 |
Sri Lanka |
| Source: |
Digital Review, by Ruvan Weerasinghe and Chamindra de Silva, http://www.digital-review.org/uploads/files/pdf/2009-2010/chap-38_sri_lanka.pdf |
| Source Date: |
Wednesday, January 06, 2010 |
| Focus: |
E-Procurement
|
| Country: |
Sri Lanka |
| Created: |
Jan 06, 2010 |
|
Total population 20,010,000 est.a
Literacy rate (disaggregate by gender) Male = 92.3%; female = 89.1%b
GDP per capita (PPP in USD) 4,265 est.c
4,000 est.d
4,259 est.e
Computers per 100 inhabitants 8.2 householdsf
Fixed-line telephones per 100 inhabitants 15.5g
Mobile phone subscribers per 45.7g
100 inhabitants
Internet users per 100 inhabitants 3.65h
4.0i
Domain names registered under .lk 7,000 est.
Broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants 0.33i
Internet domestic bandwidth NA
Internet international bandwidth 0.24 Mbps/10,000 populationj
(Sources: aDCS 2007a; bDCS 2001; cIMF 2008; dCIA 2008a; eWB 2008a;
fDCS 2007b; gTRCSL 2008a; hCIA 2008b; iITU 2008; jWEF 2008)
INTRODUCTION
In South Asia, Sri Lanka is performing
relatively well in terms of per capita GDP, life expectancy,
literacy, economic freedom, and overall policy environment. In
e-Government Readiness rankings (UN 2008), Sri Lanka is 101st
of the 189 countries surveyed, but toward the top of the South
Asian group. The country’s Network Readiness Index (WEF
2008) is 79th among the 127 countries, while its e-Readiness
Index (The Economist 2007a) is 60th among 70 countries.
These fi gures demonstrate the resilience of the economy
and the people of Sri Lanka in the face of the unstable ethnopolitical
situation that has had signifi cant economic and human
costs over the past three decades. This resilience would be
quickly converted to prosperity were the situation in the country
to improve. It is against this hopeful backdrop that the status of
information and communication technology (ICT) in Sri Lanka
is presented in the following sections.
TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE
The telecommunications industry has grown continuously
since its liberalization in the early 1990s and particularly since
the introduction of Global System for Mobile communications
(GSM) for mobile telephony. In 2007, 2.74 million fi xed lines and
almost 8 million mobile subscriptions put Sri Lanka’s teledensity
at 51.3 per 100 inhabitants (TRCSL 2008a). Fixed phone
teledensity is 13.1 (35.2 in the Colombo district) while the
overall mobile teledensity is 38.2.
The mobile telephony sector continues to be the most
aggressive and innovative with the introduction of High-Speed
Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA)-based third generation (3G)
technology by the two main operators, Dialog Telkom and STLMobitel.
With initial coverage in Colombo, this is now available
in many of the main cities.1 In fact, Sri Lanka’s telecoms industry
is known as the fi rst to implement the 3G, 3.5G, and HSDPA
network in South Asia.
Competition in broadband services provision was introduced
in 2007. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
is now available in all cities, with more package options and
with a reduced entry level monthly subscription of USD 10.2
More broadband options using Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology and with bandwidths
of 2–10 Mbps are also available in several major cities.
Dialog Telkom launched a mobile television (TV) service on
3G, while Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has announced that it would
launch Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) by the end of 2008.
Personal computer (PC) penetration has escalated since 2001
when a national census reported only 4 percent of households
owning a computer, according to vendors.3 The Information
and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) believes that
its launching of the e-Sri Lanka low-cost PC in 2004 helped
boost computer sales to a 15–19 percent increase year-on-year,
despite the removal of the duty exemption for computers and
peripherals in 2004.
SLT, the incumbent, has begun rolling out its national backbone
based on Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS)
technology to future proof it for the advent of Next Generation
Network (NGN) services and standards. The 1,500-kilometre
.lk
Sri Lanka
Ruvan Weerasinghe and Chamindra de Silva
Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka 325
high-speed fi bre backbone is organized into multiple regional
rings. The Colombo Metro, Central, and Southern rings are
already in place; the Northern, Eastern, and Uva rings are being
laid out; and rings to cover other major cities are being expanded.
The backbone reaches the last mile via ADSL and
ADSL2/2+ connections ranging from 512 Kbps to 24 Mbps.
Dialog Telekom, which currently has a national fibre
backbone supplemented by their WiMAX technology option
for broadband to the door, claims a coverage of up to 80 percent
of the country.
The National Backbone Network plan of the Telecommunications
Regulatory Commission (TRC) could be realized if
the two big players, SLT and Dialog Telekom, can be persuaded
to complement each other’s efforts.
KEY INSTITUTIONS AND
ORGANIZATIONS DEALING
WITH ICT
The ICTA (www.icta.lk) was set up through an Act of Parliament
in 2003 to implement the ambitious Sri Lanka National
ICT Roadmap through the e-Sri Lanka program (discussed
further under ‘Key ICT Programs’). The ICTA’s mission,
which is closely linked but not identical to the implementation
of the e-Sri Lanka program, has fi ve main branches: building
the information infrastructure, re-engineering government,
private sector development, human resource development, and
empowering citizens through ICT (e-Society).
