Sri Lanka's newest offering to the world - Genealogy
By Jagish Hathiramani
Sri Lankans are fast becoming known for their abilities in specialisation. Where others have taken more conventional routes such as entering the increasingly filling call centre space, local companies decided to specialise in finance, accounting, hospitality, etc., as well as any one or more of dozens of areas where this nation's higher proficiency in literacy and education has led the way. Now a Norwegian company setting up shop locally may herald the next step in Sri Lanka's niche strategy; even greater specialisation into areas such as Genealogy (the study of family histories).
The Norwegian company in question, Embla Software Innovation (Private) Limited, is an offshoot of Embla Norsk Familiehistorie AS (www.embla.no), an organisation which considers itself to be the leading Genealogy company in Norway. The company is also quick to point out that it has recently expanded services into neighbouring Denmark. Meanwhile, what it offers is a social networking solution that links families in much the same way that Face Book links individuals, through an online resource.
According to Embla: "Genealogy software is used to record, organise, and publish genealogical data. The solution collects data such as the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children. Additionally, (Embla handles) additional events in an individual's life, free-form notes, photographs and other multimedia".
stablished in 1996 by buying-over the rights to the Embla Genealogy model previously owned by a company based in USA, the newest Embla incarnation credits its success to the fact that everybody, in one way or another, is fascinated with where they came from. According to Embla's Chief Executive Officer, Stein Inge Haaland, "Everybody is interested in Genealogy". He notes that the product has proven successful only because it is an easy-to-use tool, which once the software is bought or licensed online, allows users to play the part of a detective into their own family history, enabling them to gather pictures, video and music from family highlights as well as maps showing where people are born, stay, etc. "The software will also soon be available in English so there will no longer be boundaries to its use, such as with stand-alone applications", he adds.
Acknowledging the introduction of Microsoft Vista, the new global standard operating system for home personal computers, as the catalyst for product offerings such as Embla, Mr. Haaland elaborates that this is because people now have a lot more multimedia and functionality available in their homes allowing access to a new generation of home entertainment of greater interactivity, adding: "It must be fun, otherwise people will go to some place else".
Initially coming to Sri Lanka to explore the possibility of a partnership with a local software company, Mr. Haaland says he was 'so impressed with local facilities' that he decided to set up his own operations here. As such Embla is currently on the verge of relocating operations from USA, India, Ukraine and even Norway to a facility in Rajagiriya that is expected to commence operations soon in an investment the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka has valued to be potentially US$150,000.
According to Mr. Haaland, his immediate concern continues to be "(will) I be able to hire the right people, (namely) qualified programmers, because the software is some of the most complicated?” Further suggesting that those interested will find their jobs to be "fun, but very challenging", he explains that programmers will be using Microsoft's ".net" platform, which he admits he himself has hardly ever seen before. He also indicates that he would like to utilise new software to create better Graphical User Interfacing (GUI): "Very complex stuff because of the use of multiple vectors and 3D and 4D mapping", says to Mr. Haaland.
Meanwhile, "(we) are looking at a lot of IT companies for good candidates to hire", says Mr. Haaland. He suggests that for the right person, there will be really good care given, the offer of excellent remuneration and extras such as the best computers and break facilities, including Xbox gaming, etc.
"We intend to make it a fun place to work", says Mr. Haaland. However, he finishes up his recruitment pitch with this bittersweet thought: "If we cannot find the right people, I'll have to pack up and move some place else".
All you want to know about IT
Yasas Vishuddhi Abeywickrama is an IT professional and an author on Business IT related areas. He is the Director, Young IT Professionals Board - Australian Computer Society and is a member of ACS Congress. In this monthly column, Mr Abeywickrema, who does career counselling, mainly focusing on young professionals and students, offers advice and responds to questions on IT:
On what key areas do I need to focus during an interview? What attributes/skills can I bring to the interview to guarantee my success?
