Towards to Knowledge Society & Knowledge Hub in Asia

Following the successful launch of the Sri Lankans’ very first national best e-content award, e- Swabhimani 2009, ICT Agency of Sri Lanka has decided to make it an annual event. By recognizing innovative creations in interactive, user friendly digital content and services we expect to foster a greater interest in developing ICT applications that would effectively serve the needs of the people.

e-Swabhimani is run along the lines of the World Summit Awards, WSA which is a global initiative to select the world’s best e-content and innovative ICT applications and operates within the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The WSA is held every 2 years with the next contest being in 2011. ICTA as the eminent national expert in Sri Lanka for the WSA has been mandated with the task of selecting the best national products for submission to the WSA 2011. As such e-Swabhimani 2010 will have an added significance in that it will serve as a fore runner to the WSA 2011.

Applications was called from 11 categories of e-Business & Commerce, e-Culture & Entertainment, e-Learning & Education, e-Enterprise & Livelihood, e-Science & Environment, e-Governance, e-Health, e-Inclusion, e-Localisation, e-News and m-Content. The Award Process would involve a Grand Jury moderated by a director of the WSA held over 2 days in September followed by the Gala Award Event was held in the 9th of November 2010. Some of winners proved their capacity to contribute for the knowledge Society and to the Knowledge Hub in Asia.

Sampath WishwaSampath Vishwa Corporate – Trade Service (SVCTS) is the latest innovation of the Sampath Bank to further facilitate trade finance services to its customers while aligning itself with the green movement of Sri Lanka. SVCTS allows customers to completely manage their Documentary Credits online in real time, view online information on all import/export related transactions. This facility will enable the importer to carry out his transactions without sighting the bank, whilst enjoying the convenience and comforts of his own office or home. Not only will it save valuable time enabling him to devote it to more productive work it would make his life that much easier. The system has been developed using Java, Oracle and AIX.

MTicketing The MTicketing system has potential to convert the whole Sri Lanka Railways ticket reservation system to an online, mobile enabled platform. The key objective of the project is to facilitate train passengers to purchase tickets over the mobile phone and to optimize issuance of train tickets

A Day in a life of the Jetavana Monastery –Anuradhapura As the Sri Lankan kings after the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods of Sri Lankan history moved their capitals south to hold off Indian invaders, they abandoned the great architectural works of that time to looters and forests. Rediscovered in the 19th century, partially restored in the 20th, all that is left of these testaments to the accomplishments of ancestors are foundations, making it difficult to imagine what this civilisation would have looked like at its prime.In order to help bring our history alive, ADV Consultants has created a 3D visualisation of the Jethavanarama Monastery complex – over 100 buildings strong - at the apex of its influence. This visualisation is not only a surface recreation but a recreation of the building techniques, technologies and materials that were used at the time.

ABAABA is a game based on the story of Prince Pandukabhaya who lived in Sri Lanka 2400 years ago. It centres around a series of events that took place at the time in the Panduvasadeva Palace in the City of Upatissa and in the surrounding jungle. Information and data for this story come from archeological sources, folklore and legends, in the main from the writings of the Mahawanshaya.

Navagoviya“NavaGoviya” which means “Modern Farmer”, is an initiative which provides a web based learning platform on sustainable modern agricultural techniques and practices delivered in Sinhala & Tamil Language aimed at developing rural farming communities and adding value to the Nenasalas (Rural telecentres) as focal points for Modern Agricultural Digital Knowledge.

Letters IslandLetters Island is an interactive e-Education System which prompts the student to search hidden letters in an Island. The student navigates through virtual reality rooms, behind plants and rocks in search for the letters. When a letter is found, success is recognized by the appearance of a picture of a well known object beginning with the particular letter. The product is available in Sinhala language.

Curriculum Master-Mastering the Grade 6This Computer Based Training (CBT) series of CDs for Grade 6 is a single user version system. The software has been created essentially to facilitate self study. The content addresses the Grade 6 syllabus in Mathematics, Sinhala, History, Tamil and Science in a way that makes learning fun. The content is supplemented with activities and self testing.

