ISO seeks bigger role from IT firms

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) is looking at more representation from Indian IT firms in its various technical committees and subcommittees that makes various decisions regarding setting up standards for the IT industry, globally.

"We have a number of technical committees involved in IT. India is presently participating in most of these works. My presence here in Bangalore is to encourage them to do more. Other countries, including the US, Japan, Europe and China have for a long time been leading the standardisation," said ISO Secretary General Alan Bryden on his first visit to Bangalore.

Globally, ISO has 157 countries as its members. India is being represented in the ISO by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body of India.

Meanwhile, the BIS has aligned its strategy to accommodate the demands of the Indian IT industry.

The bureau which has so far developed 18,000 standards, has recently reconstituted all their technical committees, and set up an IT task force following discussion with the IT industry.

Rakesh Verma, Additional Director General, BIS said, over 50 per cent of all the new standards developed at international level, are related to IT.

"In this regard, BIS has enhanced its membership status in the ISO from just a member to a participating member. The BIS is also enhancing its role at the policy level by participating in different technical committees and subcommittees," he added.

Addressing a round table organised by the MAIT and attended by ISO Secretary General Alan Bryden, S (Kris) Gopalakrishnan, Managing Director, Infosys Technologies said apart from its size and scale, the Indian IT industry was having relevance at the global level because of its investments on standards.

"The Indian IT firms are adopting global standards across the board "" whether it is corporate governance or security. It's very important in technology," he added.

He said to be a flourishing industry, the IT sector in the country need to look at the cost, scale, choice, interoperability and ability to work with multiple generation of technology." "We have learnt to work in different stages and we have learnt the ambiguity and complexities," he said.