You’ve passed the first hurdle of landing in an interview for a job! Having conducted interviews myself, my experience is that it’s not the person with the most knowledge and experience that gets through. It’s the one who can convincingly relate what they possess to what the employer is looking for.
Basic behavioural ethics like punctuality, dressing appropriately, being confident and looking eye-to-eye are just as important. Try to be comfortable, concise and considerate in your answers. Answer questions as directly as possible, be upbeat and make positive statements.
Showing that you are well read about the industry/company, well aware about the role is important, and this proves that you are a committed candidate. Being able to explain your technical knowledge in understandable terminologies is important. IT people are known to be weak in expressing what they do. Today IT is not just about programming in a back-room, IT professionals have moved to being business professionals and have gone into the board rooms as well. So, even if your role is of technical focus, you need to demonstrate that you have good soft and business skills.
Technical interviews often consist of brainteasers and practical questions to check your logic, reasoning, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills. So, it’s good to practice those as well as other technical aspects of the role such as coding.
Have a clear and open mind on the day. Having a good night’s sleep could greatly help and will also present a pleasant personality.
(Questions for this column could be sent to yasas@acsmail.net.au and copied to ft@sundaytimes.wnl.lk)
BPO slowdown in the works
“BPOs will experience a slowdown”, suggested Dinesh Weerakkody, Managing Director, Cornucopia Sri Lanka, speaking at a CEO Breakfast meeting organised by The Federation of ICT Industry and Services Sri Lanka (FITISS) recently.
According to Mr. Weerakkody, since the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry formerly enjoyed an annual growth rate of 70% while at the same time ‘generating billions in revenue’, the sector would most likely experience a significant slowdown due to prospect of a gloomy financial outlook in USA. He also indicated that a potential slowdown could be exacerbated by factors such as significant increases in USA unemployment over the last six months and a new USA President preferring to “create jobs within the country rather than ‘off-shoring’ work to other countries”.
Mr. Weerakkody remarked that “the global BPO industry is estimated to be between $150 billion and $800 billion while the outsourcing has been primarily on considerations of cost savings to the extent of 40% - 60%”. Further, he pointed out that “even though the future projections still looked very promising and it is expected that the revenues would increase, off shoring of work would definitely be under pressure due to the crisis situations in Europe and North America and because of the increasing role-played by the government, many firms will now revert to a command and control environment”.
Also, Mr. Weerakkody observed that while there is a strong need to build a specialised 'technology-ready' workforce, as this is critical to the country's competitiveness, the industry should always be mindful the main focus for any form of outsourcing operation remains cost saving. As such, he advised Sri Lankan technology firms to add value to their offerings in terms of 'quality, productivity and efficiency and also business development and marketing' instead of just increasing supply. Elaborating, he noted: “Because of the credit, crunch labour productivity and quality will become equally important parameters for clients to outsource and expand their operations”.
In the meantime, Mr. Weerakkody suggested that, 'to achieve the government’s vision of creating a $2 billion technology sector', companies in the ICT and related fields as well as the government must join together in 'a collective effort'. For this to happen, he advocated joint initiatives of the calibre of “the 200 factory programme in the early 90s, customised university degrees, BPO-centric English training, voice assessment centres and workshops on customer care”, all in an effort to 'energise' the sector and enhance its service offerings. He concluded his remarks by recommending ‘transaction processing’ as an avenue for future specialisation by Sri Lankan companies since “most large Indian service providers have started to move up the value chain”.
IT News
WSO2 debuts new Carbon platform
WSO2 recently launched its Carbon platform, which it indicated was the industry’s first platform of fully integrated middleware components for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Carbon's debut included the introduction of the platform’s first four WSO2 products: WSO2 Web Services Application Server (WSAS) 3.0, WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) 2.0, WSO2 Registry 2.0, and the new WSO2 Business Process Server (BPS). While newer versions of the WSO2 Mashup Server and WSO2 Data Services are scheduled for mid-2009 release. The company went on to state that the plug-and-play Carbon architecture 'fundamentally changes the way developers implement SOA middleware'. In addition, ‘as full open source solutions released under the Apache License 2.0’; components for WSO2 Carbon apparently do not require any software licensing fees to be paid.
