Two intellectuals selected from SL for World Entrepreneurship Forum

For the first time, two intellectuals have been selected from Sri Lanka to attend for the ‘World Entrepreneurship Forum’ which will be held in Lyon, the 2nd economic centre of France. Dr. Arosha Fernando will represent Sri Lanka in this year’s World Entrepreneurship Forum followed by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera next year.

Out of many nominations and applications received, 144 members have been screened and carefully selected from 70 countries to participate in this annual forum where Dr. Arosha and Asanga will represent Sri Lanka for the first time since inauguration of the forum 16 years ago.

Dr. Arosha Fernando has a distinctive professional background covering 20 years in the telecom industry, globally. He has started his career as a Marketing Assistant at Ericsson Australia Pty Limi ted in Melbourne, Australia fresh from the university. He has climbed the corporate ladder as an Account Manager in New Zealand in the same company followed by Deputy Project Manager for Digital project in Philippines, Project Manager for BTS implementation in Thailand and Project Director for Vodafone GSM project in Australia.

Currently he is the Director/ CEO of Sierra Global Network Pvt Ltd. in Sri Lanka, a leading telecommunication infrastructure development and managed services firm that serving all the telecommunication operators in Sri Lanka with the highest market share. Dr. Arosha is a renowned scholar holding five Degrees from Australia’s leading universities. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE) at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia and a Bachelor of Business (B.Bus.) Degree, double major in Marketing and Human Resource Management from the Faculty of Business at the same University.

Further, he has three Masters Degrees from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia - Master of Business Administrat ion (MBA) , Ma s t e r o f Pr o j e c t Management (MPM), and Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) major in Telecommunication Engineering. Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is presently the Executive Director of the national think tank, Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS). Prior to this he was the Chairman of Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Ag ency (SLFEA) , the onl y Government Foreign Recruitment Agent. After the tsunami in 2004, which destroyed all fishery harbours around Sri Lanka, Asanga was appointed as the Chairman of Ceylon Fishery Harbours Corporation (CFHC) and served until 2010. He was the youngestever appointed for all these three positions. Asanga served as a Senior Consultant to the Minister of Transport in 2004, and currently is the Advisor to the Minister of External Affairs Prof. G. L. Peiris. Before joining the Government sector, he has worked in private sector starting his career at Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and later Hutchison Lanka as Project Coordinator and Project Manager respectively. Asanga holds a Bachelor of Sc ience (BSc ) in Computer Science and Master of Business Administrat ion (MBA) from Wes ter n Aus t ral ia fol lowed by Executive Education from Harvard Kennedy School of USA. He was awarded for his outstanding Academic achievement from Golden Key International Honour Society (GKIHS). He was selected as a ‘Young Global Leader’ recently by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Previous participants of the ‘World Entrepreneurship Forum’ comprise many renowned figure heads from across the globe including some world leaders – presidents, ministers, mayors as well as intellectuals heading up leading business schools and business ventures in the world.