President sees ICT as frontrunner in country’s development: ICTA CEO

ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) CEO Reshan Dewapura said that Sri Lanka was fortunate because its President saw ICT as a front runner of development.

Dewapura said so while participating at the inauguration of the South Asian Mobile Conference (SAMC) 2011 held for the second consecutive year in partnership with Etisalat Lanka Pvt. Ltd. in Colombo recently.

“We are fortunate to have the leadership of a President who has recognised the development acceleration capability of ICT and sees it as a frontrunner in the country’s development agenda,” he asserted.

Addressing a large audience including local and foreign experts in the field the ICTA CEO recapitulated at the outset the progress from SAMC 2010: “Building on the momentum of the 2010 success, this year’s events have grown to be even greater accomplishments. The Conference has attracted more international and local speakers and has been a bigger sell-out than last time. The mBillionth has received almost 50% more mobile content applications for the Jury process this year.

“This is ample proof of both the substantial and continuous development in our ICT journey as well as the phenomenal impact of the mobile sphere on the ICT sector. The South Asian Mobile Conference with its associated mBillionth Jury is an example of an enormous success emanating from a simple but innovative concept.”

Spelling out the needs of the advance in the digital world during his address, Dewapura said: “At a time when governments, industries, societies, communities and countries in general, are rapidly advancing towards a digital world, or even rapidly forced to advance to such an environment, digital content and applications become even more important. In order to maximise the effect and impact of this and to absolutely ensure that no one gets left behind in this revolution, we have to address ‘the need for’ and ‘the suitability of’ these applications and contents, not only for computers, but more increasingly for mobile devices as well.”

Emphasising the contribution the South Asian Mobile Conference makes towards the National Development Programme ICTA CEO said: This conference and events leading up to it and its follow-up are all contributions towards realizing the objectives of innovative National Development Programmes such as e-Sri Lanka. All these activities have a great significance and play an integral part in contributing to the socio-economic development of our countries.

Giving an insight to the extent mobile penetration in the world today Dewapura made a thought-provoking citation from eminent speaker on mobile space, Tomi Ahonan: “At a time when more mobile phones are used in this world than tooth brushes, when the potential of the mobile phone led financial space, is bigger than that created by the entire automobile industry of the world, when it is bigger than the entire food industry of the world, mobiles devices and mobile applications, become a phenomenon we simply cannot ignore and becomes a tool/an enabler that we need to factor into our day-to-day business, day-to-day activities and simply in our day-to-day lives.”

Moving to the corollary to the above Dewapura said: “Therefore it is indeed appropriate that we continue with activities such as these, on a regular and frequent basis to discuss the importance and various other aspects of mobile content and how they could be used to” take the benefits of ICT to every citizen.

ICTA Chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe, Digital Empowerment Foundation Founder and Director Osama Manzar, Impact Mobile Canada President and CEO and keynote speaker Gary Schwartz, Mobilium International CEO and Founder and keynote speaker Ralph Simon, Dialog Axiata PLC Sri Lanka Group Chief Executive Officer Hans Wijesuriya, Telecommunication and IT Ministry Secretary Nimal Atukorala and Etisalat Lanka Pvt. Ltd. CEO Dumindra Ratnayake were also among the participants at the inauguration of SAMC 2011.