Sri Lanka launches competition to find the most secure cyber coder
Cyber security was not taken seriously when Sri Lanka’s ICT industry was diversified a few years ago. But today the industry is serious about information security and software developers who sell their software to foreign countries are constantly challenged as it’s a highly competitive industry.
Those involved in the ICT industry are also mindful that Sri Lanka is moving toward a US$100 billion economy and thus their mission is to make the ICT infrastructure to be also 100 per cent safe.
Those involved in this business say that there is a serious lack of human resource produced annually while Sri Lanka has no clear assessment criteria on the capacities and skills of the software developers with regard to their core competencies in coding.
In this backdrop, CICRA Consultancies (Pvt) Ltd -cyber security training and consultancy provider in Sri Lanka together with the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), USA and the Daily FT, have partnered to conduct a competition titled “Code Craft 2016” aimed at assessing to find the most secure cyber coder in the country.
Guest speaker, Prof Mohan De Silva, Chairman, University Grants Commission appreciating the move as vitally important for this growing and competitive industry, said that this would create awareness of the industry’s strengths and weakness.
He said that it helps to identify innovative and scientific ideas of talented young men which would immensely assist the IT industry and the professionals. He remarked that it is a university based system and the university would absorb the programme.
Quoting one of the universally renowned scientists yesteryear – Albert Einstein, Prof De Silva said that man has no special talents, but is only passionately curious. He said “Man is a curious creature by nature and it is this curiousness that evolves changes and change needs imagination and imagination is more important than knowledge”.
He said “We need new knowledge, we need imagination which of course is very important and essential in the world competition. Imagination embraces the whole world and it is a continuous process. That is the real change – research innovation and eventual commercialisation.”
Boshan Dayaratne, CEO/Director, CICRA Holdings said that they are involved in training software developers and found that these developers’ knowledge of secure coding side is limited and that revelation was the reason for launching the Code Craft and also felt it essential with the stiff global competition in Sri Lanka and this sector moving towards a $5 billion income by 2022.
For this competition, he said that they need to have independent assessments to gauge the company’s software coding level in the regional and national line. They have also got International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants USA – the largest certification authority in the cyber security coding to be one of their partners.
It was India which started this competition in 2013 and the results, Mr. Dayaratne noted was alarming and it was not even published. They picked up the idea from India where since 2013 India conducts this competition annually.
He said that there are two categories for this competition – the university category and the corporate category and the registration would be open for a period of three months and expects more than 5,000 applicants.
They solicited the assistance of the University Deans and the Vice Chancellors to promote the competition among the students to get them registered.
Harin Fernando, Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure detailed the Government’s programme and approach towards ICT development in the country.