10 interactive whiteboards in schools soon, 50 more by end 2009
Ten interactive whiteboards were gifted to the Sri Lankan education system recently with the first-of-its-kind expected to be installed in local schools as early as February 2009.
According to Wikipedia: "An interactive whiteboard is a large interactive display that connects to a computer and projector (which) projects the computer’s desktop onto the board’s surface, where users control the computer using a pen, finger or other device. The board is typically mounted to a wall or on a floor stand". This revelation was made by Minister of Education, Susil Premajayantha, at an event commemorating Intel's donation of over 400 ClassMate PCs to the ministry slated for 17 secondary schools. The minister also said that a further 50 interactive whiteboards were anticipated by year's end.
E-WIS to provide largest ICT project to the Ministry of Health
E-WIS has announced that it will be implementing a Pronto Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution with e-tendering applications as well as all necessary infrastructure development to the Medical Supplies Division of the Ministry of Health. The solution includes computerising the drug distribution, inventory management, procurement, finance, etc. The company states that this will be the largest ICT project in the national health sector to date.
Nenasala’s Telecentre.org Academy
The recent inaugural National Nenasala Convention featured the launch of two new ICT initiatives: The Asia Pacific Telecentre Network Secretariat based in Sri Lanka and the Telecentre.org Academy of Sri Lanka. The launch of the Asia Pacific Telecentre Network Secretariat in Sri Lanka was carried out by the Secretary to the President and Chairman of UN-ESCAP’s Committee on Information and Communication Technology, Lalith Weeratunga, while the launch of the Telecentre.org Academy of Sri Lanka was carried out by Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) Chairman, Prof. P. W. Epasinghe. The Asia Pacific Telecentre Network Secretariat is expected to 'perform a pivotal role in making the world community benefit from innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst Telecentre organisations in the Asia-Pacific region' while the Telecentre.org Academy is "an initiative to provide telecentre personnel in Sri Lanka with ongoing training, capacity-building and opportunities for professional development including knowledge and learning- experience sharing with counterpart organisations in the world community".
Iron One on emerging technologies adoption
IT outsourced services company IronOne Technologies recently launched a new initiative to foster awareness about ‘how to adopt emerging technologies’. Aimed at Sri Lanka's corporate sector, IronOne's awareness initiative features a series of workshops, 'one per month' according to company officials, beginning with “Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQLserver”, completed on March 3 and followed by “SharePoint – how to use it for business process management”, scheduled for April. According to the company, 'this initiative becomes especially useful under the current economic climate, as it enables corporate clients to decide the way going forward, and the use of IT to reach business goals'.
Indicating that it is well suited to advise potential clients because of it's 3-year track record of successful Business Intelligence deployments, including with Microsoft SharePoint, the company attributes its successful deployments to a qualified and experienced team featuring three of only six Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) represented in Sri Lanka today, supported by Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs), Java Certified Trainers (SCJCTs), and Java Certified Software Architects (SCJEA).
Suntel unveils Converged Voice Data Video Solutions
Indicating that it is one of the first carriers in the region to offer Next Generation Network solutions based on real IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), Suntel’s Enabled brand unveiled its latest Converged Voice Data Video Solutions product range. Promising to ‘facilitate business productive applications’ while fully negating reducing capital expenditure and reducing operational expenses, Suntel Enabled indicates that it uses Unified Communication Technology to make communication highly effective and hassle free. Further no long-term capital equipment investment is required and instead all equipment can be rented based on ‘an operational expense based business model’.
According to Suntel, their next generation networked communication model ‘enables enterprises over 400 advanced telephony solutions such as remote office, unified communication tools, soft copy fax, voice messages, one number concept with call forwarding selective, missed call alerts, data & multi media conferencing, etc. All these features (on monthly rental) without any capital expenditure… This would also free customers (from) owning and maintaining infrastructure which is not their core business’. (JH)
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