Sri Lanka to head APCICT

The governing council of Asian and Pacific Trading Centre for ICT Development APCICT has appointed APCICT's representative for Sri Lanka and Member of the Board of Directors of the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), Ravi Senanayake, as Chairman of APCICT. The appointment took place at the fourth session of APCICT's Governing Council held in Incheon, Republic of Korea recently. Senanayake's appointment was unanimously approved by the 14 representatives of the member countries.

The APCICT, a regional institution of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), was set up in the Republic of Korea in 2006. The role of APCICT is to strengthen the efforts of the 62 ESCAP member and associate member countries to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in their socio-economic development, through human resource and institutional capacity building.

APCICT's work is focused on three inter-related pillars, Training, Research and Knowledge Sharing and Advisory Services in an integrated approach towards ICT human capacity building. The core activity of APCICT is the "Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders" (Academy). This is APCICT's flagship program that includes a comprehensive coverage of the ICT for Development curriculum. The academy was conceptualised, developed and implemented adopting a participatory and inclusive approach where the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, during the curriculum development stage, contributed with its experience in capacity building programs for senior Government officials. There are eight modules in the Academy in three languages (English, Bahasa Indonesia and Russian) and two new modules are being developed on "ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction' and 'Climate Change and ICT', based on demands from member states.