ASOCIO 2012 ends successfully in Colombo

Sara PATHIRANA

The biggest ICT events of the year, which represent Sri Lanka’s continual progress and the importance of information communications and technology, were hosted by the Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS)recently. Accordingly, ASOCIO 2012 the regional ICT Summit, was held in Sri Lanka from November 15 to 17 in Colombo alongside the INFOTEL 2012, the National ICT Exhibition at the BMICH from November 16 -18 ,2012.

The purpose of this conference was to provide a platform to create a professional outlook for demonstration and sharing of views to develop, expand expertise, promote and foster ICT trends among the member countries. ASOCIO serves the entire Asian region, representing 29 economies, comprising of 22 member countries and 7 guest member countries.

The theme for this year’s conference was “ICT Beyond Borders” and was aimed to bring about opportunities for Sri Lankan business communities and top ICT professionals and assist them to gain from their regional peers and visionaries.

At the opening session, Udaya de Silva, Secretary FITIS and Sri Lanka Representative for ASOCIO addressing the conference said, “This summit marks the 15th Anniversary of ASOCIO membership of Sri Lanka. As a result, being the unified ICT industry organization in the country since the 1990s and representing Sri Lanka in ASOCIO, FITIS is more than proud to host this flagship regional ICT summit in our country,” he said.

“The summit will help to manifest the importance of our country’s active involvement in this sector. At a time the ICT industry is pursuing the aim of reaching $ one billion by 2015 in terms of export earnings,” Chairman of Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka, Tharmarajah Suresh said. Infotel 2012 showcased over 250 stalls that included Hardware, Software, Systems Integration, ITES/BPO, Office Automation, Telecommunication Equipment, Telecom Services, ICT Training, Electronic Media, Gaming, Medical Electronics, e-Citizen Services and e - Sri Lanka initiative segments. E-Health and IT in Agriculture are two new categories that were featured in this year’s exhibition according to the organizers.