Advertorial

Standard Chartered wins global business coalition award for HIV education program:

GBC Business Excellence Awards recognise

'Living with HIV' initiative

The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has honoured Standard Chartered with the 'Community Investment' award at their annual Business Excellence Awards.

Living with HIV ('LwHIV') is a comprehensive, prevention-focused HIV education program, developed with input from leading HIV experts around the globe. It was launched as an internal workplace initiative in 1999, in response to HIV-related employee absenteeism in one of the Standard Chartered's African markets and, due to its success, was subsequently rolled out globally across the bank's operations. In the decade since, LwHIV has evolved and been extended to whole communities through partnerships with both the private and public sector. Underlining its commitment to preventing HIV in the wider community, in 2006, the bank made a pledge to the Clinton Global Initiative, to educate one million people on HIV and AIDS by 2010.

Head of Legal and Compliance and Assurance at Standard Chartered Bank, Rasadari Perera said, "In the absence of a cure or vaccine, the only hope of tackling HIV is to educate people on how to avoid contracting it in the first place. Over the last decade LwHIV has fostered successful collaboration between companies, governments, NGOs and the community in the fight against HIV, and has proven to be an immensely scalable model for sharing resources and best practice. With the global recession threatening health initiatives worldwide, the private sector has a vital role to play in contributing expertise to help fill the growing gaps in government and multilateral funding. Otherwise we risk reversing the progress made so far in improving global health and creating more sustainable communities."

LwHIV is a volunteer-led program, providing the bank's core skills and resources, free - from peer-to-peer education sessions through to educational materials - making it extremely low cost to implement. The global program is driven at a country level, to ensure it effectively meets differing local needs, through an employee network that spans a footprint of over 75 countries.

"These awards are given to an elite group of companies who set the standard for excellence in business action to defeat disease," said GBC President and CEO John Tedstrom. "They show what a business can do, and how to do it exceedingly effectively. We need more businesses to take this kind of action. The fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria cannot be won without the corporate sector stepping up and playing an active role - and Standard Chartered Bank is doing exactly the kind of thing that all companies can and should do. Standard Chartered Bank doesn't just talk, they take action. And their action saves lives," he said.

Other companies honoured at the awards include Marathon Oil Corporation, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Unilever, Anglo American plc, Levi Strauss and Co. and Chevron Corporation. The awards will be presented at the GBC Business Excellence Awards Dinner in Washington, D.C on June 24.

Empowering the Public Service:

SLT reaffirms strong commitment

Sri Lanka Telecom, held a Forum under the theme "Empowering the Public Service". The aim of the event was to further reinforce the SLT's strong commitment to support public service in Sri Lanka. Top ranking executives of State institutions were present.

As a vital part of SLT's strategy, the company will maintain its support towards the State institutions in their important task of rebuilding the national administrative and service infrastructure in the North and the East. The company also aims to further facilitate its role in creating new business opportunities by addressing the requirements in line with Government's drive to manage costs in all public sector institutions.

Close associations

The Chairperson, Sri Lanka Telecom Leisha De Silva Chandrasena said, "We have always had very close associations with State institutions and departments. As the national communications service provider in the island, we share the same ideology as you, of providing excellent service to the nation. We are extremely proud to offer our unwavering commitment to the development framework in the North and the East.

Solid communication infrastructure is integral to achieve accelerated growth as well as more equitable development in those regions. I am proud to say that our company is well poised to take up new challenges.

Long history

SLT has made huge investments in building and maintaining islandwide infrastructure, which is Sri Lanka's communication backbone, and we will continue to fulfill all requirements, with the aim of having our customers and the nation as a whole, to reap those benefits for a long time to come."

SLT has a long history of reaching out to the state sector, which includes supporting the Government's Lanka Government Network initiative, which connects 325 government offices in the Western, Central, Southern and Sabaragamuwa provinces via IP VPN under a single, unified network. SchoolNet, which was initiated by the Government to facilitate dedicated Internet access to over 1,000 schools and other educational institutes, has been provided through a network put in place by SLT.

ICT revolution

The Lanka Education and Research Network (LEARN) is also testimony to SLT's commitment in enhancing modern education in Sri Lanka. It has also been the flag bearer of the ICT revolution in Sri Lanka, ensuring the provision of world-class services through cutting edge technology to our customers. SLT Intelligent Solutions represent a range of integrated ICT solutions for State institutions and corporates, which encompasses data, voice, video and networking services, which are on par with international standards. A wide range of government organizations and multinational corporations in addition to retail customers have entrusted their total communication solutions to SLT, having recognized our services to be the most reliable and sophisticated in the island."

SLT has already introduced state-of-the-art technology to offer affordable products for the Government sector and its converged network of fixed, mobile and internet services has now capacitated towards providing a total communications solution for small and medium enterprises.

Wide range of benefits

Among the wide range of benefits with an SLT solution, are the direct cost saving for direct and inter-branch communication in addition to making operations smoother by enabling them to communicate between the head office and the regional, project and site offices. This will diversify the efficiency of business and the country's economy.

Also in keeping with global trends, the corporate entity has transformed its network to have a focus on convergence based on an Internet Protocol (IP) platform. This can provide multiple services such as voice, data, video and mobility on one network. SLT offers the latest IP based breakthrough communication service, which is designed to further empower productivity, profitability as well as increasing workforce mobility.