BIZ-TECH

Microsoft Lanka completes seven years

Charumini de Silva

Microsoft Lanka marked its seven year presence in the country contributing to the country’s economy and to the IT industry.

Microsoft South East Asia, New Emerging Markets President Akther Ahmed said it is essential for countries to have differentiated products where it will highlight their product uniqueness. He was speaking at a press conference to mark Microsoft Lanka’s seventh year in Sri Lanka.

“With many countries in the region such as China, India, Vietnam and Bangladesh are practising the low cost strategy, as these countries have a high population. Sri Lanka can look at middle or high cost strategy,” he said.

“Sri Lanka has the advantage of high literacy rate in the region. With having strong intellectual properties, building skills, awareness programs and capabilities, which is vital for high end IT and BPO,” Ahmed said.

Microsoft Country Manager Sriyan de Silva said the past seven years have been tremendously exciting with the responses they received for the products. Sri Lanka has shown a remarkable growth in adopting high end technology.

“As this year has been named as the visit Sri Lanka Year, we are planning to organize international events like ICT for NGO Forum, which is to be held in May this year,” de Silva said.

The trained human resources in the IT industry is lower than the demand Microsoft Lanka’s educational and training programs have benefited to reduce the gap between the supply and demand.

The MoU signed between the company and the Vocational Training Authority will enable to uplift the international standards for the local industrial education space. “Many of the educational programs conducted by the company has spoken well to the country, which is very encouraging as we look at the long-term perspectives”, he said.

During the past seven years Microsoft Lanka has empowered businesses and enriched lives of over 1.5 million people across the country. The company has contributed significantly to change the way ICT adoption permeates in Sri Lanka and this has helped the country to stand tall in the competitive global arena.

“At present most of the Governments in the region are increasingly relying on IT to spearhead developments and Sri Lanka too is making a commendable progress within a short span of time. This trend would take the country in the right direction,” Microsoft (Asia) Public Sector Vice President Ken Wye Saw said.

SLCERT joins IMPACT against cyber threats

Sri Lanka CERT, the national CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) of Sri Lanka, has joined IMPACT an international organization against cyber-terrorism.

IMPACT is the world’s first global partnership dedicated to combating criminal and terrorist activities using information and communication technologies.

The International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) is an international public-private initiative dedicated to enhancing the global community’s capacity to prevent, defend and respond to cyber threats.

Modelled after the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, IMPACT coordinates the resources of governments, academia, industry leaders and individuals to go beyond political borders.

IMPACT was launched in 2007 by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun I Toure under the ITU Global Cyber Security Agenda (GCA) which is a framework for international cooperation aimed at enhancing confidence and security in the information society.

In order to respond properly to the five areas identified by the GCA, as well as to follow up on ITU’s work to assist countries in developing cyber security capabilities, ITU will work with IMPACT to make the following resources available to ITU Member States: Global Response Centre,Training and Skills Development, Centre for Security Assurance and Research,Centre for Policy and International Cooperation.

The first service that has been made available is the Global Response Centre (GRC).

The GRC is designed to be the foremost cyber threat resource centre in the world. Working with leading partners including academia and Governments, the Centre will provide the global community with a real-time aggregated early warning system.

This ‘Network Early Warning System’ (NEWS) will help member countries identify cyber threats early on and provide critical guidance on what measures to take to mitigate them.

ICTA Chief Executive Officer Reshan Dewapura, which established SL CERT, accepted the invitation to be a member of IMPACT on behalf of Sri Lanka CERT - which reflects an appreciation of SLCERT’s expertise in the area of combating threats and providing information security services in the IT industry.

Commenting on this landmark event, Telecom Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Director General Anusha Pelpita said, “We have been active members of ITU for a number of years and as such we are proud to be associated with this new initiative.

ITU, through its Telecommunication Development Sector, has gained significant experience in facilitating the establishment of national strategies for Cyber Security and critical information infrastructure protection, including capacity development, and can draw on an extensive network of leading Cyber Security authorities.”

Applications accepted for ‘IT Mastermind’ quiz program

Applications are accepted for the IT Mastermind quiz program, organized by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) and sponsored by ESOFT Computer Studies Pvt Ltd.

Students of national and international schools between ages 15 to 18 years can apply for this quiz program.

The applicants who expect to participate in this quiz program have to face a web-based test initially and a written test subsequently. Sixty four students will be selected for the first round of the finals and they will be grouped into eight groups of eight for the first round.

The eight finalists from that round will be selected for the final round. The first round between the groups of eight and the final competition will be telecast over the Independent Television Network (ITN).

The 64 students who qualify for the first round will be presented with valuable certificates and the eight students that qualify for the final round will be presented a voucher worth Rs 15,000 and a medal each. The winner of the final round will be presented a laptop computer worth Rs 75,000 and his or her school will be presented with Rs 100,000 worth of computer peripherals.

The winner of the second place will be presented with a desktop computer worth Rs 50,000 and his or her school will be presented with computer peripherals to the value Rs 50,000 and the winner of the third place will be presented with a slimtop computer worth Rs 35,000 and his or her school will be presented with computer peripherals to the value of Rs 25,000.