The National Association of Software and Services Companies -- the apex body representing the Indian IT software and service firms -- will hold its twelfth annual summit -- 'Nasscom 2004: India Leadership Forum' from February 3 to February 6, 2004 at Hotel Oberoi, Mumbai.

Nasscom's annual event has become the most prestigious and successful hi-tech conference in India and Asia and for the first time ever, the summit will witness participation from leading International think tanks and chiefs of Fortune 1000 companies.

"Despite the challenges such as the continued technology slowdown in the global market and appreciation of the rupee, the Indian IT software and services industry has been able to maintain its growth momentum," said Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, in a media statement.

"However, with the competitive business environment, the need of the hour is to forge strong global partnerships. Keeping this in mind, we have invited global customers, think-tanks and analysts to participate in Nasscom 2004 who will provide insight on emerging contours of the global IT landscape and the challenges for global vendors," he said.

"The event will also attract some of the best-known speakers from the industry and prominent figures from business, government and media to chart out the strategy for building the Indian domestic ICT market-boosting growth and the process of 'IT-fication' among home customers," he added.

Nasscom 2004 will focus on the global economic landscape, the challenges of managing a global company, the security issues facing the IT industry, and the opportunities that emerge for Indian IT industry with the changing demographic profile of various countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Apart from focusing on the global IT issues, the conference will address technical aspects of the domestic IT industry like - open source, on-demand computing, networking, storage, et cetera.

With representation from countries like Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Nasscom 2004 will provide Indian IT companies an opportunity to explore business beyond the traditional shores of the US and the UK.

The conference will also provide an ideal platform to delve deeply into the issues concerning the IT Services and ITES-BPO companies.

Nasscom 2004 is expected to attract close to 800 delegates from India and overseas. The event will also have over 60 speakers who will address over 20 sessions spread across the three days of the conference.

Some of the big names who will speak at the event include Dan Griswold, Director, Cato Center for Trade Policy Studies, US; Dave McCurdy, chief of Electronics Industries Alliance and ranked amongst the most influential executives and lobbyists in the US; Elliot Schwartz, chief of Committee for Economic Development, US; James Carafano, from the Heritage Foundation which assesses IT security needs based on US homeland security strategy and emerging global security regimes; Faith Boettger, senior consultant, BITS, US.