The ICTA has provided a ‘neutral ground’ where key stakeholders
can interact in a direct way to overcome suspicion of
each others’ motives. For example, in private sector development
and ICT investment promotion, key industry players have
come together to form an advisory committee that decides how a
fund earmarked for this purpose, referred to as the ICT Capacity
Building Fund (ICBP), is best spent. Key interventions by this
informal consortium include:
Providing grants or matching grants for ICT companies to
gain ISO and CMMI — Capability Maturity Model Integration
(SEI 2008) accreditation, train their employees in preidentifi
ed areas of weakness, and expose senior management
to best practices overseas;
Initiating an annual awards event recognizing excellence in
ICT leadership;
Facilitating a matchmaking scheme to link local software
companies with potential large customers overseas; and
Providing research and innovation grants through competition.
Among the telecoms service providers, SLT is the largest
and formerly the only operator of all types of services. Dialog
Telekom is the largest mobile provider: since 2006 it has
restructured and diversifi ed into all types of services. Suntel
is a wireless local loop (WLL) provider now concentrating on
corporate services. Lanka Bell is the other WLL provider and it
is currently planning a major expansion of services. LankaCom
also owns its own submarine link.
In 2005 these companies protested an ICTA plan for a
countrywide high-speed backbone to reach the ‘un-profi table’
rural areas. Subsequently however, they came up with their
own solutions to regional connectivity that resulted in the TRC
engaging the industry to form a public-private partnership for
building a National Backbone Network (TRCSL 2008b).
The Licensed Internet Service Providers Association is an
important player in the infrastructure optimization process since
it houses the Sri Lanka Internet Exchange (LKIX).
The University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC),
University of Moratuwa (UoM), University of Peradeniya (UoP),
Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), and
Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) provide ICT training
at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. The ‘big three’ — UCSC,
UoM, and UoP — also engage in ICT research in collaboration
with international and industry partners. All state universities and
several other smaller private institutes, including the National
Institute of Business Management (NIBM), Asia Pacifi c Institute
for Information Technology (APIIT), and Australian College of
Business and Technology (ACBT), also cater to the senior tiers
of the skilled ICT workforce.
The industry organizations in the ICT fi eld include the
Software Exporters Association (SEA, www.islandsoftware.
org) consisting of some 50 key software exporting companies
aiming to promote Sri Lankan software. The older Sri Lanka
Association for the Software Industry (SLASI, www.slasi.
com) has over 50 member companies. The Sri Lanka Computer
Vendors Association (SLCVA, www.slcva.lk) is composed of
some 50 computer hardware and peripheral suppliers, while
the Association of Computer Training Organizations (ACTOS,
www.actos.lk) includes 30 key ICT training providers. The
Sri Lanka ICT Association (SLICTA, www.slicta.lk) is an
umbrella organization aiming to bring together these and other
associations. The Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL, www.
cssl.lk) is an organization of IT professionals that promotes
continuing education for members and organizes the annual
National IT Conference.
The Infotel Society has held ICT trade exhibitions since
the 1990s. It brings together representation from several key
ICT associations formerly organized as the Federation of IT
Industry in Sri Lanka (FITIS). Closely associated with this
326 Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka
exhibition is the International IT Conference (IITC) organized
by Infotel and managed by the UCSC. More recently, the ITPro
informal ‘open’ grouping of industry organizations has become
an important portal (www.itpro.lk). Also, the leading IT and
business process outsourcing (BPO) associations of Sri Lanka
have decided to come together to make ‘one voice heard in the
indusry’ through the formation of the Sri Lankan Association
of Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM, www.
slascom.lk) modeled on India’s NASSCOM.
Both the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the
Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) have standing/sub
committees on information technology that are the offi cial
channels through which tertiary education institutions and the
non-IT industry coordinate efforts in their respective sectors
and interface with other industry organizations and associations.
The Sri Lanka Export Development Board has its own ICT
Advisory Committee drawn from key organizations to help it
coordinate efforts in promoting the ICT export market locally
and overseas.
To create ICT communities, the president’s office, the
Ministry of Education, and the ICTA have collaborated on
the launching of an eVillages4 initiative in fi ve communities.
Building on the success of the Horizon Village (http://www.
horizonlanka.org/) in Mahavilachchiya, the eVillages initiative
uses ICT as a tool and enabler of socio-economic development,
particularly by the youth in rural communities.
Citizen journalists or bloggers are rapidly becoming an
infl uential community in Sri Lanka. The award-winning Groundviews
blogsite (www.groundsview.org) has matured to publish
excellent journalism and it is beginning to cover a wide
range of issues in the country and the region. Its sister site
Vikalpa (www.vikalpa.org) aims to provide a similar platform
for Sinhala and Tamil citizen journalism. Kottu (www.kottu.org)
remains a key Sri Lankan blog aggregator that also has some
local language blogs in their new listing. The Sinhala Bloggers
Union (www.sinhalabloggers.com) and the Sinhala Blog
Syndicate (www.sinhalablogs.com) aim to promote local
language blogging. These and other efforts bode well for a
stronger civil society.