Janathakshan – Practical Answerswww.janathakshan.com is a unique web portal designed in all 3 languages; many people have contributed their valuable time on updating practical questions and answers, a one of a kind website for Sri Lankans. The content is rich in areas of livelihood, fisheries, farming and urban development Viewers can sign up for the news letter sans a registration fee, become a member of the various e- groups and get involved in the discussion forum. The motivation for this project is service and social responsibilitiy.

e – Farmse-Farms provides web-based e-learning content in Sinhala and Tamil on adding value to primary produce, post-harvest treatment, industry standards, good manufacturing practices and statutory requirements. The content is available as text based technical notes, illustrations, multimedia and video clips which explain the process very succinctly. A web based database of farmers and purchasing companies helps bring these two groups into contact. The database is linked to an SMS gateway enabling direct updates of buyer requirements and produce available with the farmer. Technical support to the grassroots is facilitated through video conferencing with the ITI. The project addresses traditional village based agriculture products - Kitul, Rice, Jak, Fruits & Vegetables, but can be extended to cover other village level produce

NinithiNinithi is a modeling software using Java and Java3D as the main technologies for this purpose on a FOSS platform employing generalized equations and algorithms for carbon allotropes. Band structure calculations are made using quantum mechanics and shown to be correct. Ninithi possesses a graphical user interface which provides good interactivity for users. The 3-D environment on the interface provides the functionalities to drag, rotate and zoom nanostructures. Interactive tools which permit the change of colours and sizes of atoms and bonds allow users to customize visualizations and backgrounds. Visual tools are also provided with the graph plots.

e - Revenue License ProjectThe annual renewal of the vehicle revenue license is a requirement for every vehicle owner in Sri Lanka. This has to be done at the Divisional Secretariat (DS) at which the vehicle was originally registered. The process can take half a day to a day, depending on the traffic, distance involved and availability of parking. The e-Revenue License project which automates this task was the first transactional e-service to be available as a portlet on the LankaGate country portal (www.srilanka.lk).

Birth, Marrage, Death Certificates Digitization ProjectThe process for the issuance of essential certificate for citizens such as Birth, Marriage and Death certificates, has been fraught with delays due to the difficulties associated with physically handing and maintaining large file repositories. The staff had to manually go through millions of copies – a manual work flow process which included a manual approval. Moreover, the citizen had to visit a specific Divisional Secretariat, the grassroots level public institute, whose responsibility it is amongst other things to store and manage registration of birth, marriage or death. Therefore, the general public faced numerous difficulties and delays in obtaining copies of those certificates with a minimum of 5-10 working days for certificate issuance. Moreover various types of malpractices and corruption by the office staff have also been reported. Though this project Citizens realize the huge potential of ICT as a tool which can support Government in delivering their daily requirements and would turn to using e-Government services more frequently

SL National Thalassaemia e-Registry The Thelassaemia e-Registry addresses the issues of individual patient management, resource management, costing and surveillance of the burden of the disease. Apart from these aspects, it provides information for the general public, media and patients on the preventive measures including Thalassaemia screening process and disease management tips.

WedanenasalaWedananasala is very timely given that there is a dearth of local language content, especially in subject areas such as health and medicine. Wedananasala targets the general public and fills the void in local language digital content in this specialized domain. Importantly the accuracy of the articles is ensured by the staff of the Department of Anatomy and Human Genetics Unit of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo.

Nivārana Nivārana is a communicable disease surveillance and analysis system focused on swift data collection, efficient data processing and rapid information dissemination in order to control and prevent the spread of disease. While other electronic disease surveillance initiatives and systems focus on data collection and analysis, it is believed that swift information dissemination also plays a significant role in responding to disease outbreaks. The system is designed based on the object oriented methodology and implemented based on java technologies and uses free and open source software libraries and tools. The system is designed with minimum implementation and recurrent costs critical for developing countries like Sri Lanka. As the name suggests Nivārana is conceptualized with the saying “Prevention is better than cure” and will no doubt is a lifesaver for many innocent people.

Tamil text-to-Braille ConverterThe product converts Tamil text to Braille and vice versa. It therefore enables any Tamil language digital text to be converted to Tamil Braille, stored and printed using a Braille embosser and also it’s reverse.

