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Sunday Dec 15, 2024
Friday, 18 May 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Nisthar Cassim
The Government on Wednesday urged youth to use social media meaningfully to enhance socioeconomic development rather than promoting hate speech, gossip or fake news.
This emphatic message was conveyed to a forum of over 600 youth, startups and young entrepreneurs organised by global social media giant Facebook in partnership with ICTA in Colombo.
The inaugural ‘Boost Your Business’ workshop, trained entrepreneurs on the effective use of Facebook to grow and monetise their businesses online. The workshop focussed on building a digital presence for free, leveraging the mobile economy to gain market access and grow their businesses.
The Facebook’s global ‘Boost Your Business’ program has been introduced in Sri Lanka in partnership with the ICTA and aims at training 10,000 small business owners across the country by the close of 2018. Similar to the Colombo event, Facebook and ICTA will hold Boss Your Business workshop in Galle, Kandy and Jaffna in the future.
Sri Lanka has a growing Facebook community with over five million users.
Secretary to the President and TRC Chairman Austin Fernando commended Facebook for launching the program in Sri Lanka, thereby emphasising social media can be used more for economic development and is positive than a negative influence on the society at large.
He said that unlike in the past, today youth and society had unlimited opportunities for the use of technology. “Technology must be leveraged to boost business, SMEs, help reach new markets, improve the agriculture sector, etc.,” he said.
“The Government supports technology development but we need the support of private sector social media giants to ensure peace, unity and stability preserving Sri Lanka’s cultural values,” Fernando stressed. “There must be cohesive efforts by both the private sector and the Government because along with prosperity peace is important as well,” he added.
During his address, Secretary to the President apologised for the recent temporary ban on social media which he pointed out was regrettably necessary to ensure racial harmony in the aftermath of clashes in the Kandy District. “The misuse of social media provoked us to impose a temporary ban,” he said.
Telecommunications, Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Employment Minister Harin Fernando also congratulated Facebook for launching the key initiative in Sri Lanka. “With 2.2 billion Facebook users, this is an exciting opportunity for our businesses, especially SMEs,” he said urging the youth to use social media meaningfully and productively than for gossip and fake news.
There are more than 60 million businesses around the world who actively use Facebook Pages because they are free, easy to use, and they work well on mobile. Small businesses discover Facebook for their business because they know how to use it personally: setting up a page is just as easy as setting up a profile.
Facebook Public Policy Director, India, South and Central Asia Ankhi Das said Sri Lanka’s global integration was a case study and that her organisation was happy to work with the Government and the ICTA, which had been progressive. She said Sri Lanka had a large SME base whilst over 30% were owned or managed by women.
“These SMEs are eager to become globally competitive and also integrate globally,” she said, adding that the partnership with ICTA to roll out the ‘Boost Your Business’ program was exciting and meaningful. She also said that Facebook would continue to align itself with Sri Lanka’s national IT ecosystem’s plans and policies to better serve the aspirations of the country and people.
Facebook has also partnered with Sarvodaya Foundation to teach digital literacy to 20,000 students across the country. It has launched the Global Youth Portal in which Sinhala content and tools will be enhanced.
ICTA Chairman Prof. Rohan Samarajiva said that his organisation would constructively engage with all industry stakeholders via partnerships to ensure benefits of ICT reached the masses.
He explained the expansion of knowledge agents program at Grama Niladari level to digitally empower citizens, thereby society and the nation. Facebook’s ‘Boost Your Business’ program also included a panel discussion involving IT-savvy State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne and Deputy Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs Dr. Harsha De Silva.
Facebook also held the first-ever Instagram cultural exhibition ‘visitsrilanka’. Showcasing the vibrancy and cultural diversity of Sri Lanka, the exhibit included a wide range of images and stories captured by the Sri Lankan Instagram community. Facebook said there were over 800 million active instagram users globally.
Minister Fernando said Instagram was one of the most effective platforms that could harnessed by Sri Lanka to promote tourism.
Pix by Ruwan Walpola