Another community that could contribute significantly
to the development of the Sri Lankan ICT vision is the Free
and Open Source Software (FOSS) community consisting of
members of the Lanka Linux User Group (LKLUG, www.lug.lk)
and members of the Open Source research and development
(R&D) non-profi t Lanka Software Foundation (LSF, www.
opensource.lk). These two groups, together with the industry
bodies, advocate FOSS under the umbrella community FOSS.
lk (www.foss.lk).
ICT AND ICT-RELATED INDUSTRIES
Sri Lanka’s GDP for 2007 was USD 31.2 billion, representing
a 6.1 percent growth year on year and putting the country at
number 78 out of the 183 countries listed (Wikipedia 2008).
Exports stood at USD 7.9 billion, and imports accounted for
USD 10.4 billion. Services dominated with 56.5 percent of GDP,
followed by agriculture, forestry, and fi shing (16.5 percent);
manufacturing (13.9 percent); construction (9 percent); and
mining (2.2 percent) (The Economist 2007b). The principal
exports were textile/garments, tea, diamond/jewelry, and
software.
Revenues from software export, BPO, and IT-enabled
services (ITES) crossed USD 275 million in 2006, exceeding
the previous year’s income by over 30 percent (ICTA 2007a)
and making this one of the most promising industries for wealth
creation. In fact, Sri Lanka was recently ranked 29th among the
top 50 outsourcing destinations in the Global Services Location
Index. This index takes into account 41 measures in the three
major categories of cost, people skills, and availability (Kearney
2008). In another study (Tholons 2007), Colombo was ranked
7th among top 50 emerging outsourcing cities. In particular
Colombo was recognized as a Centre of Excellence for Financial
and Accounting Outsourcing due to its having the largest pool of
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) trained
accountants outside the United Kingdom (UK).
According to the Software Exporters Association, there are
over 175 software development companies providing products
and services for both the domestic and export markets. IT fi rms
in Sri Lanka that are serving Fortune 500 clients mainly in North
America and Europe adhere to rigorous industry standards and
regulations such as CMMI, ISO 27001, Basel II, SOX, and Data
Protection Acts. Industry associations have identifi ed the following
niche sectors based on existing strengths: banking, fi nancial
and insurance applications, mobile application development,
software testing, and Open Source R&D (FOSS 2007). One of
the largest IT fi rms founded in Sri Lanka was ranked number
one by the Brown-Wilson Group’s annual ‘Black Book’ survey
of Top Outsourcing Vendors in the Wealth Management Industry
(Business Wire 2007).
Investments in the ITES and BPO sector in the last fi ve
years amounted to USD 44 million. To attract additional investments,
the government is offering a tax holiday of 3–12 years
depending on the size of a company. Industry associations
are aiming for a BPO industry revenue of USD 2 billion and
employment of over 100,000 people by 2012. However, the
business environment needs to be improved as a World Bank
study ranked Sri Lanka at a mediocre 101 of 178 countries in
2007 with regard to establishing new business, labour laws,
Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka 327
taxes, infrastructure, investment protection, and licences (World
Bank 2008b).
Current demand for IT professionals is constrained mainly
by lack of youth and graduates with good communication
skills. This problem is partly due to the low capacity of the
education system in Sri Lanka: many students are eligible for
higher education but only a few can be taken into the system,
especially for ICT-based programs. On the other side of the coin,
roles and skill levels in the industry have matured and are now
at par with those in India.
Over 20 percent of graduates are unemployed, signifying a
mismatch between industry demands and education output. Thus,
one of the main thrusts of the ICTA and industry associations
is capacity development. In addition, the government’s Board
of Investment is establishing a partnership with fi rms, such as
India’s Mahindra and Mahindra, to establish IT parks.
KEY ICT POLICIES, THRUSTS,
AND PROGRAMS
Arguably the most important ongoing ICT initiative in the
country is the e-Sri Lanka program being implemented through
the ICTA. The e-Sri Lanka initiative is the umbrella vision of the
government of Sri Lanka to use ICT to develop the economy,
reduce poverty, and improve the people’s quality of life. This
vision is being realized through a fi ve-program strategy: building
the implementation capacity, building information infrastructure,
and an enabling environment, developing ICT human resources,
modernizing government and delivering citizen services, and
leveraging ICT for economic and social development through
public-private partnerships.
Major funding comes from the World Bank and a governmentwide
network funded by the Korean government. Although the
initial investment period ends in 2009, only about 35 percent of
the initial grants have been disbursed to date, and it is likely that
the investment period will be extended. There are also moves to
ensure sustainability by transferring ownership of initiatives to
the key institutions involved in e-Sri Lanka projects.
Two key connectivity projects have been tendered out by
the ICTA. One is for connecting 1,0005 Nenasala Telecentres
(www.nanasala.lk/) scattered around the country with a 128
Kbps link. The other is the more critical Lanka Government
Network (LGN) connecting some 6506 divisional secretariats
and key state institutions distributed throughout the country.
The operators who won the tenders are reaching beyond their
normal areas of operation into less economical areas using newer
technologies such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA),
Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), and Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access (WiMAX).
