Mumbai: The erstwhile Bombay Computer Club got a fresh start with a group of industry professionals led by InfrasoftTech CEO Hanuman Tripathi kick-starting a `Bombay Technology Club'.

The newly set up club is a "no agenda, pure networking forum" for CEOs of IT industry and IT related organisations, said Tripathi.

The Bombay Computer Club and the National Association of Software Service Companies (NASSCOM) were organised by Vijay Mukhi and a Dewang Mehta, working at different levels.

Between them, these two have promoted the use of information technology and the internet by constantly trying to influence public opinion and lobbying with the government and the political leadership.

It was Mehta's networking and lobbying through NASSCOM and his ingenuity in creating events to keep the industry under spotlight that brought in venture capitalists and pushed through IT bills.

Vijay Mukhi started his drive at the people and industry level, forcing the media to become IT savvy. Mukhi helped create the Bombay Computer Club, whose monthly meetings emerged a powerful networking forum.

The objective was to get those who were IT-enabled interacting with the IT-professionals, IT-disabled and IT-illiterates in order to convert them to the new world order.

The recent anti-reform and anti-technology interventions on behalf of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi now suggest that old-time anti-competition policies are back in political fashion. Hence the need to revive the technology clubs.

Wal-Mart seems to have influenced UPA's thinking and changed the government's attention wholesale from technology and the knowledge economy to the vegetable vendor and the kirana shops, point out the new industrialists.