IT-BPO Career Fairs soon in Badulla, Anuradhapura, Ratnapura, Hambantota
March heralded the first two IT – Business Process Outsourcing Career Fairs in what is expected to be an ongoing career opportunity series conducted jointly by the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka and the Education Ministry.
Held at Mahinda College, Galle, and Sujatha Vidyalaya, Matara, these fairs were planned as the first of their kind to be held outside Colombo geared specifically toward students, teachers and parents.
Eventually expected to encompass a total of eight districts, including Anuradhapura, Badulla, Galle, Hambantota, Kandy, Kurunegala, Matara and Ratnapura, these fairs were additionally supported by 22 volunteers from 18 IT-BPO firms attending at their own expense and also featured career counselling by the Ministry of Education as well as stalls by several IT-BPO companies promoting awareness of the industry and what kind of training was needed for success. Next for this ongoing career fairs series are Badulla and Anuradhapura in May and Ratnapura and Hambanthota in June, according to ICTA officials.
India has a lot to learn
from Sri Lanka
Although India is an IT giant in the use of IT for development, exposure to Sri Lankan e-content projects presented at the last Manthan Award convention held in New Delhi in mid-October convinced him that India had much to learn from Sri Lanka, says Osam Manzar, current Chairman at the Manthan Award for Best e-Content in India.
The Manthan Awards are granted for projects that aim at raising the standard of life of people, especially the rural masses by the use of Information and Communication Technology. Notable projects, out of a total of 23 entries, 18 short listed from Sri Lanka alone, were: Tri-lingual Disaster Alert System, using digital radio for displaying on public display boards in Sinhala, Tamil and English with the information received through traditional FM Radio transmission; Community Empowerment Project in Horana, providing youth with opportunity for developing in IT-based graphic designing and learning English with training provided for youth to create graphic movies with sound tracks on local stories using 3D movie making software; Digitizing texts from the ancient ‘Ola’ manuscripts.
Out of the 18 Sri Lankan projects short listed, it was worthwhile noting that 13 represented ICTA initiated projects, while Mr. Manzar further intimated that it was a great achievement for this country that, out of 300 entries from counties across South Asia, 18 projects from Sri Lanka had been short listed for the award. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan projects receiving the Manthan Award in 2008 were: Digital Talking Books - Information Accessibility for the Print Disabled; the Dambadeniya Community Radio Project; and the Government of Sri Lanka's Gemidiriya project.
Lanka's Finance and Accounting capabilities outlined at global BPO forums
Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM) together with the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) carried out a series of events in London and Barcelona to promote Sri Lanka as a BPO destination for Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO). This was particularly relevant considering the nation features the world’s second largest pool of UK qualified accounting professionals, second only to UK, while Global Services magazine's ranked Sri Lanka among the top 20 centers of excellence for FAO in the world.
Events included a breakfast seminar by SLASSCOM on “Sri Lanka as a Finance and Accounting Off shoring Destination” where over 60 delegates got the opportunity to hear from a leading UK insurance company, their experience of Finance and Accounting outsourcing to Sri Lanka. Further, leading FAO service providers in Sri Lanka, Amba Research, Hellocorop, SMB Lanka and WNS made presentations about their operations.
SLASSCOM also was the main sponsor for "The Financial Services Industry Transformation and Outsourcing Strategies Forum", followed by a discussion panel which focused on the financial services industry, and included over 150 delegates. Key advantages of locating FAO services within Sri Lanka were highlighted, showcasing how Amba Research and WNS happened to be first located in Sri Lanka.
In addition, SLASSCOM coordinated the participation of five leading IT and BPO companies from Sri Lanka at the International Outsourcing Forum (IOF) in Barcelona, Spain. The forum brought together 70 senior-level decision makers from multinational companes with active outsourcing requirements, face-to-face with over 30 credible outsourcing suppliers and 25 investment promotion agencies. At the forum, HelloCorp, Ridgecrest Asia, RNH InfoTec, Sabre Technologies and Virtusa Corporation had an exclusive opportunity to hold “one on one” meetings with several multinational companies with outsourcing requirements.
MALICIOUS Cryptography and Crypto Viruses lecture by Dr. Kasun De Zoysa
The Computer Society of Sri Lanka’s Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computer Security and Forensics recently conducted a public lecture on “MALICIOUS Cryptography and Crypto Viruses” by Dr. Kasun de Zoysa, Senior Lecturer, University of Colombo School of Computing. Cryptography is dedicated to the design of algorithms ensuring confidentiality, authentication and integrity. It is usually based on some kind of secret, often referred to as a key and / or specific mathematical functions.
Cryptography is also used by antivirus vendors to ensure the confidentiality of the signature database, or for automatic updates to their software. For information on future events, contact Karu Jayatunga at the Computer Society office at OPA Building, 275/75, Stanley Jayasundara Mawatha, Colombo 7, on 2592762 / 4713290.
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