BIZ TECH
With Microsoft,
Sarvodaya - Fusion:
HSBC presents IT scholarships
Scholarship recipients with Sarvodaya - Fusion Manager Isura
Silva, Microsoft Community Affairs Manager Janakie
Karunaratne, HSBC Sri Lanka and the Maldives CEO Nick
Nicolaou, Sarvodaya Movement General Secretary Dr Vinya
Ariyaratne, HSBC Personal Financial Services Marketing
Manager Tharanga Gunasekra and HSBC Retail Distribution Head
James Rebert with Sarvodaya representatives and HSBC staff. |
HSBC recently presented IT scholarships to deserving youth in the
South of the country to equip them with essential skills needed to
increase their knowledge capacity and enhance their employability.
The presenting of these fifty scholarships in partnership with
Microsoft and Sarvodaya-Fusion, is part of an ongoing corporate
sustainability initiative started in November 2009.
Currently fifty scholarship recipients are being trained in acquiring
ICT skills in Jaffna. The project plans to enter the East, with the
provision of scholarships to youth in the near future.
While the project seeks to empower 200 youth in the North, the East
and the South with scholarships, 25 computers were also donated by HSBC
to the Jaffna Sarvodaya Centre to enable the learning process of village
students in these areas. The project is expected to benefit 1950 youth
in the country with information technology skills; thereby enhancing
their employability and bettering the chances that the lives once torn
apart by conflict can find empowerment and stability.
HSBC has been a true advocate of Corporate Sustainability, having
implemented several long-standing projects in the area of education,
such as entrepreneurship education, English language training,
undergraduate scholarship programs and computer literacy programs. This
project further manifests the banks commitment and engagement with the
communities it operates in and is part of its global business
philosophy.
Janashakthi innovates promotional drive
With social media and e-marketing:
Janashakthi Insurance PLC’s promotional drive has taken on a totally
innovative and dynamic twist with the launch of a free fuel promo to its
Facebook fans.
As part of the revolutionary FaceBook promo, a direct mailer has been
sent out to a few thousand Facebook users. All they need to do is to
join the Janashakthi Facebook Fan Page before 31 August 2010.
Subsequently, winners will be chosen through a draw and they will stand
the chance to win 30 litres of fuel each, for free.
Janashakthi Insurance PCL Marketing Head Paddy Weerasekera said with
its more than 500 million active users as at July 2010, Facebook is by
far the world’s most effective social networking site.
“With its massive growth across the world the USA enjoys the largest
membership of Facebook in the world. Marking it Asian presence, Sri
Lanka is also an active part of this vibrant global phenomenon with
several thousands of people, both young and old getting onto the band
wagon”, he said.
It is said that Facebook’s market share of page views has also
trebled over the last five years. There are over 900 million objects
that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
while more than one million websites have integrated with the Facebook
Platform.
“We’re happy to re-define the paradigms of customer interaction by
harnessing the phenomenal popularity of Facebook. This is undoubtedly a
magical cocktail of innovation and dynamism which takes the entire
concept of marketing and promotions to the next level”, he said.
Janashakthi’s Facebook fan page - “Janashakthi Full Option” - offers
its fans a wide range of updates on motor-related tips, safety tips,
sports updates etc. Promotional activities will be conducted through
this Facebook fan page as well. Facebook users still have the chance to
join this fan page before August 31 and win 30 litres of fuel.
Partnering with Siyatha FM, Janashakthi also conducted a promo at ten
IOC filling stations around Colombo and suburbs. A winner was chosen
from each of the ten filling stations with all of them getting 30 litres
of fuel each for free.
The winners in this promo were Indunil Dhanushka, T D Mahesha, M
Shazal Ghany, Shalani Rajapakse, S Sachchi, W S Hashanthi, R A D M D
Wijesinghe, T H Jagath Kumara, Maheshan Wijeyerathne and N M Subramanium.
Similarly a well patronized e-mail marketing campaign was also
conducted whereby a mailer was sent to a 75,000 strong database.
The three winners of this campaign - Nalin de Silva, Ruwan Athukorala
and Malaka Udawatte - received 30 litres of fuel each.
“These three endeavours have attracted an unprecedented response from
the target audience and are indicative of the attraction and popularity
of such forays into unconventional communication. This has spurred us on
to venture into social marketing with greater zeal, with more such
promotional campaigns in the future”, Weerasekera said.
