Fourteenth FCCISL Sri Lankan Entrepreneur of the Year Award
The choosing of the Sri Lankan Entrepreneur of the Year conducted by
the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL)
is now on.
The launch of the event took place at Taj Samudra Hotel and at the
press conference following the launch, President, FCCISL Kosala
Wickramanayake, said that the 14th Sri Lankan Entrepreneur of the Year -
2008 will be held in December this year.
Wickramanayake said that the Entrepreneur Awards gathers importance
and year by year getting stronger with wider acceptance as a unique
national recognition of the entrepreneurial skills and achievements in
Sri Lanka. The main purpose is to motivate entrepreneurs to reach the
best level of excellence.
Chairman, Multichemi International (Pvt) Ltd, Samantha Kumarasinghe,
Sri Lankan Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 Platinum Award Winner, the
guest speaker said that it is undoubtedly the most prestigious award any
Sri Lankan entrepreneur could achieve, to be the best among the
outstanding entrepreneurs.
He said it would be more advantageous for the entrepreneurs in Sri
Lanka to invent a unique product and create an export market, rather
than import some products and have a great struggle to market it
locally, competing with other similar products.
Kumarasinghe said that while accepting that the Entrepreneur of the
Year Award to be the most prestigious and outstanding in Sri Lanka, the
winning of the award must get wider awareness not only in this country
but also in abroad, because the awareness that the entrepreneurial
prowess is publicly recognized, could bring them more business and the
excellence of quality and credibility of the product is publicly
guaranteed.
He said that this kind of publicity is lacking in Sri Lanka but is a
widely propagated attitude in other countries, as such award winners are
given the widest publicity possible in those countries. He urged that a
process should be created that such awareness campaign to be launched in
Sri Lanka too so that the impetus of excellence created could be
advantaged.
He said that such accolades are not without suffering as there could
be imitation of their products and in fact they had to seek the
assistance of the CID on certain such issues.
This year too, in addition to the normal awards, the special
categories - Woman Entrepreneur of the Year and the Young Entrepreneur
of the Year would also be adjudged.
The classification of the awards would be: Provincial, Sectoral
-Agribusiness, Industry, Services and Trading and Size - Micro and
Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large. The total investment in Micro and
Small has to be less than Rs two million; Medium between Rs 2 mn and 20
mn; Large between Rs 20 mn and 50 mn and Extra Large would have to be
more than Rs 50 million.
Each category in the provincial competition would be awarded Gold,
Silver and Bronze and in the National Awards there would be Platinum,
Gold, Silver and Bronze and total awards presented would be 25.
The evaluation of the best entrepreneur would be in four stages -
Preliminary Screening and Elimination; Desk Review; Site Visits and
Individual Interviews by the panel of judges. The applications could be
obtained from the FCCISL Secretariat and the applications will be closed
by August 31, 2009. |