CSSL launches NITC 2021 – Accelerate Technology Diffusion

CSSL officials announcing NITC 2021 – Accelerate Technology Diffusion (from left): Publications Secretary Indika De Zoysa, Vice President Dr. Ajantha Atukorale, President Eng. Damith Hettihewa, Assistant Treasurer Eng. Rasantha Hettithanthrige, Secretary Dr. Parakum Pathirana 

Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) last week announced that the 39th edition of the National Information Technology Conference (NITC), themed ‘Accelerate Technology Diffusion’ will be held from 12 to 13 October at Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo.

NITC is Sri Lanka’s flagship ICT Conference organised and this year’s National IT Conference theme, ‘Accelerate Technology Diffusion’ reflects on the Government’s vision on of Technology Diffusion. 

“At CSSL, we welcome the Government of Sri Lanka placing a high priority for technology and CSSL would like to emphasise the need for Sri Lankan ICT professionals to play the catalyst role in accelerating the technology adaptation and diffusion, leveraging the NITC as a platform,” said CSSL President Damith Hettihewa said.

“We are in the eve of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Industry 4.0 will create new wealthy nations similar to Europe, the Americas, and Japan which became rich nations as a result of the first three industrial revolutions, respectively. If Sri Lanka is to leverage this new opportunity to become a wealthy nation, technology diffusion and early adapting of frontier technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Robotic Process Automation and Integration, Big Data and real time analytics, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, is imperative. Our country needs to accelerate, research and design, policy formation, and legal enactments to adopt and leverage frontier technologies in the vital sectors of the economy. At this year’s conference, the Sri Lanka ICT fraternity will deliberate these aspects along with several global experts on these topics over a period of two days” said Hettihewa.

NITC 2021 is organised under the leadership of President Hettihewa while Vice President Dr. Ajantha Atukorale is spearheading the academic track and colloquium of the conference.

For the first time after almost four decades of NITC legacy, NITC 2021 will feature an inaugural NITC CEO Conclave. The CEO Conclave is an exclusive session for CEOs on technology trends and its impact on conventional business models. A global technology leader and several local and foreign domain experts will share evolution strategies such as open innovation for CEOs to transform businesses to survive digital disruption on conventional business models. 

NITC 2021 will also feature the CSSL Awards and the annual CSSL Colloquium track. More than a dozen research papers will be shortlisted after an assiduous selection process will be presented by prominent local and international researchers on the second day of the conference. The objective of research colloquium is to connect research community with the industry to commercialise and contribute to foreign exchange earnings and contribute towards national objective to achieve ICT exports of $ 3 billion.

CSSL, at the launch of the NITC 2021 conference, announced several high-calibre foreign speakers such as Prof. Henry Chesbrough, who is considered as the father of Open Innovation, Professor Siegfried Zurn of The Central Academic Institution, Germany, Hidebumi Kitahara, Head of Global Business Strategy Softbank Japan, Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Information Security at NETSCOUT, Rohan Damija Managing Partner of Analysis Mason of India and APAC, etc. “We have invited more high calibre global opinion leaders and are expected to confirm their participation in due course,” CSSL announced.

Facebook has partnered with National IT Conference to support CSSL’s efforts, in furthering research, innovation and digital literacy in Sri Lanka.