Background

The concept of a standardization body for India, which would represent the nation in totality, was conceived by Prof. Ramjee Prasad during his participation in a meeting together with Korean, Japanese and Chinese companies and other organizations of the various countries. Soon after realising the imperativeness of such an entity for India's growth in the knowledge based economy, Prof. Prasad proposed the matter to several major Indian companies and they agreed to the immediate need for such an initiative. Furthermore, the international companies and organizations also expressed that they face lots of difficulties in entering the Indian market. The underlying issue is fragmentation of the market, and due to this disparateness, the country has lost investment from a number of organizations. Formation of Global ICT Standardization Forum for India (GISFI) was publically announced in Kolkata in December 2008. On this occasion, a workshop was hosted by Center for TeleInFrastruktur (CTIF)-India, where the initial core team was formed, which comprised:

(1) Prof. Ramjee Prasad; CTIF & Chairman GISFI
(2) Mr.K.Sridhara; Ex Member Technology ICT (Govt. of India), Director General GISFI
(3) T R Dua; Vice Chairman, GISFI
(4) Mr. Debasis Bandyopadhyay; TCS
(5) Prof. Ole Brun Madsen; CTIF
(6) Mr. Rajeev Prasad; WIP Labs
(7) Prof. Shingo Ohmori; CTIF-Japan
(8) Prof. Sandeep Inamdar, SIT - Lonavala

The members of GISFI consist of academics, policy makers, regulators and the industry. Thereafter, GISFI had its second workshop in March 2009, in SIT -Lonavala. During this workshop, GISFI's concept and technical scope were discussed with the participants. The teams were formed and roadmaps were allocated to initiate the work behind the technical themes and registration of the forum. Furthermore, five more members joined the core team:

(9) Mr. Ajay Mishra; Nokia Siemens Network
(10) Dr. B.A. Damahe; L&T
(11) Prof. Uday Desai; IIT Bombay
(12) Mr. Munir Sayyad; Reliance Communications
(13) Mr. Arun Golas; TEC, Govt of India
(14) Dr. Parag Pruthi, Niksun