Re-engineering government is arguably the most ambitious
of the ICTA’s programs. The primary areas for improvement are:
introduction of modern technology, upgrading IT skills, setting
up local and intra networks, initiating ICT leadership within
organizations, and providing a ‘single window’ for government
services to the citizenry. Key local government agencies now
have the necessary ICT equipment and are connected through
the LGN network. Key human resource development strategies
have targeted basic awareness training for 10,000 government
employees and certifi cation level training for up to 4,000 of
them. In addition, around 1,000 are expected to be trained in
technical skills such as system and network operations and
basic maintenance. A cadre of chief information offi cers (CIOs)
in state organizations and divisional secretariats are to be the
‘champions of change’. The ICTA has been actively working
with the independent Administrative Reforms Committee (ARC)
that is now a permanent National Administrative Reforms
Council (NARC).
A ‘single window’ concept for providing government
information to the public was launched in August 2006 with a
short-code number (1919) which provides a gateway to information
about some 250 services provided by 20 agencies.7 The
main government Web portal remains at www.gov.lk. But there
are plans to amalgamate the mostly informational services
provided through this portal into the ambitious LankaGate
portal that will provide a one-stop gateway to transactional
level services for the citizenry. Twenty-fi ve key government
computerization projects have been facilitated by the ICTA
to simplify cumbersome processes and eliminate bureaucratic
delays to transform organizations into the ‘Integrated’ or
‘Connected’8 stage of e-government. An example is the drivethrough
service in Colombo for issuing a motor vehicle revenue
licence.
An interesting program area is the e-Society development
initiative. Aside from the Nenasala training program for
telecentre operators, there is a competitive fund to stimulate
innovative citizen services. Small grants have been used to
experiment on using the FM spectrum to facilitate disaster preparedness,
setting up a secondary school curriculum learning
management system,9 and deploying a Text-2-Braille system in
the Colombo Deaf and Blind School. These and other smaller
grants are expected to feed into services deployed through the
Nenasala Telecentres, with some interesting results beginning
to emerge. Among them are a job portal which also facilitates
transfers of government employees, a cottage BPO industry for
providing Sinhala language translation services, and remote
health services. In addition, the ICTA has recently used the
open source GRails framework technology to rapidly build
an agricultural price tracking solution to support an e-Society
328 Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka
grant application. In the next stage of this project, an SMS-based
interface is expected to be provided for crop price monitoring.
The Government of Sri Lanka has declared 2009 the ‘Year
of English and IT’, giving the ICT industry a boost by funding
several initiatives designed to help empower the human resource
base of the country, and harness its true potential to make Sri
Lanka more competitive in the global IT-BPO industry.
LEGAL AND REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT
FOR ICT DEVELOPMENT
Sri Lanka has been steadily ramping up its regulatory environment
in support of trends toward globalization and outsourcing
(Fernando 2007). Computer software and digital media are given
protection under copyright law. In addition, ‘Computer’ and
‘Computer Program’ have been explicitly defi ned in the 2000
Amendment to the Code of Intellectual Property and the
Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003 (WIPO 2001). The
recently enacted Computer Crimes Act No. 24 of 2007 further
enhances the protection measures already available for software
(ICTA 2007b). And with the most recent amendment to the
Intellectual Property Law in Sri Lanka, protected rights now
include copyright, patents, trademarks, service marks, industrial
designs, certifi cation marks, unfair competition, undisclosed
information and layout designs of integrated circuits (Sirisena
and Kahatapitiya 2006). Patents remain valid for 20 years,
industrial designs for fi ve years and registered marks for 10
years from the date of grant.
Disclosure and acquisition of information without the
consent of the rightful owner would constitute an act of unfair
competition and there is statutory protection for Non-
Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) that many fi rms now utilize to
protect their intellectual property rights (IPR) and those of their
clients. IP infringement is a punishable offense in Sri Lanka and
the country is a signatory to several international conventions
and treaties on intellectual property (BOI 2008). The National
Intellectual Property Offi ce (NIPO, www.nipo.lk) administers
the intellectual property system and the director general of
intellectual property has been empowered to conduct dispute
resolution.
The Computer Crimes Act also criminalizes attempts at
unauthorized access, modifi cation, deletion, interception or
denial of service to a computer, computer program, data or information.
It contains a provision dealing with unauthorized use of
computers regardless of whether the offender had authority to
access the computer concerned (Fernando 2006a; LBO 2007).
The Electronic Transactions Act of 2006 was enacted to
provide a legal framework for and to facilitate the expansion of
electronic transactions and contracts (Fernando 2005, 2006b).
Included in the law are modalities for the use of electronic
records and electronic signatures in government institutions and
statutory bodies. It also stipulates procedures for the appointment
and accreditation of a certifi cation authority. Most of the
provisions are based on the United Nations Commission on International
Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on e-Commerce
(1996) and the Model Law on e-Signatures (2001).
The main gap that remains is a data privacy law that the
government needs to enact to build greater confi dence among
the country’s trading partners, especially in the European
Union (LBO 2008b). In enforcement, the government has
decided that investigation capability in computer crime should
be strengthened, and a Computer Crimes Unit with computer
forensic skills should be established. The ICTA has started a
program to develop capacity in computer crime investigation
at the Police Department. Additionally, a National Computer
Emergency Response Team (SL-CERT, www.slcert.gov.lk) has
been established by the government with subject matter experts
in Information Security.
