and 22nd January, 2020 at Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra, New Delhi. The Conclave witnessed eminent IT experts and industry leaders making power-packed deliberations on new trends and their implementation in eGovernment services. Themed as “Technologies for NextGen Governance”, the event had an enthusiastic participation by NIC officers across the country and senior officers of the Government. The event was also webcast live by NIC for a wider dissemination. NIC TechConclave 2020 began with the lighting of ceremonial lamp by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law & Justice, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, along with Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, Dr. Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC, Dr. Savita Dawar, Deputy Director General, NIC and other dignitaries. Welcoming the dignitaries and participants, Dr. Neeta Verma expressed hope that the TechConclave will help NIC to create new technology solutions for public services and will also benefit policy makers to plan better eGovernance initiatives. Shri Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY said that this Tech-Conclave sets up an opportunity to bring NIC and industry experts on common platform to explore the solutions for the problems of the society. He advised to go for integrated solutions and to also partner with the startup ecosystem for innovative solutions. Hon’ble Minister Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad energized the event with his inspiring and visionary words. He stated that technology should be designed to make peoples’ life easier and simpler. He advised technocrats to start dreaming big and try hard to concretize the dreams into a reality by using technology as the biggest facilitator. Talking on the power and impact of data as a technology driver and future governance, he narrated five corners for Data – Data Availability, Data Utility, Data Innovation, Data Anonymity and Data Privacy. Shri Sameer Garde, President, Cisco (India and SAARC) emphasized on the importance of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in building a software-driven Government to ensure effective governance. Dr. Savita Dawar presenting the Vote of Thanks hoped that the Conclave would provide the participants a great platform to understand the impact and rightful application of emerging technologies. Dr. Lalitesh Katragadda, founder, Indihood delivered the keynote address on “Dismantling Feudal Chains Digitally” eulogized India’s huge entrepreneurial strength and urged NIC to take up the challenge of transforming the citizen centric services to enable them at low cost. In the course of the two days, there was an array of enlightening talks by Dr. Pramod Varma, Shri Kiran Anandampillai, Shri Arun Jain and industry experts from IBM, Dell-EMC, HPE, Intel, EY, Nucleus Technology and Snapdeal. They were Shri Santhanu Roy Chowdhury, Mr. Charles Sevior, Shri Sudheep K Das, Shri Dinakar Guniguntala, Shri RP Singh, Shri Rajesh Goel, Shri Prashant Parashar, Shri Kartik Krishnan and Shri Sandeep Saxena. The two-day event concluded on a successful note, with the expectation that the key take-away and shared experience would help NIC to provide and promote better eGovernance services through adoption of improved and advanced technologies. Technology should be designed to make peoples’ life easier and simpler. Technocrats should start dreaming big and try hard to concretize the dreams into a reality by using technology as the biggest facilitator. Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad Hon’ble Union Minister for Law & Justice, Communications and Electronics & IT