Subasa Subasa is new product servicing the users of Sinhala language word processing. It provides a variety of web services such as a Sinhala Language spell checker, an online Sinhala Unicode keyboard, a pop-up English to Sinhala dictionary, an encoding conversion utilities which can be used to convert ASCII encoding text into Unicode, and the electronic versions of some ancient Sinhala text for researchers. All of these services are freely accessible to everyone.

SiyabasScriptSiyaBasScript is a plugin extension to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. It allows the end user to view the content of any Sinhala web site without having to install non-unicode third party fonts. Web sites which have content that contain non Unicode texts and maps can now be viewed with these web browsers running on any operating system without the hassle of installing fonts or expensive proprietary software.

Tri -Lingual Web based SL Mapwww.ceylonmap.com is an interactive and comprehensive tri-lingual internet mapping system of its kind accessible FREE to the public. It aims to provide an easy directional guide to specific locations, sites of interest and tourist attractions by combining the online the facilities of a road map, bus routes, and rail lines. It helps you to know more about Sri Lanka, its provinces, municipalities, districts, villages, streets, residential & commercial buildings, government agencies, major business establishments and prominent landmarks and a lot more.

SALA ProSat GPS NavigatorSALA Pro Sat is a GPS Navigation system with voice guidance for use on the local road network. The system comes inbuilt with English Language and several foreign languages but has been developed to give guidance in Sinhala Language as well. Once the desired location, in any part of Sri Lanka, is keyed into the system it will guide you through the most efficient route. It also includes 100,000 points of interest (POI) inclusive of hotels, fuel stations, ATM Machine locations and places of historical interest. This system will also be of value to the tourist seeking to tour the Country by road.

Ada DeranaBeing a 24x7 comprehensive trilingual news website – www.adaderana.lk with multiple channels of dissemination - television, radio and SMS news alerts, Ada Derana could bring a new dimension to Sri Lanka’s news industry. Accurate and instant reporting is combined with a user friendly and interactive web interface. The layout of the content - of news, entertainment and other current affairs is very user-friendly.

CheerurTeam.comSchools are not solely academic institutions in today’s context, but rather organizations that provide a platform for building leadership qualities, inculcating social values and building personality through multidisciplinary activities. School Sports, have carved itself a special niche among those who closely follow the trials and tribulations of their school, even after they leave school. They scout the papers for news of the performance of their school on and off the field, benchmarking their respective schools and taking great pride in its achievements. However, school sports news does not always reach the main stream news. There is certainly an information void when it comes to school level sports activities

Yaaldevi blog AggregatorYaaldevi is a blog aggregator with around 500 Tamil bloggers from all over the world & it facilitates publishing articles from registered users. Yaaldevi become a unique platform for Tamil news and it has developed into a middleware for Tamil content creators. Yaaldevi allows user to interact with the system providing web 2.0 tools like social networking, rating, commenting, voting & emailing. The SMS feature in the portal permits users to share the article among friends with SMS alerts while providing a mobi-platform for mobile users enabled with a Unicode converter for opera mini browser.

SL GovSMS Portal :” SMS to 1919”
Sri Lanka GovSMS Portal is a solution implemented by Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) to the Government of Sri Lanka to deliver its citizen services via SMS. The project started in July 2009, completed its first phase in November 2009 and launched by HE the President on December 2nd 2009. Currently it offers three services from three different government organizations; Railway time table and Train delay information, Crop prices in popular market places, and Weather information. The solution is built in a highly scalable manner where it can be easily scaled to handle any SMS base service offered by any government organization without them having to incur any cost for utilization of this platform.

MobiEnglish01This is a J2ME English learning app designed to run on Java enabled mobile phones, which has made the learning of English fun. It introduces novel concepts in data input and is user friendly. It uses “Singlish”, Sinhala words transliterated to English so that the users are comfortable with the learning process. The user is required to translate simple sentences given in “Singlish” to English by keying in numbers 1,2,3 and 4 each of which is assigned to a part of the sentence. In order to construct the sentence in English the user simply has to press these keys in the correct order. This innovative data input method contributes to the ease of use.

