FITIS API Conference powers companies to focus on innovation, automation and sustainability

Fireside Chat (from left): Dialog Axiata Vice President – Information Technology Asela Perera, National Development Bank Chief Operating Officer Deepal Akuretiyagama, Virtusa Sri Lanka Group CIO and the Centre Head Madu Ratnayake, CEO, Software Developer and Open Source Evangelist Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, Non-Cabinet Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution Dr. Harsha De Silva and Moderator Daily FT Founding Editor and Chief Executive Nisthar Cassim

From left: Aruna Alwis, Fairooz Habeeb, Chief Guest Minister of Digital Infrastructure and Information Technology Ajith P. Perera, Prasad Hettiarachchi and Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe

The first-ever API Asia Conference 2019 held in Colombo this month concluded successfully with the event attracting a houseful audience comprising of over 600 high profile professionals including business leaders, chief executive officers as well as chief information officers amongst other senior executives of the corporate world.

Organised by the apex body of the ICT industry, Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS), the conference was an important platform to help organisations create opportunities and deliver business value in an era of digital transformation. 

The one day conference held on 2 October at the Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo was boosted by a lineup of internationally and locally reputed speakers, who shared their insights with the participants, helping them enhance their knowledge on practical strategies and success stories in spearheading business process innovation, automation and implementation to sustain business in today’s disrupted world. 

During the sessions, the speakers and panellists helped businesses understand the importance of digital transformation and the need to connect with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), collaborate with APIs and transform industries and businesses using APIs to enable the digital transformation of every organisation.  

Internationally-recognised subject expert on digital transformation, Kay Lummitsch from Switzerland who has led the Swisscom API Program for more than four years and has built a vibrant network of international digital programs around the globe set the tone of the conference by delivering a speech on ‘Vision for the Agile: Digital Transformation’.

The conference covered a range of pertinent topics in the current context with specific focus paid to a number of topics such as the ‘Future of API Economy, API Strategy and Value Chain’ and ‘Is Cyber security a Roadblock to Adopt API?’ among other areas. 

Selvaratnam Uthaiyashankar, Senior Vice President – Engineering of WSO2, Michiel Beukes of Vitality One, Vinayak Hegde, CTO-in-residence at Microsoft for Startups, Mario Bojilov, CEO of Meta Business System, Ravi Pinto, Director of Oracle Cloud Platform Product Management, Sujit Christy, Director of Layers-7 Seguro Consultoria Private Limited and Channa De Silva, CEO of Lanka Pay were among those who shared their thoughts during the CXO/BIZ and Digital Services Track of the conference. 

During the BFI and TELCO Track, the conference focused on ‘Going Digital in a New Era,’ ‘Are Companies Ready to Disrupt or get Disrupted?’ as well as on ‘Creating Impressionable Open Banking for Asia’. Among those who shed their thoughts during this track were Sachin Seth, Partner Digital, Fintech, Cloud and Tech and Transformation Leader of EY Advisory (Africa | India | Middle East), Nicky Choo, Head, Integration and Development Business Asia Pacific of IBM, Seshika Fernando, Head of Financial Solutions of WSO2 and Anthony Rodrigo – Group CIO of Axiata Group. 

During the TECH Track, Prabhath Mannapperuma, Partner Technology Strategist of Microsoft APAC, Thulasee Shan, Cloud Specialist of Microsoft APAC, Nuwan Dias, Senior Director, API Architecture of WSO2, Thurupathan Vijayakumar, CTO and Chief Architect of Aventude, and Uli Hitzel – Executive Geek/Developer Advocate of Axway shared their expertise on a range of areas including ‘Driving Digital Transformation,’ ‘APIs and Beyond,’ ‘How to get People to use APIs’ and the ‘Ever-Changing Landscape of APIs’. The conference also featured a fireside chat, where subject experts from various industries including policy makers came to a single stage to share their thoughts on digital transformation and its impact on the country and economy. 

The session featured Dr. Harsha De Silva, Non-Cabinet Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution as well as Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO, software developer and open source evangelist, Madu Ratnayake, Group CIO and the Centre Head for Virtusa Sri Lanka, Deepal Akuretiyagama, Chief Operating Officer of National Development Bank PLC and Asela Perera, Vice President – Information Technology at Dialog Axiata PLC. The session was moderated by Nisthar Cassim, Founding Editor and Chief Executive of the Daily FT newspaper.  During this session, the panellists shared their thoughts on the benefits of embracing Digital Transformation, overcoming the challenges in modernising their organisations with API based adaptive thinking and designing, and how Sri Lanka as a country could benefit by embracing, adopting and adapting to agile execution. 

FITIS Chairman Abbas Kamurdeen said that as the apex body of the ICT industry it was important for the federation to take the lead in helping Sri Lankan companies also embrace the digital transformation.

 “At a time when Sri Lanka has graduated to upper middle income status, it is important for our country and our companies to take advantage of this growth and work towards ensuring we will have a sizeable presence in the global map,” he said. 

Kamurdeen noted that therefore it is important for the business leaders and also entrepreneurs to take the lead to help transform local companies so that they have the ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with their global counterparts. 

API Asia Conference 2019 Chairman Fairooz Habeeb said that the conference featured in total 23 speakers who were leading industry personnel and forward-thinking disruptors, including IT and business leaders of innovative companies in the region.  

“Our ultimate was to identify the digital transformation opportunities, communicate current and potential impact of digital transformation across organisations, the importance of a digital transformation strategy and to adopt a practical roadmap for digital transformation in the country.”  

Habeeb added that the feedback received from the delegates who took part in the conference was tremendous which was testament to the fact that most companies were ready to change and not be left out of the digital transformation revolution.

Pix by Lasantha Kumara