City CEOs take to wheels

• 250 CEOs participate in the country’s first CEOs Bicycle Ride – 2014
• IT minister KTR promises to give shape to the proposal for a cycling track alongside ORR
• City to promote start ups through a festival in August at ISB
• All Metro stations to have bicycle stations
• ‘Ride for Life’, India’s first bicycle magazine cover unveiled

India’s biggest cycling event involving about 250 high profile CEOs was staged in the city on Saturday. The ‘CEOs Bicycle Ride – 2014’ was organised by The Atlanta Foundation (TAF). It was flagged off by IT minister KT Rama Rao.

Some of prominent participants of the cycle ride included NVS Reddy, MD, HMR; Jayesh Ranjan, MD, TSIIC; CV Anand, Commissioner of Police, Cyberabad; Lakshmi Narayanan, former CEO and the current vice chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions; Amarnath Atmakuri, CEO, Institute for Electronic Governance/ Jawahar Knowledge Centers; Venkatesh, CEO, Airtel; Ravindranath, head, Raheja Corp; Mandeep Singh, head, Vodafone; Avinash Mohanty, DCP (Traffic), Cyberabad; Anu Acharya, CEO, Map My Genome; Vagish Dixit, MD, Alpla India Pvt Ltd; Murali fom TiE, Ramesh Loganathan, president of HYSEA; Dr Srinubabu Gedela, CEO, OMICS Group; Aveek Mukherjee, MD of Wells Fargo India Solutions; Shakti Sagar, head, ADP; Ramesh Kaza, American Express’ Rajendra, group delivery head of Tech Mahindra; Saritha, director, Gayatri Projects and Laxman Reddy, chairman, St. Martin’s Engineering College.

The participants went around the Hitec City covering a distance of 10 kilometers. The ride culminated at Westin where the CEOs had a chat with KTR.

Addressing the 500 plus gathering, KTR said, “We want Hyderabad to be the most preferred IT destination in the country. Our city needs more such events. Many cultural and lifestyle events must be held. We will soon give shape to the proposal to construct a cycling track along the Outer Ring Road (ORR).”

“Representatives of various industrial bodies would the meet CM KCR on July 22 to formulate the Telangana Government’s industrial and sectoral policies,” KTR announced.

Giving hope for start ups, KTR said, “Hyderabad registers software exports worth $8 billion while Bengaluru registers exports worth $21 billion. But Hyderabad has a technology ecosystem and has a readily employable workforce. A start up festival would be held in August at ISB. We will set up a T-Hub to encourage start ups along with the incubation centre later this year at the IIIT campus. The campus would be supported by the government. The hub would have partners such as ISB for business mentorship, IIIT for technology mentorship and Nalsar for Intellectual Property (IP) mentorship.”

HMR MD NVS Reddy said that the Metro Rail would be well connected so that commuters could use bicycles.

“We will have bicycle stations at all 66 railway stations. With the Metro, we will make Hyderabad, one of the most livable cities,” he observed.

Jayesh Ranjan, MD, Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC), said, “Nearly two lakh people work in various IT companies at Madhapur and live in about 15 residential neighborhoods nearby. We want to encourage them to cycle to work. We have already constructed 30 kilometres of cycling track but it could not be expanded further due to the Model Code of Conduct (MCoC) during elections and the bifurcation of the state.”

“We will speed up the infrastructure for cycling. This infrastructure would be in place within the next one year. Currently 800 IT Employees are using the ‘Cycle to Work’ programme and we want to encourage the programme further. For this, we want IT companies to come forward and donate bicycles,” he added.

Giving impetus to the safety of women, Cyberabad Police Commissioner CV Anand said, “All the IT companies must adhere to the safety of women employees. During their orientation seminar, they must also brief about their safety aspect.”

Atlanta Foundation launched the cover page of ‘Ride for Life’, the first premier bicycle magazine in the country. The magazine would be formally launched during the Freedom Ride on August 15.