Ola Leaf to Computer - A journey of knowledge transfer

It was a full moon day in month of June B.C 306; King Dewanampiyathissa & his crew or band of followers was enjoying hunting. The day was a most remarkable day, in the annals of Buddhist civilization. The King was engrossed in the hunt when he heard his name being called, twice. “Tissa Tissa”. Arahat Mahinda, the illustrious apostle of Buddhism raised his aryan esteemed voice. The king stopped in his tracks and paid heed to the call of Arahat Mahinda. It was in this manner that Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka. Buddhism brought along with it t a distinctive civilization and cultural pattern to the social and religious life of the community. The Temple became central to the community – it was place of religious worship as well as the seat of learning. . The agricultural society that was prevalen in Sri Lanka in those days was moulded according to Buddhism and its teachings.

After having freedom from English crown, the formal education system of the country identified the need of creating a Trustworthy, Respected, Responsible society inculcating the values of the Buddhist way of life. The teaching of Buddhism as a subject was introduced to Scholl Curriculum and the Daham School (Sunday school) was started to be facilitated by the government.

In another chapter in the annals of the history of the country the the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka launched the “Nenasala”, Sri Lanka Telecentre programme as a means of reaching out to the far flung rural communities.. Trhought the Nenasala network communities, right from the grass roots level are being empowered to use Information and communication technology in their day to day life.


Thanamalvila is a very remote location in rural Sri Lanka. It is also on one of the driest areas. Kandiyapitawewa is located 12 kilometers away from the Thanamalvila & the livelihood of the villagers in this area is based on paddy farming. Though the “Nenasala” , Kandiyapita village has been equipped with Information Communication Technology; Computer, Internet, Fax, Telephone and so on. Eranda Sampath, owner of the nenasala is a a young man nurtured in Buddhist culture and Damma Schoo & his wife also a Daham school teacher. Developing a web site called Dahamsauya, is his own initiative. The Community Assistance Project of e-Society Programme of the ICTA stepped into help Eranda to implement his idea.


Daham Saura (http://dahamsayura.org) is a web site with full of Daham School Curriculum and its content. It has the content from grade 1 to 11 in local language. “ when we were given the “Nenasala” four years ago, at the very beginning of the our telecentre, We found that most of school children didn’t like to browse internet, as there wasn’t no enough content in local language at that time. Those days I determined to make available the Dhaham School content as it is a source of rich content for our society. normally to obtain the Daham school books, a student is required go to temple or attend the Daham School on Sunday. Because of the tuition classes and various other s commitments, most of the students in cities don’t attend the Daham School. But things are different in a village; most of the village students attendg the Daham School. Sometime students have difficulties in obtaining the required books for the Dharmacharya Exam. Therefore this site is enriched the Dharmachara books as well. I know most Sri Lankan Buddhists living in other foreign countries will appreciate this initiative as this web site caters to the both living in the village as well as in cities” said Eranda Sampath.

The ways of preserving the Buddhism and it teaching has changed over the years in keeping with e contemporary technology. During the early years the teachings of the Buddha were memorized I and passed down from generation to generation, then it was written in the ola leaf books, later it was printed. Today in this era of Information and Communication Technology it is being digitized making it available for future generations. It is a collective responsibility. This village proves that they are on the track to face the modern world while preserving their culture and heritage.

ICT Enabled English Teaching reaches Jaffna

After sweeping out thirty years of terrorism, the country has the prospect of reaching out to the most vulnerable groups in North and East of Sri Lanka. When consider the digital gab between souths and north is huge. While roads and infrastructures are being developed the digital divide between the North and South continues to be huge.

The e-Society Programme of ICT Agency of Sri Lanka is one that reaches out to the most vulnerable groups in the country. It has the potential to respond to the immediate needs of communities, even after the onset of disaster or any catastrophe. It can bring the benefits of technology to areas which don’t have the luxury information infrastructure through a human mesh and basic IT. It is in this manner that the Replication Assistance Programme, a component of the of e-Society programme opened a channel to replicate the English Language learning content and the application in the North and the east in the immediate aftermath of the war.



