Red Hat to help Sri Lanka embrace open source

Open source software giant Red Hat has expressed interest in playing an integral part in disruption in Sri Lanka through open source solutions. 

At an event held in Colombo on Tuesday under the theme ‘Power of Participation,’ preceded by a press conference, Red Hat said that enterprises can transform and innovate by learning, networking and collaborating via open source technology, and that Sri Lanka is a market that’s primed for this endeavour.

Speaking to the media, Red Hat India Director Presales Amarjeet Manchanda said that open source has the potential to influence change and enable innovation and that is at the forefront of every major breakthrough.

“Adoption of open source has opened up the floodgates between consumer and business and citizen and government and business to business. We have seen this evolution happen over the last decade or so massively in India, and I think Sri Lanka has a great opportunity to be able to replicate that,” said Manchanda, adding that Red Hat wishes to stay relevant in the Sri Lankan market.

Introducing the company, Manchanda said: “We’re in active use across telecom and banking companies and cloud services providers, government organisations and utilities companies that depend on Red Hat to make their businesses future ready.”

“Open source is what we do for a living. From a technology stand point, why is open source so relevant today? This is the age of disruption. People have to innovate, companies and governments need to innovate, or they get disrupted. Either you be on the leading edge of the disruption or be the disruptor yourself. That’s the philosophy. Innovation is not just the responsibility of R&D. Innovation is the responsibility of each one of us,” he added.

Further explaining the possibilities that open source present, Manchanda said that innovation is collaboration and contribution.

“Bring in your ideas, or suggest ideas that someone else can implement. Open source, too, is about collaboration and contribution. There is a community which provides the idea. People take the idea and put it as a piece of code. At Red Hat, we’re not creating an IP, we’re fuellingcontributions to the community. We take a piece of code from the community – wedon’t own the IP – wecreate an enterprise grade product. And we sell that technology as a subscription service. That’s our business model,” he said.

Red Hat’s primary focus, according to a statement by the company, will be to help businesses accelerate digital transformation in the areas of banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecommunications and government in Sri Lanka. The software company said that Red Had plans to help with expansion plans in Sri Lanka by the Government, particularly with regard to its push in critical infrastructure to enable digital technologies.

Red Hat will also focus, the company said, on developing an ecosystem of partners to empower a framework for open source technologies in Sri Lanka. Industry interactions will also be held in academic institutions to help students understand careers in IT and open source.

Manchanda expressed his optimism about the opportunities in Sri Lanka and revealed that Red Hat has received a “very positive interest” from existing customers and new ones to extend the company’s services in the region. He also said that during preliminary dialogues with policymakers, partners and customers there has been a strong willingness to embrace open source technology. (HK)