In telecoms regulation, the Telecommunication Regulatory
Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL, www.trc.gov.lk) issues
licences to operate basic telecom service, import telecoms apparatus,
and manage the radio frequency spectrum. It regulates
the telecom industry and resolves disputes on matters related
to interconnection.
DIGITAL CONTENT
All government websites are required to be multilingual (in
Sinhala, Tamil, and English) and to use Unicode fonts. A local
languages portal containing software required for this purpose is
available at www.locallanguages.lk/, with the Sinhala version at
www.siyabas.lk/, and the Tamil version at www.emathumozhihal.
lk/. These sites also have links to key local language websites.
The Google country search interface now allows searches of
local language websites encoded in Unicode, while an older
but useful search service, www.sinhalasearch.com/, is able to
decode most proprietary Sinhala encodings on-the-fl y and render
search results (and the relevant page if needed) in Unicode.
Another useful webpage translation tool released by the UCSC
is available as a Firefox plug-in with the twin objectives of
making English Web content understandable while at the same
time helping users expand their English vocabulary.
There are also Sinhala Unicode Communities promoting the
use of Unicode for Sinhala and freelance bloggers organizing
themselves into community journalism forums. Most Sinhala and
Tamil newspapers have online versions, with several switching
to Unicode as the standard encoding.
Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka 329
A large corpus of Sinhala text in various genres has been
compiled by the Language Technology Research Laboratory at
the UCSC.10 There are projects aiming to generate new content
or to translate existing English content. A parallel activity has
been the localizing of software applications.
A learning management system (LMS) called Shilpa
Sayura (www.shilpasayura.org) enables the creation of learning
materials in Sinhala for high school subjects. It received awards
from the Global Knowledge Partnership in Kuala Lampur,
Malaysia in 2007 and the Stockholm Challenge in Education
in Stockholm, Sweden in 2008.
ONLINE SERVICES
Government Services
Currently, almost all government institutions have a presence
on the Web. Although most of these websites merely provide
information, some government websites provide services that
at least cut down the number of visits a person has to make to
the government offi ce in Colombo by giving clear instructions
and making available the necessary forms for download. The
1919 Government Information Centre (GIC, gic.gov.lk) provides
a particularly useful service over the phone in the three main
languages used in Sri Lanka. More recently, the Registries of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages have been computerized and all
of the Colombo District-based Grama Sevaka (GS, the lowest
government administrative level, originally based on the village
headman) divisions have been networked, thereby allowing
individuals to transact with any nearby GS Offi ce without
having to go to their own ‘home’ offi ce (see ‘e-Sri Lanka
Procurement’).
e-Commerce
e-Commerce sites continue to populate the local Internet,
with some providing transactional services. Smaller retailers,
particularly those targeting expatriate Sri Lankans who want
to purchase goods and services for their relations in Sri Lanka,
are increasing in number. Business portals such as www.
srilankabusiness.org provide allied services and links to online
businesses.
In a new and exciting development, the Horizon Lanka
Foundation has started a new BPO thrust with the incubation of
one of the fi rst rural BPO companies.11 It provides various data
services, including entry, verifi cation and scanning, and offers
Web and graphics design outsourcing. It recently signed up
with a leading Sri Lankan conglomerate, John Keels Holdings,
to provide such services to and through them.
e-Sri Lanka Procurement
The main issue with the traditional ‘waterfall’ based procurement process is that the end-user (i.e. the government
unit or organization) is unable to envision the type of ICT solution needed while the solution provider has very little
understanding of how the government works. A new approach utilizes agile development methodologies and incremental
refi nement of requirements to produce an evolving solution where the end-user’s needs are gradually fi ne-tuned as they
become more aware of how to effectively articulate their ICT and business process re-engineering needs. Additionally, to
remove vendor lock-in and develop a transparent solution, the high-level architecture is defi ned by the ICT agency and
aspects of the business requirement are broken into modules which are given separately to different vendors to develop
independently and incrementally.
In this alternative approach, an initial high-level system study is used to defi ne an overall architectural view.
The objective is to build/assemble the solution by formulating more than one project based on a logical module/
service/component breakup. The feasibility of such a ‘composed’ solution is fi rst validated with a thin-slice prototype
implementation by leveraging FOSS packages and frameworks. The ICTA then partners with software services providers
to implement each module/service/component using identifi ed FOSS-based technologies to prevent vendor lock-in,
facilitate rapid solution development, and reduce the initial deployment costs while enabling the Government of Sri Lanka
(GOSL) to retain ownership of the IP and source code. In this way, the GOSL derives the ability to improve, customize
and deploy the solution anywhere in the country, at minimal additional cost. Long-term solution support and maintenance
are also procured from a solution services provider, who in turn is typically expected to obtain an appropriate support
licence/agreement from the relevant FOSS product vendor.
