Who sat in judgement...

silicon.com has drawn on the knowledge of an international panel to sift through a long list of more than 75 locations and draw up the final Tech Hotspots top 20. Here are the judges.

Jo Best is the award-winning news editor of ZDNet Australia and a former senior reporter on silicon.com in London.

Simon Briskman is a partner at the law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse and a member of silicon.com's editorial board. The firm acts for governments, Fortune 500 companies and technology start-ups on the whole range of tech, media and telecoms projects. Briskman's role has recently involved him in cable TV in China, call centre offshoring in India and network rollouts in the UK.

Paul Coby is CIO at British Airways. He was appointed to his current post in September 2001, having joined the airline in 1997 after a career as a senior civil servant. He is responsible for the operation and development of all BA IT and systems.

Tech Hotspots: The list

1. Silicon Valley
2. Bangalore
3. London
4. Tokyo
5. Boston
6. Cambridge
7. Shanghai
8. Tel Aviv
9. Seoul
10.Beijing
11.Chennai
12.Pune
13.Singapore
14.Helsinki
15.Moscow
16.Hong Kong
17.Hyderabad
18.New York
19.Sydney
20.Shenzhen

Peter Cochrane is an engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, futurist and consultant. He is the former CTO and head of research at BT, and has had a career in telecoms and IT spanning more than 40 years. Cochrane has also held a number of prominent academic positions including the UK's first professor for the public understanding of science and technology.

Rorie Devine, who late last month announced his departure from Betfair where he had been CTO for the past five years. He has been credited with helping to transform the IT infrastructure of one of the UK's fastest growing and most innovative companies.

John Higgins was appointed director general of technology trade association Intellect at its launch in May 2002. He has worked in IT since graduating in 1975, in a range of software, consultancy and internet-based businesses. He became director general of one of Intellect's predecessors, the CSSA, in April 1998. John is also vice president of the European high-tech industry association, EICTA and is a member of the steering committee of the World IT Services Association.

Partha Iyengar is an India-based analyst with Gartner. He has been in the IT industry for more than 22 years and covers the areas of software development, global sourcing and globalisation issues within Gartner. He also heads the research team for Gartner in India. He is the co-author of a recently published book on India and China called IT & the East published by Harvard Business School Press.

Michael Kanellos is a former editor at large at CNET News.com in San Francisco, where he covered hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has worked as an attorney, travel writer and sidewalk hawker for a time-share resort, among other occupations.

Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is a commentator and offshoring expert. He is the National Outsourcing Association's offshoring director and a founding member of the British Computer Society's working party on offshoring, as well as a visiting lecturer at London's South Bank University and a business mentor for The Prince's Trust.

Luke Mellors has held CIO roles in the UK over the past few years and garnered a number of industry awards for his achievement. He is now vice president of strategic technology for Hilton in the US and continues to try and innovate in IT every day.

Steve Ranger is the editor of silicon.com and has been writing about business and technology issues for more than a decade. He makes regular appearances on television, radio and at conferences as a commentator on tech issues.

Sowmyanarayanan Sadagopan is the founding director of the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore.

Toby Wolpe is silicon.com's associate editor and Tech Hotspots project editor. He has spent 30 years in business and consumer journalism, mainly in the technology field, where he has edited several major print weeklies.

Eileen Yu began covering the IT industry when asynchronous transfer mode was still hip and ecommerce was the new buzzword. These days, she gets stirred up by issues concerning internet regulation, intellectual property rights and software patents, online privacy and data protection. Based in Singapore, Eileen has more than 10 years' experience as a technology writer.