Although the literacy rate of the country has reached to 96%, the English literacy rate is far from satisfactory. Year 2009 was named as English and IT by the Government in an attempt to give focus to upgrading the level of English in the Country. . Chitranganie Mubarak, the senior programme head of the e-Society section mention that “The Government declared the Year 2009 as the year of English and IT and we are very glad to partner the National Council of the YMCAs of Sri Lanka, in replicating English Language educational content. Not only do they have the capacity, they like us, have the enthusiasm to work with the grassroots l to improve the lives of ordinary people by giving them greater access to information and education. ”. This project aims to teach English & other subjects using ICT to the youth and students in the Northern Province.

125 underprivileged students and youth in the areas of Jaffna, Navali, Point Pedro and Uduvil have continued to learn English Language through the leadership of the YMCAs in the respective areas. This effort being the first of its kind commenced in August 2009 s with the financial and technical support of ICTA (Information & Communication Technical Agency), and was welcomed with great appreciation by the communities.



The Foundation Course which was supported by audio visual illustrations enabled the students to learn the language with ease and through friendly interaction. It also provided clear instructions to the the instructors to transfer the knowledge with ease.

The students were grouped and individual learning opportunities were provided by allocating time periods for each group. Hired English Language Instructors met them at an agreed time schedules for necessary coaching and learner guidance. After the students reached the level of practicing conversation, they were encouraged to form into “English Speaking Youth Guilds”. Although in the beginning there was some hesitation and reluctance to join such group’s as their Englsih skills improved students got over their initial inhibitions.

Simplified use of English language, simplified English interpretations of Tamil language, English songs, formulating vote of thanks and practicing, English Drama, reading passages and speeches aloud in English were some of the activities conducted at “English Speaking Youth Guilds” in all the 4 YMCA language learning centres.
Periodic performance assessments enabled the instructors to monitor the level of progress of the the students and introduce suitable coaching for improving the standard of the less capable students. Those who have completed the Foundation Level have shown interest in pursuing further studies.



At the project review meeting with the National YMCA officials emphasized the fact that the “ National YMCA is determined to continue facilitating the YMCAs to continue their English Language Study Centres in a sustainable manner. For the simple reason, it has clearly shown to what level we can develop the capacity of the youth in the peninsula therby r furthering their job prospects. This will also contribute towards fulfilling the YMCAs national obligation towards expediting the development of an the area which was severely affected for 3 decades by war”.
The responsibility of the social and economic development of country does not rest purely with the Government The holistic approach of partnering with public, private and non-government sector can be make a huge difference in developing the country using Information Communication Technology.

Shriyananda Rathnayake

Active Community Participation is crucial on ICT4D project - A Success story from Baddegama

My memories go to dusty, harsh & arid environment with Silindu, Punchi Menika, Hinnihamy & Babun. “Village in the Jungle” or “Baddegama” is a well-known novel written by Leonard Woolf. Today, I can see only the big tamarind tree as mention in the novel. The environment is still arid. But the infrastructures have been developed. Instead of foot paths, new tar roads have been built, schools, irrigation cannels, new buildings, information infrastructure, are the symbols of new development which is being witnessed by tamarind tree over two hundred years. Today this area is called as Migahajandura.

His name is Pushpakumara Munasinghe, 38 years old, live in Migahajandura. He started his learning journey from Sooriyawewa National Schools, and graduated in Human Resource Management from University of Jayawardanapura. This story is a good illustration to prove the community involvement in ICT for Development.


Pushpakumara had to sit for several governments’ competitive exams to find the best fit in job for him. Every time he sat for exams, he had to find past papers, model papers as he wanted to face the exam with best pre-preparation. Pushpakumara said that “I spent at least two to three days to find the past papers, sometimes I had to go to Mathara or to Colombo, there are no classes nearby, these past papers are not to be found in libraries as well as book shops.”

Finally he joined the government sector; again he faced the same problem, when he sat to Efficiency Bar exam (EB). “I feel that the future generation should not face the problems that I had to go through. So that is why I decided to develop a web site with Question papers and model papers targeting the government exam. I have also prepared a project proposal for ICT Agency of Sri Lanka’s Community Assistance Programme (CAP) they have assisted me a lot to complete this project”


Lankaexamhelp (http://www.lankaexamhelp.com) website contains questions and model questions & answer papers for ten government competitive exams. They have also uploaded recent past papers and at least ten model papers for each exam. All papers & the answer papers can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.lankaexamhelp.com. Especially the content of the site is available in Local language-Sinhala.

