ICTA wins International recognition

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has been given the key role of providing leadership in the application of ICT to achieve major economic developmental and social improvements in Sri Lanka.

The strategy is to provide affordable access and opportunities by improving ICT infrastructure, improve the secure delivery of public services and governance using ICT, enhance the quality of education, learning and research through use of ICT with a view to build a strong ICT industry in the country, ICTA Chief Executive Officer Reshan Dewapura told Daily News Business. It proliferate access to ICT and use of ICT applications in rural areas for rural socio-economic development and create the institutional leadership to carry forward e-Development in Sri Lanka, he said.

ICTA functions under the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology at present. However, the e-Sri Lanka Development Project which is administered by the Presidential Secretariat is also being implemented by ICTA. The ICTA has been functioning under the Presidential Secretariat for many years.

The ICT sector developed in a significant manner and has acquired national importance since ICTA commenced implementation of the e-Sri Lanka initiative. Today there is enhanced access to ICT and local language content in rural areas. The ICT/BPO industry became the 5th largest foreign exchange earner in the country. ICT literacy has increased from 9.7% in 2004 to over 20% in 2009, and estimated to be 30% in 2011, largely contributed to by the establishment of the Nenasalas. A comprehensive ICT enabling legal infrastructure is in place. Several e-Government initiatives have resulted in enhanced delivery of public services on-line; 15,000 Government officers have been trained in ICT skills, and to improve the ICT literacy of citizens 10,000 citizens have been trained under ICTA?s e-literacy project.

The overall effect of ICT development in Sri Lanka since 2006 is manifested in the significant improvement in Sri Lanka's Network Readiness Index (NRI) ranking published by the World Economic Forum. The NRI has increased from 86th position out of 122 in 2006/07 to 66th out of 138 in 2010/20113. (Percentage-wise Sri Lanka's position has advanced from 70th to 48th ? this means that Sri Lanka is now within the top 50% of countries in the world). ICTA's performance has contributed significantly towards the above achievements and among the highlights contribution are increased affordable access to ICT for citizens across the country through 633 Nenasalas. These Nenasalas have been established Connecting Government - Lanka Government Network. A total of 325 Government organizations including ministries, departments, District and Divisional Secretariats were connected under phase 1 to create a single government information backbone infrastructure. Under phase 2, an additional 150 government organizations have been connected.

Information on Government processes, services and applications Government Information Center (GIC). It is a centralized location for providing government information through the website, www.gic.gov.lk and through 1919. The BMD Project for civil registration (Birth, Marriage, Death (BMD) certificates etc.) ensures availability of documents within minutes. The initial project was completed in 2007.

It has been replicated in Monaragala and Kegalle, and also is being replicated in Puttalam, Polonnaruwa, and Anuradhapura. Single-window, multi-channel access to e-services - Lanka Gate: To enable transactional services, the existing Financial Regulations circular was amended: the FR Circular for acceptance of money through electronic payment cards by government organizations was issued by the Ministry of Finance and Planning on 2010-11-20. Stylized Unicode Sinhala and Tamil fonts have been developed and made freely available from www.icta.lk. Web. over 300 Unicode compliant tri-lingual government organizations are available on the web. A website was also created for the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and for the Court of Appeal.

LawNet has also been revived. The Wedanenasala project which aims to educate the Sri Lankan community on health related issues and prevention of diseases in local languages was completed. www.goviya.lk targeted to the farming community was completed. A 3D visualisation of the Jethavanarama Monastery complex i.e. a recreation of the building techniques, technologies and materials that were used at the time was completed. The site www.happylife.lk, a reliable source of information on reproductive health was completed. Chief Innovation Officers (CIOs) of Government organizations have been empowered through the provision of ICT Skills Training and workshops held on e-government policy. The ICTA has successfully finalized number of surveys including the GIC Evaluation Survey, e Laws Evaluation Survey; ICT Capacity Building Program Evaluation Survey.

The work on some of the programs is in progress including Outcome Evaluation/ baseline survey for the e-Society, Development Initiative (eSDI) 2011; Outcome evaluation survey for the Strategic Communications program; Survey on Unlicensed Software; Human Resources Capacity Building Survey; Evaluation of the Local Languages Initiative.

One of the key projects that ICTA has implemented to support and promote innovative ICT entrepreneurship is the 'Spiralation' program.

This program encourages and supports business enterprises which are either new or in very early stages of development from all parts of the country to launch their business ideas. The key focus is to encourage entrepreneurs to launch their business ideas in creating new products and/or services so as to create new businesses, and assist new ICT related innovations.