Merrill J – the entrepreneur who beat all odds to succeed in his venture
Merrill and his son Dilhan with the winners and judges.
There have been no Sri Lankan entrepreneurs in the country in the past where tea, coffee or the cocoa industry was concerned and none had access to markets or had their own brands except for the fact that only developed countries had such solutions and value addition to these products, according to Dilhan Fernando, Director of Dilmah Tea Co.
Speaking at the Merrill J. Fernando Eco- Innovation Awards ceremony held at the Ramada Hotel in Colombo last week, he said it was his father Merrill J. Fernando who decided to create a unique Sri Lankan tea brand which was an innovation that shifted the paradigm of the tea sector at that time.
Referring to tea plantations in the country he said it never had a problem with regard to water when there was a scarcity or was in surplus.
Today the world suffers from an epidemic of environmental challenges. Sri Lanka is yet to consider innovation as vital for her next phase of growth and as a result, innovation in its entirety has not been given due recognition.
Under the Merrill J. Fernando Innovation Awards, financial support is presented to well-developed concepts to solve current national and global environmental issues in areas of waste, water, energy, blue economy and biodiversity.
Prof. Ajith de Alwis of the Chemical and Process Engineering Department at the Moratuwa University said dreamers come up with ideas and the doers who implement these ideas depend on them.
“We need to embrace ideas and creativity which was important and the country needed dreamers today.” Referring to graphite mined in Sri Lanka, he said a kg of it was sold at Rs. 100 whereas a processed kg for laboratory purposes cost around Rs. 100,000.
The Merrill J. Fernando Eco-Innovation Award 2016 Prototype awards were won by the following persons:
Overall Winners were B.G Harsha Abeywardena and K.K.L Madusanka. Sector Winners (Prototypes) were T. Sunil Somasiri Gomes, H. Mahendra Prasad Peris, W.M. Jeremy Fernando, I.S.W Karunatilake and B.G. Harsha Abeywardena., Winners of the Concept award went to Raveen Perera and H. Mahendra Prasad Peiris.
The Merill J. Fernando Eco- Innovation Award 2016 Biodiversity Concept Sector Winner was K.K.L. Madusanka.
The Eco- Innovation Awards were handed over to the winners by Dilmah Founder Merrill J .Fernando who during his speech said that there was a lot of talent in the country undiscovered and fading away without attention.
Discussing his own efforts to change the world of the tea industry, he said one had to be a dreamer, a doer and an enabler all in one at that time as nobody was ready to go off the beaten track.
When he realized that the sweat and toil of millions of workers in the industry were enriching traders in foreign lands, he could not accept it. “I thought to myself why can’t we do these ourselves? And this dream kept haunting me for many years.”
He said when he discussed with government officials and trade officials about the tea industry they all thought that he was mad. “Ultimately when I was ready and was seriously thinking of launching my own brand of tea into the market I did not have a friend in the country. People in the trade, the government officials and friends turned hostile in their ignorance as selling raw materials never made any one rich and money was made outside they believed.”
He said everyone without exception believed that ‘we cannot market our produce’ and that could be done only by those living abroad. “I was resisting and fighting people not only here but also from overseas tea traders. There was no one who understood my mission.” He said while the message of quality Ceylon Tea was widespread in the world, there was no Ceylon Tea but many blends of tea. “My mission was to take Ceylon Tea into the market as many others did and that’s what I did.”
He said Dilmah Tea started a small entrepreneur programme following the Tsunami disaster and those entrepreneurs who later became big entrepreneurs and their success stories will amaze anyone. “I want to prevent the hardship of young entrepreneurs of today when I compare myself with the hardship that I went through in launching Dilmah Tea.”