Pushpakumara added further. “We wanted to develop this site further and need to translate the content in to Tamil language too. I know that sometimes we can sort-out some problems using ICT and I also know that we should not wait until the work is done by the government. We can start, I think we are empower enough to find a own solution for native problems using ICT”

http://www.lankaexamhelp.com

Shriyananda Rathnayake

To sharpen the wisdom of farming community

Sri Lanka… 20% of the country’s population and 32% of the employment is fit in to Agriculture sector and it does contribute 12.2 % to Gross Domestic Production. 70% of the population lives in rural Sri Lanka & livelihood of this sector mainly depend on Agricultural Sector.
Nenasala (The Sri Lanka Tele centre Project) also aims to meet the above target group facilitating all information infrastructures, knowledge and ICT based services. The nenasala Centers (The wisdom Canters) now have been enriched by various sectors of society such as Government departments, Non government institute and the private sector.



Together with e-Society programme of ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, Audio Visual Centre of , Department of Agriculture has launched an online learning portal on agriculture and its composites agricultural forum Agriculture Wikipedia & e-learning. The content development of the portal is still ongoing, but there are several areas that has been completed. This portal has been identified as a one of best content in South Asia and won a Award at Manthan Awards 2009.



The Agriculture content portal, goviya.lk alias Wikigoviya is a participatory and interactive web tool for agriculture development through active participation of the Agricultural Community. It is a meeting place for farmers, subject matter experts, academics, researchers’ , government departments, nongovernment organizations and private sector institutions involved in agriculture, students and even the general public.



Wikigoviya is an innovative project aimed at supporting rural agriculture on a mass scale, this web portal provides information related to agriculture in an aesthetically pleasing manner as a web based solution whose traditional flavor will enhance its ability to reach out to rural farmers. Learning material on the site is enriched with multimedia components such as video, audio, animation, pictures, illustrations and text in local languages as well as in English. The Wikigoviya Discussion Forum is open for collaborative documentation with features such as blog posts, forum posting, photo and video uploading with user comments, online chatting and friends. The forum allows users to enrich the site with their ideas and experience and post their opinions on current government policies and other issues. The local language functionality adds to its user friendliness. The Wikigoviya is a free agricultural information provider allowing user engagement and learning. It is attractive, simple in its approach and has an easy navigation structure which encourages the user to delve deep into the website to learn more on areas of particular interest.
The forum component has been developed though the famous social networking platform. All though Wikipedia contents are put in all three languages, sometimes users get confused to find the link on local language content. It seems these facilities are yet to be developed.
For more information
www.goviya.lk
http://www.goviya.lk/enwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Shriyananda Rathnayake

SMS Empower farmers to bargain.

SMS News is a grass root initiative which use Information and Communication Technologies to eradicate poverty in rural, It is timely needed that making aware of the market prices of vegetables to rural farmers. As a result lacks of sound knowledge about behavior of the market prices, farmers are facing many problems, as well other information like job opportunities, new seeds and fertilizers, vocational education courses and health education & nutritious etc.

Babaragaswewa is a remote village which located seventeen kilometers away from Galewela town. Main income of the villagers is farming. In 1999 Government introduced beet as an alternative crop as farmers lost cultivating tobacco many years. Introducing beet as an alternative, government could change the life of these farmers; they earned much more than cultivating tobacco. Year by year, Galewela beet cultivation was promoted and several other alternative crops also were introduced, like b-onion and onion.

Even though Galewela is locater closer to dambulla economic markets, Bambaragaswewa beet farmers didn’t get the market price, some time farmers were over exploited. But one initiative made huge changers of the farmer’s life after beet revolutions. The foundation call digi.div started a project to send the SMS News with market price in 2008 to target of 300 farmers. They could empowered farmers and enabled them with bargaining power.

The bulk SMS News is being sent using Free and Open Source software which need a Computer, Mobile phone and SIM card, where there are no personal computers or Internet in rural Matale district.