Virtusa supports One Laptop per Child Program
OLPC Quality Assurance team at Virtusa. |
Virtusa Corporation has initiated a novel pilot program towards
supporting the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, a UN endorsed Open
Source project. Through the Virtusa Tech Reach initiative, the company
is leveraging its Quality Assurance (QA) expertise and practices to help
improve overall product stability of OLPC laptops at zero cost to the
OLPC initiative.
Open source software is a software whose source code is openly
published, often developed through voluntary efforts and is usually
available at no charge under a licence. However, many software testing
teams are paying over the odds for highly priced software test
automation tools.
As part of the support, Virtusa has done a combination of both
software and hardware testing on the new XO-1.5s laptops, and multiple
versions of their customized Redhat-based operating system. The team has
worked on 12 laptops by dedicating 40 man-months so far. The testing has
resulted in 800+ test scenarios for the laptops.
According to Internet Telecommunication Union (ITU), India and Sri
Lanka have a low internet penetration of about 7 percent and 5.5 percent
respectively.
With an objective to reduce this digital divide, the OLPC program
provides each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop
with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful and
self-empowered learning. Targeted at children from ages 5 to 12, the
open source software provides them an opportunity to fully own the
laptop, which is an open source machine. The children and their
teachers-will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their
software, hardware and content.
Therefore, OLPC will not only revolutionize the way children learn,
but will also scale up the eco-system of sharing between diverse set of
communities existing in these countries.
IDM, CHARTIS launch education protection scheme
Gayan Kanchana
IDM Affiliated University, one of the largest IT education providers
in the country and CHARTIS Inc worldwide property-casualty and general
insurance operator launched an education protection scheme for the
students and parents for first time in Sri Lanka recently in Colombo.
CHARTIS Sri Lanka Acting Managing Director Deepthi Lokuarachchi said,
‘We are happy to partner with IDM, the premier IT education institution
of the country to bring about solution to deal with uncertainties
associated with students’ education.
We believe that, these solutions will be served the best interest of
the students and IDM as a whole. This insurance scheme will be provided
free of charge for students at their enrolment to IDM.
Foundation Diplomas and first year BSc students will enjoy insurance
cover value of Rs 50,000.00.
Second year BSc students will be benefited insurance cover of Rs
150,000. Final year BSc/MSc students will enjoy an insurance cover worth
of Rs 250,000 and students also will enjoy accidental medical
reimbursement amounting to 10 percent of the total cover,” he said.
Schols for SLIIT students
From left - Progressive Academy Director Chamindi Herath,
Progressive Academy MD/CEO Janaka Herath, SLIIT
President/CEO Prof Lalith Gamage, SLIIT Chairman Prof Sam
Karunaratne, SLIIT Academic Affairs Dean Dr Koliya
Pulasinghe, SLIIT Business Development Manager Asangi
Jayasinghe and students. |
Nine SLIIT students were recently awarded part-scholarships worth $
3000 by Southeast Missouri State University (SEMU) to pursue degrees in
IT, Computer Science, and Information Systems.
Having completed the first two years of their degree at SLIIT,
students were then granted scholarships to complete the final two years
of study at SEMU, one of the many pathways provided by SLIIT to
prestigious foreign universities.
The next batch of students will benefit with the introduction of an
electrical engineering program, channelling them towards a robust and
thriving industry.
This collaboration was facilitated through Progressive Academy (Pvt)
Ltd.
Intel to buy McAfee
Intel is buying Internet security firm McAfee for 7.68 billion
dollars, as the computer chip giant seeks to expand its reach to mobile
and wireless devices.
Intel, whose processors power nearly 80 percent of computers
worldwide, has arranged to pay 48 dollars per share for all of McAfee’s
common stock, a 60 percent premium on the security vendor’s closing
value Wednesday.
Panda Security chief executive Juan Santana welcomed the Intel move
as good news for the industry and said he suspected that a factor in
McAfee’s decision to sell was increasingly tough competition in the
market.
“As we have been saying all along, security has to be a pillar in
next-generation computing,” Santana said. “Time will tell if the
acquisition is good news or not for McAfee and Intel’s users, partners,
employees and shareholders; but I agree that it is clearly elevating the
importance of IT security to new heights.”
Intel had also been eyeing McAfee technology for keeping data secure
in “cloud computing,” a growing trend for applications or information
storage to be hosted as services on the Internet, according to Santana
Boards of directors for both companies have unanimously approved the
take-over, which is still subject to approval from regulatory
authorities.
AFP |