Currently, the Sri Lanka country portal LankaGate, one of the largest eSri Lanka projects, is being implemented using
this novel approach. The upcoming welfare project eSamurdhi is also expected to employ this procurement methodology.
330 Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka
ICT EDUCATION AND CAPACITYBUILDING
PROGRAMS
One of the components of the Secondary Education Modernization
Project (SEMP, www.moe.gov.lk/semp/) of the Ministry of
Education is employing IT as a tool to facilitate learning. Aside
from basic computer skills, teachers have been trained to use
Computer Aided Learning (CAL) to develop instructional
materials. Computer laboratories have been set up in over 1,000
schools and together they form a network of schools (SchoolNet,
www.schoolnet.lk). In addition, 90 Computer Resource Centres
(CRCs) established in the early 1990s have been enhanced to
serve schools in their regions through ICT and CAL training
programs. Several national Colleges of Education are training
ICT teachers. There is a plan to have a College of Education
dedicated to training ICT and CAL teachers for the schools.
In the tertiary education sector, a World Bank-funded
project to improve the quality and relevance of undergraduate
education (IRQUE, www.irque.lk) is underway in all state and
the larger private tertiary educational institutions. Organizations
participating in this project are required to upgrade their ICT
infrastructure, facilities, and services. In addition, all Arts and
Commerce undergraduates receive basic ICT training.
Furthermore, the inter-university Lanka Education and
Research Network (LEARN, www.learn.ac.lk) connecting
all state universities and several research institutes has been
enhanced from the previous 2 Mbps backbone to 10 Mbps
with capability to scale to 100 Mbps. LEARN’s Internet
connectivity has also been signifi cantly enhanced from 7 Mbps
to 45 Mbps.
The Distance Education Modernization Project (DEMP,
www.depp.lk/demp.php) funded by the Asian Development
Bank aims to facilitate the scaling up of higher education through
the development and support of online distance education
programs. It has an infrastructure component closely linked
with the regional centre modernization of the Open University,
a networking component to link all online education providers,
and a distance education capacity and quality improvement
component.
Two active online learning communities are the e-BIT (www.
bit.lk) for undergraduate students and the award-winning Shilpa
Sayura (www.shilpasayura.org) program for high school students
in rural Sri Lanka. Both have received international recognition
as innovations in the use of ICTs for education.
Also, at the secondary education level, the Ministry of
Education has completed a pilot project to convert three
of the most used text books in Year 6 and Year 10 into eText
books distributed on CD. Eighteen of the most widely needed
texts will be converted to eBook format in 2008 (see ‘eBIT:
Scaling up Terliary Education in ICT through Public-Private
Partnership’).
The fi rst major assessment of IT literacy in Sri Lanka was
made through the national census of 2001. The results, which
were released in 2003–2004, showed that the average IT
literacy in the country was a mere 9.7 percent. This is reported
to have grown to 16.1 percent in 2006/2007 (DCS 2007b), due
to various ICT awareness and literacy projects. A National IT
Quiz organized by the UCSC in 2006–2007 has enhanced awareness
of IT careers among high school students, their teachers
and parents. An ICTA-sponsored Careers Fair (NICS ’07) also
helped improve awareness of IT among students planning to
pursue tertiary education. In addition, ICTA’s e-Citizen project
aims to reach 100,000 people nationwide through a specially
prepared curriculum.
The Ministry of Education introduced a General IT course
for all Advanced Level (Grades 12 and 13) high school students
in 2004. From 2006, an IT subject was introduced at
the Ordinary Level (Grades 10 and 11). There are plans to introduce
a Grade 6–9 IT curriculum to coincide with the development
of a new cadre for the IT teacher service to be established
soon.
All 15 state universities and several private institutes with a
franchise on overseas degrees offer computer science, computer
engineering, IT/ICT degrees, as well as degrees in which IT
is a component or a minor. According to a recent survey,12 the
country needs 5,755 new IT graduates in 2008. However, existing
programs are known to produce slightly less than 50 percent of
the number of IT graduates needed each year. Thus, the aim of the
UCSC’s e-BIT program and the DEMP project is to increase the
total online undergraduate population to 40,000.
Several universities, most notably the UCSC, UoM, UoP,
and SLIIT, also offer heavily subscribed Master’s level IT and
computer science programs with various specializations. In
addition, the UCSC and UoM offer research degrees leading
to an MPhil and PhD, often in collaboration with international
universities.
OPEN SOURCE/OPEN CONTENT
INITIATIVES
The FOSS movement in Sri Lanka started with the Lanka Linux
User Group (www.lug.lk) established in 1998 with 40 members
and fi ve advisors. It has since grown to a diverse community of
over 500 technical users of Linux and related FOSS applications
across the country. Linux User Groups also exist in universities
to promote mutual learning and adoption of FOSS. In 2001
the Lanka Software Foundation (www.opensource.lk) was
established by a Sri Lankan IBM researcher as an open source
Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka 331
eBIT: Scaling up Tertiary Education in ICT through Public–Private Partnership
Sri Lanka has one of the lowest university enrolment rates in the world, with only about 2 percent of the age cohort
having access to the very few places available for undergraduate study. To scale up ICT education, which it recognized
as important for meeting the chronic shortage of IT workers, the UCSC worked within the very restrictive state higher
education system and without dependence on state funding.
