Dialog Tradenet among World Summit Award winners

The WSA Awards held in Abu Dhabi UAE, saw Sri Lanka’s ICT sector securing one of the eight Mobile World Summit Awards (WSA) with Tradenet powered by Dialog Axiata, winning Gold in the Mobile-Inclusion and Empowerment Category.

BBC Janala, the Wikitude World Browser and the mobile commerce engine of Marks and Spencer UK, featured among the other World Summit Award winners.

The World Summit Award Mobile is a global initiative within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO and the United National Global Alliance for ICT and Development.

Secretary to the President and Commonwealth Telecommunication Organization and UN-ESCAP Committee of ICT Experts for Asia and Pacific Chairman Lalith Weeratunga said The World Summit Award for Dialog Tradenet is a testimony to the significant changes taking place in our country. The empowerment, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) deliver to people, changes their lives and presents unprecedented opportunity for growth.

“This is why ICT and access to information are key pillars of the rapid development and expansion roadmap laid out by the Government in the Mahinda Chinthana. We are thoroughly committed to making ICT an important part of our development story and we will relentlessly support its growth and exploitation,” Weeratunga said.

Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka Director General Anusha Pelpita, said Tradenet is a good example of a Sri Lankan innovation which uses a range of mobile and internet technologies to link buyers and sellers from all parts of the county in a very affordable manner, empowering them in the sphere of trade and commerce through ICT.”

Dialog Axiata Group Chief Executive Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, said: “Dialog is passionate about leveraging the power of the mobile phone to bridge economic divides, and disparity with respect to the access to opportunity. “Tradenet seeks to attack information asymmetry with respect to the trading of goods and services across geographies and multiple layers of the socio-economic pyramid,” he said.