Host of ICT events this month

Two conferences - SEARCC 2006 and IITC 2006, the Infotel Lanka Exhibition and a host of events organized by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and others will be highlights of the National ICT Week.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the request of the ICTA obtained Cabinet approval to declare the period 9th to 15th October as the National Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Week thus emphasizing the Governments commitment towards supportig ICT, the state IT agency said.

The ICT week will begin with the signing of the award of contract for the US$15 million LakGovNet project sponsored by the Korean gvernment. That would equip and digitally connect a large number of Divisional Secretariats, Ministries and key government departments to each other so as the interchange information as well as to provide ICT based citizen services. This would be followed by a seminar for Secretaries of Ministries on capitalizing on the state ICT infrastructure that is being established by the ICT Agency. Later on the same day, the preliminary results of a BPO survey conducted for ICTA will be released at a Press Conference and ICTA’s regular Private Sector Forum will follow after that. Finally the award Ceremony for e-Journalists trained by ICTA will take place at 7 p.m at the Crystal Ballroom of Taj Samudra Hotel.

The Annual Industry Focused ICT Conference of the South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation SEARCC will be on 10th and 11th at the BMICH Committee Room B on the Theme “Value Creation in the Modern Economy” with 20 excellent presentations.

The 8th International IT Conference on the Theme “innovations for a Knowledge Economy” will be held on the 12th and 13th at the BMICH with eight keynote addresses, 31 research presentations and 12 poster presentations.

The Infotel Lanka ICT Exhibition will be inaugurated by Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology on the 12th and will continue till the 15th at the Sirimavo Bandaranayake Exhibition Centre.