EDUCATION

Massive boost for Lanka’s IT education sector

IIHT opens Colombo Centre

Jayasri Jayakody

The Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT) in collaboration with Professional Education Providers (Pvt) Limited, a BOI approved company and member of the reputed G.B. Dodanwala Group, launched their Colombo Centre on Wednesday, at a ceremony held at Hotel Taj Samudra.

Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake was the Chief Guest and Member of Parliament Thilanga Sumathipala was the Guest of Honour. A large number of well wishers including IIHT Limited, Chief Executive Officer, Keshava Raju participated in the occasion.

Speaking to Daily News Business at the launching ceremony, G.B. Dodanwala Group, Chairman, Gamini B. Dodanwala said, “The world is faced with a dearth of trained IT professionals today. As a professional in Surveying and Geographical Information Systems, I constantly come across this problem.

Seeing the demand for IT professionals that is escalating day-by-day, I thought of entering into a partnership with IIHT, one of the leading Indian hardware technology training companies, to give a boost to the Sri Lankan IT sector, according to the vision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to make Sri Lanka the IT hub of Asia.”

IIHT, Chief Executive Officer, Keshava Raju, commenting on the partnership, said,

“I am sure that the IIHT Colombo Centre would replicate the success of IIHT’s Indian Centres by suitably guiding, nurturing and developing the skills of Sri lankan youth towards achieving their objectives of gainful employment in the IT industry.

“IIHT has been diligently fulfilling the aspirations of Indian IT Graduates for the past two decades by delivering professional quality computer education and training it the IT Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) space in India. The expertise, experience and exposure of IIHT in offering result oriented IT training for corporate clients would help IIHT’s Colombo Centre in exceeding expectations of IT training requirements in Sri Lankan enterprises and corporate clients.”

The Chief Guest Minister of Higher Education S.B. Dissanayake said, “With today’s development of technology, in particular information technology has revolutionized learning methodologies.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ‘Hahinda Chithana” policy statement emphasizes that the young generation of Sri Lanka needs to be broadly empowered with modern ICT technologies.

“The future market for employment will depend entirely on these skills. For these reasons, our youth will be given more opportunities to improve their knowledge in these areas and information and communication technology will be introduced for accessing all services in the country.”

Training workshop organized by Shippers’ Academy Colombo-SAC

The Shippers’ Academy Colombo (SAC) has organised a capacity building workshop on Customs new automated export process to educate personnel and companies involved in exporting and processing operational documents etc.

The Customs has announced that they will make electronic processing of export entries and introduce the e-Cargo Dispatch Note (CDN) from June 2013. The knowledge to handle the new process would be an essential tool for exporters and service providers who support export companies such as freight forwarders. Therefore companies are invited to get the basic training on the process changes and to get the technical requirements to operate under the new system.

The Shippers’ Academy Colombo, a leading training institute in global commerce and logistics is specialised in organising continuous education workshops to keep the trade and industry updated in the latest developments and trends in the respective subject matters in international trade.

The Academy has organised the workshop at the Sri Lanka Foundation, Colombo 7, on Saturday the 15th of June from 9am to 11.30am, where the Customs Department will make presentations on the new process and the changes taking place. The workshop will cover technical, operational & documentation aspects of export automation and declaration.

Senior officers from the Customs ICT department will be making the presentation and will also have a session for the trade to ask questions and clarify any issues.

The session will be very useful to export managers, shipping managers, operations executives, data entry operators, documentation staff, factory managers, CFS managers, wharf representatives, clearing and forwarding companies, freight forwarders & logistics companies.

More information could be obtained www.shippersacademy.lk

Spanish firm to build Qatar metro stations

A consortium including Spanish construction firm OHL won a contract worth about 1.1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to build two metro stations in Doha in Qatar, the company said.

The consortium, which also includes Samsung C&T and Qatar Building Company, will be responsible for designing and building two of the most emblematic stations of the metro, Msheireb and Education City, OHL said in a statement.

OHL is already present in Qatar, where it is building a medical and research centre in Sidra, a project with a budget of nearly $2 billion.

AFP