The existing market knowledge chasm was allowed them to re-think and searched the most effective communication tool to communicate the rural in quickly and effectively. SMS news is a small text massage which carries the timely information to farmers or the youths in phonetic Sinhala (Sinhala word written in English alphabet). The SMS News are being sent free of charge and the cost per SMS have been recovered a sending a small advertisement with the news information or without.

This initiative was assisted by e-Society, ICT Agency of Sri Lanka under the Community Assistance Programme. The digi.div foundation has proved that, even without having internet connectivity, or any modern equipment, how they used available technology to improve and empower the farmers.

Shriyananda Rathnayake

Youth enabled to access Health information via IVR, SMS, Instant Messenger, web chat and the Internet.

Kamal : hei, our science teacher is coming, today lesion is the reproductive System.
Kasun: will see, I know for sure she will skips this, you know she has done the same in last year too, Suneth aiya told me.
Teacher: Good morning!
Children: Good Morning Teacher!
Teacher: Ok, today we will discuss the Use of Symbols in Chemistry, development , international Standers & so on..
Kasun : What do you say now? Machan!

This is a standard discussion happening in all most all schools. Even though the content on reproductive system is included in to the School curriculum, most of teachers skip this lesson and ask children to read the text book at home and bring the queries to the class room.

Many incidents are reported when flash back recent past, regarding mobile phone using for pornography, committing suicide, unwonted pregnancy, illegal abortions, among the teenagers. Most of the time it has been reviled the root course for all above incident is illiteracy of the health specially reproductive health.

Traditionally and culturally Sri Lankans adopt a very discrete approach to issues connected with sexuality in general and more so in matters related to reproductive health. Identifying this matter ICT agency of Sri Lanka, e-Society could partner with FPA Sri Lanka which is the first organization to initiate and establish a space for Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in the country.


Happy Life is a project that seeks to provide a solution to challenges faced in resolving issues related reproductive health in the context of today’s society. It recognizes that the problems of the younger generation are changing and that the preferred mode of communication is also changing. Happy Life provides an effective means of providing reliable and timely information through counseling services accessible through multiple channels - Interactive Voice Response ( IVR), SMS, Web Chat and the Internet.

It provides direct access to information and personal counseling facilities (from anywhere) without the identity of the inquirer being exposed. In this manner it can very effectively bridge the information gap that exists in the area of reproductive health. By giving a wide range of the options for information access - phone call, SMS, Web portal, e-mail and an interactive Voice Response System with professional counseling on a one to one basis with the language of one’s choice, the application clearly demonstrates the innovative use of ICT to overcome socially sensitive issues.

Try it, log on to : http://www.happylife.lk

Shriyananda Rathnayake

Rural Community Empowered to use ICT for Remote Medical Consultation

Remote Medical Consultation is a viable option to get the benefits to most vulnerable groups, but among the developing countries, there are many obstacles to overcome to make the remote medical consultation dream reality. Connectivity, Bandwidth, Software cost, are some of technical barrier, more than these change management has been become most difficult things to overcome as human and social fence.

e-Society Programme, ICTA Agency of Sri Lanka has showcased successes full two pilot project on remote medical consultation bringing the ICT benefits to most vulnerable groups in Sri Lanka to make people’s life easier.



ViduSuwa, designed to make specialized healthcare services available in rural areas by connecting a medical Consultant (whom would be geographically located in a place of his choice) with a patient in a rural area assisted by a doctor. The solution is comprised of a Business Model, an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System along with Mobile Communication System and a Change Management Model. Moreover, the solution is designed and developed in a way it can be even deployed in a mobile vehicle where the vehicle can be used to reach the people who have no access to specialized consultancies.

The Web based EMR system along with a conferencing tool provides real time access to the patient, patient details, patient history, investigations for the Consultant. Mobile Communication model is developed to utilize the existing mobile infrastructure and technologies to provide an effective communication channel between the patient and medical authorities. In order to implement the system in practical, certain modifications and additions need to be managed in the health context especially in familiarizing the Health Officers in the system and creating confidence among patients to use the services of the system. The Change Management component addresses this aspect.