Through a series of grants from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the UCSC set up an eLearning Centre which pioneered tertiary level
e-learning both for in-campus programs and its fl agship Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) program. The threeyear
BIT program, fi rst launched in 2000 when Internet access was limited, initially only provided an informational website
with instructions, curricula, question papers with answers and examination results. In its fi rst three-year curriculum cycle,
it enlisted the support of several leading private ICT training institutes to provide tuition in the regions in what has become
a landmark public-private partnership (PPP).
Students can temporarily or permanently exit with a Diploma after completing their fi rst year or with a Higher Diploma
after completing their second year. Thus, this innovative program has provided a fl exible and scalable solution to
expanding IT education at the tertiary level. In its second revision in 2003 the BIT introduced an online component in
addition to its website (http://www.bit.lk/). The new e-BIT is a full-fl edged e-learning platform providing interactive online
learning content, quizzes and assignments, and attracting some 1,500 enrolees each academic year. More than 5,000 of
its 15,000 student population are active during any year, with many opting to do the degree in stages. In 2007, the UCSC
began conducting its own e-testing service for the BIT program through its e-testing centre in Colombo. This is expected
to be decentralized during the coming year, in partnership with the DEMP project’s 26 Access Centres affi liated with the
Open University of Sri Lanka, to truly bring the benefi ts of higher education in IT to the community.
The eBIT project was recently recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientifi c, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) and it received special mention in the Innovative Use of ICT in Education Award in 2008.
R&D non-profi t organization. These two key organizations,
with the support of the Sri Lankan ICT industry and signifi cant
investments from well-known global organizations such
as Google, IBM, the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the National Science Foundation
(US), Intel, Redhat and MySQL, have fuelled the adoption of
FOSS and FOSS R&D in Sri Lanka.
The landmark advocacy event was the National FOSS
Week in 2005 which attracted over 1,000 participants (FOSS
2006). In 2006 the main FOSS event was ApacheCon Asia
(apachecon.com/2006/Asia/), the fi rst time an Apache Conference
(ApacheCon) was held outside North America or Europe.
In addition, numerous events are organized throughout the year
by the FOSS community to take open source and open content
to the general public.
There is a special focus on ICT in rural schools. However,
the Ministry of Education has not adopted open source in its IT
curriculum, which is still based on proprietary technologies. In
contrast, universities are benefi ting from an increased demand
for open source courses which they offer to their students and
as short courses for the IT industry.
The ICTA, in partnership with some of the main computer
software vendors, has launched the e-Sri Lanka PC (www.icta.
lk/insidepages/programmes/e-Sri_Lanka_PC.asp) which is
pre-loaded with Linux and open source software as a low-cost
alternative to desktop computing. However, for better adoption
of open source software, there should be better training programs
and a support network for users.
Additionally, the newly established OLPC Lanka Foundation,
in partnership with the Ministry of Education and with
support from the World Bank, is promoting the One Laptop per
Child (OLPC) project to help bridge the digital divide (Bandula
2008).
Open source development has been identifi ed as a growth
sector for the country and there are now numerous companies
supporting open source products and based on open source
innovation and services.
In open content, the most signifi cant initiative is the MIT
Open Courseware which in Sri Lanka is hosted on the academic
LEARN network (ocw.learn.ac.lk). Although Sri Lanka has
a relatively high literacy rate, most content is in Sinhala,
the dominant language. A large part of global open content
repositories, such as Wikipedia, is not available in Sinhala and
Tamil. To mitigate this, a dynamic translation tool called EnSiTip
has been developed by the UCSC and is available as a plug-in
to the open source Web browser Firefox (LBO 2006).
332 Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka
The importance of ‘funding a broad program to foster Open
Source software development in Sri Lanka’ is stated in the
e-Sri Lanka program Project Appraisal Document. Popularizing
the use of FOSS applications and providing training to transfer
expertise to the grassroots are expected to help build a strong
workforce who would be conversant not only in the use of FOSS
technology, but also in the design of new technology to suit the
country’s needs.
ICT AND ICTD RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT
The UCSC has research groups working in local language
technologies, distributed computing, wireless and ad hoc
sensor networks, e-learning, geographical information systems,
and computer visualization. There are also research efforts in
information security, strategic business systems, and disaster
management. Several have international collaboration and are
funded by external agencies.
In localization and language processing, much has been
done in the standardizing process as well as ensuring the proper
functioning of Sinhala and Tamil on computers while at the
same time developing software for optical character recognition
and text-to-speech chiefl y for Sinhala. In addition, some key
resources such as a 10m word text corpus, several lexical and
morphological data have been collected for Sinhala. Research
is also underway in handwriting and speech recognition for
Sinhala. The software developed is also being tested on Sri
Lankan Tamil to adopt or adapt them for use in Tamil language
work.
The Wireless ad hoc Sensor Network Lab (WASN) at the
UCSC was established in February 2006 with assistance from
the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER)
and the Ericsson Microwave Systems AB. Currently, the centre’s
main focus is developing a sensor network called BusNet to
be deployed over a public transport system. BusNet sensors
mounted on public transport buses will monitor environmental
pollution and road surface conditions. The collected data is to
be ‘transported’ to a central collection point over the public
transport network. This is pioneering work and some US and
European universities have included published papers on BusNet
in the required reading lists of their sensor network courses.
