THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Group of Technology Companies (GTECH), the industry body of IT companies in Kerala, on Saturday organised a promotional marathon at Technopark. The marathon was organised to impart greater momentum to the state government’s ‘No to Drugs’ campaign. CEOs of several IT companies and over 100 techies participated. The event was a prelude to the second edition of the ‘GTECH Marathon,’ which is scheduled to be held at Infopark, Kochi, on February 11.
Sanjeev Nair, CEO of Technopark, flagged off the 5km promotional marathon. On the occasion, Nair, who completed one year at the helm of affairs in Technopark on January 12, said the first edition of the ‘GTECH Marathon’ held at Thiruvananthapuram Technopark last year was a huge success.
“The second edition is soon to happen in February. This shows how the tech fraternity of IT Parks is so well aligned towards both fitness and social causes,” Nair said. V K Mathews, chairman of GTECH, said the purpose of the campaign was to sensitise the public about the disturbing trend of drug and substance abuse in Kerala. “It causes unimaginable damage to society and like-minded and responsible people must come out in unison with a loud message of ‘No to Drugs’ and ‘Yes to Fitness’. We need to convert campaigns like this into a mass public movement to make Kerala drug-free,” Mathews said.
Sreekumar V, GTECH secretary and Centre head, TATA Elxsi; Hariprasad, vice president and MD, H & R Block; Aneesh, branch manager, SBI, and others were also present. The grand finale of the campaign, ‘GTECH Marathon,’ is expected to have the participation of over 5,000 runners. For registration, visit: www.gtechmarathon.com. GTECH has a membership base of 300-plus IT companies comprising 80% of IT professionals in the state, totalling over 1.50 lakh. All leading IT companies in Kerala including TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, IBS Software, UST, EY and Tata Elxsi are members of GTECH.