Financial Times

$5 mln for ICT companies
Information technology companies will be eligible for grants up to $35,000 each under a $5 million capacity building programme funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA).

“The ICT industry in the country is small but potent,” declared Manju Hathotuwa, CEO of ICTA at the launch of the ICT capacity building programme for the private sector last week.

The capacity building fund will help the industry get ready to play a bigger role in the economy and export sector, he said. Annual revenue generated by Sri Lankan exports of software and related services is still much less than the targeted $1 billion.

Hathotuwa said the programme will give small but resourceful small and medium enterprises opportunities to grow and aim at niche global markets. Local firms who achieved recognition include hSenid which won an Ericcsson global mobility award, Affno for a website design and Microimage which developed the world’s first Tamil mobile browser.

He said the blueprint, prepared with the help of the private sector ICT industry, was flexible and could be changed depending on industry needs.
Projects are not confined to the ICT industry and the programme will also help improve ICT skills in thrust industries like tourism and garments.

The programme consists of 27 strategies covering areas like ICT human resource development (HRD), industry promotion and market creation and creating an enabling environment for industry growth.

Ranjit Fernando, team leader of the capacity building programme, said the HRD strategies focus on short and medium term initiatives targeting 14,600 direct beneficiaries spanning all employment levels from senior management to pre-workforce.

The industry promotion strategies target 4,200 direct beneficiaries and aims to identify and penetrate new markets, increase share of existing markets and improve the quality of local products and services to international standards.
It also focuses on strong links between the ICT industry and higher education institutes.

Under the IT enabling services strategy, the focus will be on training needs, to accredit and improve training institutes and improve ICT-based career counselling.

The World Bank funds will be used to fund learning seminars, training voucher schemes, IT enabling services schemes, market surveys, and business linkages.

The ICTA, at the same time, also announced the launch of a US$ 2.4 million ICT Human Resources Capacity Building Programme for government under the e-Sri Lanka Programme.

The objective of the capacity building programme will be to equip the public sector with skills and competencies urgently needed to manage and administer forthcoming e-government projects, including IT Infrastructure (Lanka Government Network or LGN) and services such as e-Foreign Employment, e-Pensions and e-Divisional Secretariat.

“At present IT literacy levels and PC penetration within the government is extremely low,” the ICTA said in a statement. Under the e-Sri Lanka programme, by the year 2007, 350 government departments, district and divisional secretariats will be equipped with IT infrastructure and connectivity.

To structure the capacity building programme, ICTA has developed an ‘ICT Skills Framework’ identifying the specific skills needed at different staff levels and categories, namely, Senior Managers, CIOs, Project Managers, IT Managers and General Staff.

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