The University of Moratuwa has been involved in research
with several private companies such as Dialog, Microimage
and Zone 24×7 through its innovative University Industry Cell
(Unic) to develop several technologies for communication and
disaster alert.
Sri Lanka has also built a reputation for R&D in FOSS. Sri
Lankan open source software developers have made signifi cant
contributions to organizations such as Apache where they
(contributors from Sri Lanka) represent over 5 percent of the
organization’s global strength. There are several leading global
open source R&D projects led by Sri Lankans in Web services,
disaster management, Linux graphical interface, and networking
applications. One of these is Sahana (http://www.sahana.
lk/), developed to help manage the scale of the Asian Tsunami
in December 2004 and deployed by the government’s Centre of
National Operations (CNO), which included the Consortium of
Humanitarian Agencies (CHA). SIDA funded a second phase
through the LSF to generalize the application for global use and
to help in any large scale disaster.
Sahana is now globally recognized, with deployments in
many other disaster situations, including the Asian Quake
(Pakistan) in 2005, the Mudslide Disaster (Philippines) in 2006,
the Yogyarkata Earthquake in 2006 (Indonesia), the Bangladesh
Floods in 2007, and the Peru Earthquake in 2007. Sahana has
won awards by Redhat and by Software 2006 (USA) and it has
been featured in a BBC documentary called ‘Code Breakers’. It
was a fi nalist in the Stockholm Challenge in 2007, and it received
the June 2007 Sourceforge ‘Project of the Month’ title. It has
also had the active support of the IBM crisis response team.
The Sahana community now consists of more than 200 disaster
management experts, emergency management practitioners,
humanitarian consultants, non-government organizations
(NGOs), academics, and FOSS developers from around the
world but mainly from Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand,
Thailand, the UK, and the US.
Another good indicator of Sri Lanka’s strength in R&D is
the Google Summer of Code, where students are sponsored
by Google to contribute to FOSS projects worldwide. Sri
Lanka consistently ranks in the top 10 countries (GOOGLE
2008a). In 2008, the biggest group of students selected from a
single university came from the UoM in Sri Lanka (GOOGLE
2008b).
CHALLENGES AND
OPPORTUNITIES
A major challenge to Sri Lanka’s continued development is the
long drawn out civil war. This prevents the nation and its citizens
from taking full advantage of the many opportunities that lie at
its doorstep. An end to the war will mean an end to hesitation by
investors, a reversal of the brain drain, and the discontinuance
of propaganda that dilutes the potential and talents of the Sri
Lankan people.
Digital Review of Asia Pacifi c 2009–2010 ‘.lk’ Sri Lanka 333
Sri Lanka’s size compared to that of major players in the
BPO and ITES sectors, such as India and China, prevents it
from competing in areas that require a lot of human resources.
Instead, it needs to pursue its own unique strategy for moving
up the value chain by building on its strengths in niche areas.
For instance, Sri Lanka is well positioned to provide globalized
solutions to the emerging consumer societies of India and China.
It can capitalize on its strengths in various professional service
sectors such as accountancy, fi nance, healthcare and legal
advice, which are at par with Western standards. In FOSS R&D,
Sri Lanka has established itself as a major player globally.
Moreover, the relatively high human development index and
quality of life and the many award-winning projects in various
sectors in academia and industry are a good indication of a
culture of innovation that may be leveraged further.
Sri Lanka is also strategically placed as a neutral non-aligned
hub for Asia. Its relatively high economic freedom index in Asia,
its membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC), and its strong ties to many other strategic
nations in Asia (from Japan and China in the east, to Pakistan
and Iran in the west) position it well to mediate and add value to
economic relationships between these regions and nations.
NOTES
1. Some 90 cities are listed in http://www.dialog.lk/en/mobile/
technology/3g/coverage_list.html
2. This is for a 512 Kbps link with monthly cap of 100 Mb. The
unlimited subscription remains at USD 25.
3. However, these vendors are unable to give good estimates of either
the total numbers or their regional distribution.
4. Information on the eVillages initiative is available at http://evillage.
wordpress.com/
5. To date, nearly 500 Nenasala Telecentres are operational.
6. Around 325 of these sites have already been connected.
7. For more details, see the Government Information Service (GIC)
website at http://www.gic.gov.lk
8. This goes beyond the ‘transactional’ stage to a point where all
internal processes of an agency are also integrated to citizen,
business and government services. (See, for instance, the 2008 UN
e-Government Survey for a fuller defi nition.)
9. Named ‘Shilpa Sayura’, this effort won awards at the GKP Summit
of 2007 and the 2008 Stockholm Challenge.
10. Information on this 10m word corpus and other language technology
tools and resources is available at http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/
11. This fi rst company is called OnTime Technologies and can be
accessed at http://www.ontimetechnologies.net/
12. The ICT Workforce Survey may be downloaded from http://www.
itpro.lk/?q=node/100
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