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Over 250 top executives from 50 plus cities in India contribute to the success of GATES ICT Reseller Summit 2016
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Summit attracted players beyond ICT industry as a first step to building Smart India
GATES APAC Pte. Ltd. concluded the ICT RESELLER CHANNEL SUMMIT 2016 with over 250 top executives 
from the ICT industry. The 3 day event which was held in Amby Valley Pune brought together leading resellers from over 50 cities that gave the technology vendors from around the world an opportunity to pre-schedule one-on-one meetings with senior executives and buyers.
Panel Discussion: (From left to right: Niraj Hedaoo, Director – Ecommerce, rediff.com, Polad P Garada, Senior Manager – Marketing, TOSHIBA Storage Devices, Subhash Chandra, CEO, Sangeetha Mobiles, Champak Raj Gurjar, President, FAIITA, Ketan Patel, CEO, Creative Distribution, Ketan Mehta, Associate Vice President, Infibeam, Gurjender Singh Virdhi, Founder & Editor- SmartCitizen.com)
Over 170 companies were represented at GATES ICT Reseller Summit 2016. The delegate list included 178 reseller executives, 65 vendor executives along with influential speakers, industry experts and media partners. The number of vendors and channel partners participating at GATES was encouraging as this was the first time for such a closed door Summit to be held in India.
Ashish Kapahi, Director at GATES APAC said, “The event concluded with over 800 pre-scheduled 1 to 1 meetings between vendors and resellers channel partners. Many new agreements were facilitated as a result of meetings at GATES 2016.” He further added, “By bringing all of the key channel stakeholders together in one place at one time, GATES provides the most efficient channel development platform for all vendors – whether they are new to the region or a leading player with established channels. As a neutral platform, GATES provides an opportunity to discuss key issues impacting the industry”.
The highlight of the Summit was the SMART PITCH, which gave both new to market and existing vendors an opportunity to deliver an elevator pitch for their latest product on a common stage. Photofast won the Best Design & Aesthetic Award, Consul Neowatt won the Game Changer Award as well as an award for the best WOW presentation.
The extensive conference programme including workshop sessions and panel discussions were welcomed by the channel partners. The participants hailed the workshops to be extremely useful by far. An elite panel was drawn from among the participants who discussed the challenges of Omni channel and approached of adapting the new normal.
Vasudev K.S, Executive Director at GATES APAC said, “Due to the overwhelming response we are now looking at another Summit towards the end of the year. The feedback from vendors and reseller partners has been positive and we look forward to welcoming even more partners in the next event.”
As a part of its support to START UP INDIA initiative, GATES included a new category of vendor in its ICT industry excellence awards 2016 called the “Hardware Startup Vendor of the Year”. On a live voting carried out by the Indian ICT channels from across 50 cities during the ICT Excellence Awards, Fin Robotics from Startup Village Cochin emerged as the GATES – Best Hardware Startup of the year 2016. GATES announced that in the second edition, Startup India will take a special zone and will aim to bring some of the illustrious hardware startups from different parts of the country.
The other winners of the prestigious ICT Industry Excellence awards 2016, which was held during the Gala Dinner hosted for ICT Reseller Channels – who voted live for the best vendor in different ICT categories, were as follows:
Category Awards –
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HP was voted as the Computing Vendor of the Year
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Apple was voted as the TABLETS & SMARTPHONE Vendor of the Year
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Logitech was voted as the PC & Mobile ACCESSORIES Vendor of the Year
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Canon was voted as the IMAGING Vendor of the Year
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Seagate was voted as the STORAGE Vendor of the Year
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HP was voted as the PRINTING Vendor of the Year
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Samsung was voted as the DISPLAY Vendor of the Year
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D-Link was voted as the HOME NETWORKING Vendor of the Year
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Microsoft was voted as the SOFTWARE Vendor of the Year
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Philips was voted as the ACOUSTICS Vendor of the Year
Special Awards-
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Apple was voted as the Most INNOVATIVE Vendor of the Year
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Fin Robotics was voted as the Hardware STARTUP Vendor of the Year for its product Wearable Ring.
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Canon was voted as the MARKETING EXCELLENCE Vendor of the Year
The Summit was supported by Platinum Partner, TOSHIBA; Gold Partners AMD & Canon and Silver Partners Philips & QNAP. The event’s Research & Media Partners included GfK-India, NAVO Informatica & SPIRE Research & Consulting, and Media partners included VAR India, CELLIT, NCN and ASCL.
