Maurice en délire...

More than a decade ago, Infotech was supposed to be an Information Technology (IT)-based fair. It would have been logical to request people to submit their mobile number for receiving SMS of details of the exhibitors. How these IT industry experts, similar to other exhibitor fairs locally, still firmly believe that doling out paper leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, etc., is mind-boggling, to say the least. But this phenomenon of advancing-in-reverse-gear appears to be entrenched in our landscape. For instance, why call ourselves a cyber-island when even the most mundane of administrative and financial transactions require your physical presence and documents, and your payment in cash?

Even better: to the undiscerning eye the skyline of our CyberCity is sexily "developed" from afar, but when approaching you would be surprised to realise the operators are quite traditional: banks, accountants, consultants, call centres and some universities – you’d be hard-pressed to find out why the "Cyber" in that CyberCity. To what level are the operations carried out in Ébène related to cybernetics, or even to IT? Let’s not mention the sprawling hotch-potch of hawkers encroaching the pavements, parking lots and driving lanes. Truly a candid microcosm of what has actually been going wrong for decades: filthy rich in bling, damningly poor in substance. This should remind us Marcel Duchamps' "Mona Lisa"...

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