Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka ( FITIS) has made arrangements to hold it's annual Tech Forum on 16th February at Colombo Hilton. This year's topic will be industry's much talked about technology, Cloud Computing.

Mr. Sudarshana Welihinda, Vice President of FITIS Software Chapter SLASI

The SLASI Tech Forum is considered to be an annual independent forum on emerging new technologies, which is organized by the Sri Lanka Association for the Software Industry (SLASI). Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka ( FITIS) is the umbrella organization for the ICT industry in Sri Lanka of which SLASI is the software chapter . Every year the Tech Forum involves a cutting edge technology topic of discussion, which is presented and discussed by industry leaders.

The Sunday Times spoke to Mr. Damith Hettihewa, CEO of FITIS , Mr. Sudarshana Welihinda, Vice President of FITIS Software Chapter SLASI and Mr. Nayane Gunawardena, project Chairman of the SLASI Tech Forum 2010 to find out more about the event.

Mr. Gunawardena, who is the architect of the TechForum speaking on the main objective behind organizing this event said, "The main focus of the TechForum is to bring to light the emerging technologies taking place internationally, where in which we can have our own forum to adopt and learn about new developments. The Tech Forum initially started in the year 2005 and from the very beginning it became a very unique event where upcoming and new development IT technologies are discussed in an open forum, which annually revolves around a particular theme of discussion."

Mr. Damith Hettihewa, CEO of FITIS

"This year the Tech Forum theme is on Cloud Computing, which combines all computing resources to a central location, whereby based on ones need, users can access these resources. These resource clouds include areas such as Customer Relations Management and Financial and other vertical solutions. The Cloud Computing concept has become quite popular due to the fact that it greatly cuts down on cost and the internal resources and end users can have access to this system on a subscription model by using only an Internet connection. Through Cloud Computing organizations now have the freedom to focus more on their business development without having to be concerned about the fact of having the proper IT resources in order to drive their businesses forward", says SLASI Vice President Mr. Sudarshana Welihinda.

Cloud Computing which could extend to all aspects of IT with concepts such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) , Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as Service (SaaS) has also fast gained popularity among the vendor community, where today IT companies are re-looking at how they package and license software and infrastructure product offerings. For an example Initially it was a challenge for software companies to sell their software, which takes quite an effort and a large investment. Software companies recover this cost from their license revenue; however the global economic downturn has resulted in software companies to deal with many challenges, where selling their software has become a difficult task. Cloud computing therefore has greatly assisted software companies by enabling them to change their licensing systems to that of a subscription model.

Mr. Nayane Gunawardena, project Chairman of the SLASI Tech Forum 2010

Apart from software Cloud Computing involves the entire gamut of IT infrastructure, which includes hardware and network providers etc. and has revolutionized the way in which parties concerned sell their products and services.

Speaking about the Tech forum FITIS CEO Mr Damith Hettihewa said, promoting information technology usage in vital sectors of the economy is one FITIS's main objectives. Because we believe that wider usage of Information technology results in productivity gains and in turn enhance competitiveness of Sri Lankan industries. Technologies such as cloud computing particularly bring the benefit such as sharing technology capex among multiple businesses and sharing the risk of technology becoming obsolete.

In conclusion Mr Hettihewa said, "This year's Tech Forum will see the participation of international speakers as well as overseas participants which has placed this annual event on an international platform. The principal sponsor of the event is Suntel which is a local innovator and a leader with regards to Cloud Computing service provisioning to enterprises. In addition to Suntel Microsoft, CISCO and IBM which are global innovators of the Cloud Computing concept will also partner the event."

In addition to the software chapter SLASI, the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka ( FITIS) comprises of Sri Lanka Computer Vendors Association(SLCVA) the hardware chapter , Association of Computer Training Organizations ( ACTOS) the Training chapter, Licensed Internet Service Providers Association ( LISPA) / Telecom Providers Association ( TPA) ,the telecommunication chapter and Information Systems Audit and Control Association ( ISACA) the professional chapter which includes more than 300 IT systems audit and control professionals.