Bangalore: The Prestigious Pinkerton Lecture of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) will be held in India for the first time on November 26, 2010 in the Convention Centre at the Infosys Technologies Campus in Bangalore. The Founder-Chairman of Infosys, Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, who is also an honorary fellow of the IET, will be the chief guest at the lecture.

Titled “The Relentless March of the Microchip”, this year’s lecture will be delivered by Steve Furber, ICL Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester. Steve leads the Advanced Processor Technologies research group at Manchester. His awards include a Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal, the IET Faraday Medal, and he was a 2010 Millennium Technology Prize Laureate.

Speaking at the event Mr. Narayana Murthy said, “I am extremely happy that the Institution of Engineering and Technology has brought the prestigious Pinkerton Lecture to India. After establishing itself as a global innovation hub for software, India is now on its way to become a major force in the field of hardware. It is important at this juncture that we remember the contribution of John Pinkerton and Lyons Electronic Office for giving us the world’s first business computer. I am very confident that the lecture will give birth to many new ideas in the field of Information Technology.”

Shekhar Sanyal, Country Head, IET India, said, “India represents a huge growth opportunity for the IET and we are now investing in scale and quantity to enhance our presence in this strategic region of the world. As a mark of our ongoing commitment to the country, we have decided to bring this popular and prestigious lecture to India. We are happy that the lecture which commemorates and honours one of the fathers of business computing, John Pinkerton, is taking place in India’s Silicon Valley in the presence of software Guru Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy.”

The Pinkerton Lecture is held annually in honour and memory of John Pinkerton who built the first business computer in the UK. As early as 1947 the catering firm of J. Lyons decided that the future lay with computers, and since nothing suitable was available, they resolved to build one and recruited Pinkerton to do so.