The pilot project for this effort was implemented at the Base Hospital, Marawila and District Hospital, Dankotuwa in the form of an action research with a participatory approach with the use of open source technologies and existing infrastructure under the GP License. After the successful implementation of ViduSuwa an approximate Cost (89.5%), Time (67.6%) and Travel Distance (70%) decline was identified in patients receiving specialized health care services through the system.

ViduSuwa Project was conceptualized by Dr. Keith R. P. Chapman, Consultant General and Laparoscopic Surgeon at the District General Hospital, Chilaw & Dr. Shiromi M. K. D. Arunatileka, University of Colombo School of Computing. The Project was funded by Information Communication Technology agency of Sri Lanka, e-Socety Programme under the Partnership Assistance Programme Project. ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and UCSC are looking for a potential organization and the communities to replicate the concept in most rural area especially in North and East.

Shriyananda Rathnayake, Source- Shiromi Arunatileka, for more information - http://www.vidusuwa.com,

Dairy farmers empowered providing just in time services & information

Dambadeniya Export village located in Narammala is the largest women own enterprise in Srilanka carrying out fabrication of reed baskets for export packaging in the tea industry.

Dambadeniya Development Foundation is the service arm of the Dambaeniya Export village Ltd act as the implementer of Corporate Social responsibilities of DEPV with a vision of making technologically advanced community in Dambadeniya area.

DDF is mainly concentrate on Youth, Dairy and enterprise development of the area enhancing the effort of the communities to achieve a better lifestyle.

In regard to the Diary .the nation statistics shown that since 1998 where the total annual milk production of the country shown as 14,757,420 against the increased milk production by 2008 which was 17,341,091 that shows a growth of 17% during the past 10 years.[source: national statistics].

The reasons for this slow growth mainly due to lack of just in time services reaching the small dairy farmers resulting low productivity. The surveys carried out at the field level it shows the main factor is low level pregnancy of cows due to improper Artificial insemination and breeding services available just in time. It is well known that once the cow gets to heat the insemination to be carried out within a 12 hour period to ensure the pregnancy , but the farmers missing this opportunity due to lack of communications and reaching the service provider just in time.

The current national artificial performance rates are below the required levels and taking into consideration this Dambadeniya Development Foundation with the experience of Mr. Sunil Rodrigo the Senior Manager of DDF and being an experienced Dairy Technologist created the concept with the assistance of Information and communication technology agency of Srilanka, initiated a pilot project to improve the productivity of the small dairy farmers through ensuring a just in time services by using sms enable communication system with designing a suitable soft ware using the appropriate technology. In this DDF use mobile/CDMA phones, Touch screen computer at the chilling center and developing a web portal with easy access for farmers in three languages.

DDF has implemented this as a pilot project under Partnership Assistence Programme Project,e-Society, Information Communication Technology Agency of Srilanka, in Dambadeniya electorate to evaluate the performance and with the success of this where the aim is to increase the milk production in the pilot area by 50% within the first two years [by 2013].

Shriyananda Rathnayake , Source - DDF futher information - http://edairylanka.blogspot.com

Sri Lanka Empowered the hearing impaired using ICT

Today ICT has pervaded all aspects of life and become an integral part of our daily lives. Benefits of ICT are felt among many sections of the society. However, one of the major sections of the society that is left behind is the children with hearing impairment. In order to address this need, An organisation called Computer Land has developed a Multi Media Based Sign language dictionary to teach Sri Lankan Sign Language to the students with hearing impairment. This project was funded by Information Communication and Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA). The software along with the equipments to use the software was installed in five schools for the hearing impaired island-wide under the ICTA Replication Assistance Programme Project. In addition, copies of the CDs were distributed to over 15 schools for the hearing impaired. According to the feedback received from the authorities of the schools concerned, the students, teachers and even the parents have benefited from the software.

In order to evaluate the usage of the Video Sign Language Dictionary in the selected schools and to popularise the use of Sri Lankan Sign Language, competition is organized among the schools. The competition also coming under the Replication Programe Project, ICTA. The final event of the competition will be held on 26th of March 2010 at Hector Kobbekaduwa Research & Training Institute Mahinda Silva Auditorium, Colombo 7. Three teams each will be participating from four schools. The winners will be given prizes and certificates.

Shriyananda Rathnayake