SLASSCOM’s Women Technopreneurs Forum to power the path of women in tech

Dialog Axiata Chief Customer Officer and SLASSCOM Vice-Chairperson Sandra De Zoysa

nqbaytor Co-Founder and onopicks.com Founder Dr. Harshani Perera

Launched to create a positive change across the local tech ecosystem by supporting, promoting and growing women technopreneurs, the SLASSCOM Women Technopreneurs Forum (WTech Forum) has been spearheading a multitude of initiatives in its journey. 

Gathering momentum over the past year, the forum has attracted women who have proven their worth as entrepreneurial professionals. Today, it’s fuelled by a team of top women leaders from the industry, with an aggressive growth plan for the upcoming year. 

Aligned with SLASSCOM’s vision of establishing 1,000 start ups and transforming the current $ 1.5 billion local IT industry into a $ 5 billion export-centric ecosystem by 2025, the WTech Forum is driven by several objectives. These include increasing the number of women-led enterprises within the 1,000 start-up aspiration goal, enhancing contribution to export revenue by women-run tech businesses, providing access to local and international ecosystems, networking opportunities, and bridging the digital gender divide.

The WTech Forum is the brainchild of the Chief Customer Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC, SLASSCOM Vice-Chairperson, and Executive Sponsor of the WTech Forum Sandra De Zoysa. It has adopted a three-pillared approach to achieve its objectives, encompassing skills development, mentorship and networking, and funding and sponsorship.

It is led by 99x COO and SLASSCOM Board member Shehani Seneviratne, who has over two decades of industry experience in the software product engineering space. Shehani is passionate about empowering new age female entrepreneurs who have the potential to expand into overseas markets and also to bridge the digital gender gap in Sri Lanka.

The other forum members include Forum Head and serial entrepreneur Harshani Perera, co-founder of travel tech startup Inqbaytor. She led the team that deployed Ticket Gadget, the travel agent super app for small and medium travel companies that was launched during the first wave of the pandemic and has now become one of the fastest growing travel tech companies in Sri Lanka. She also recently launched onopicks.com – a C2C marketplace that supports independent creators and designers by pivoting their businesses online. A role model and technopreneur for the WTech Forum, Harshani spearheads the pioneering work of the forum, which aims to help Sri Lankan female tech entrepreneurs advance their business model.

Pulani Ranasinghe, founder of Loons Lab, is the forum’s Skills Pillar Lead, who taps into her experience in leading a tech company that provides digitisation services and rich with software products in the health, safety, and logistics domains, to drive the activities within the WTech pillar. This pillar focuses on creating tailored skill development activities for women, to support their business operations and growth. 

Uthpalie Thilakarathna, Co-Founder of blockchain startup Tracified, which recently won an international tender by the ADB to implement a food traceability project in Azerbaijan, is an active forum member and supports the activities of the Mentoring Pillar, spearheading the launch of the one-on-one mentoring program that was specifically tailored to support female technopreneurs. The mentoring pillar focuses on innovative activities that bridge ‘business gaps’ faced by local women technopreneurs. 

The Funding Pillar Lead of the forum, Zahra Cader, is a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers Sri Lanka, and heads the firm’s International Development practice, while being its Diversity and Inclusiveness Lead. A board member of the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka, Zahra utilises her broad experience to build partnerships with organisations supporting startups and women entrepreneurship, and to jointly enable funding for technopreneurs and support programs. Under her guidance, the WTech Forum has established 12 partnerships with chambers, donors and other like-minded organisations and is currently in the process of rolling out a mass-scale survey to understand the issues faced by Sri Lankan technopreneurs, in partnership with IFC.

99x Senior Lead – PR and Corporate Communications Cassandra Mascarenhas, with her experience in driving digital and traditional marketing through technology, infuses her proficiency in using new digital mediums to drive the promotional strategy of the forum. 

Led by women-for women, the WTech Forum is supported by SLASSCOM and all its forums, in achieving its objectives. 

From left: 99x COO and SLASSCOM Board member Shehani Seneviratne, Tracified Co-Founder Uthpalie Thilakarathna, 99x Senior Lead – PR Cassandra Mascarenhas, PricewaterhouseCoopers Sri Lanka Director Zahra Cader and Loons Lab Founder Pulani Ranasinghe