DEFY FEST delivers world-class advertising training to over 700 attendees across 2 transformative days

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Firecracker, Mumbai Founding Producer Harsh Dave (right) in conversation with Dilshara Jayamanna

The Script Room-Coconut Films, India Writer, Filmmaker and Founder Rajesh Ramaswamy

Vexology Advertising, UAE Founder and Creative-Strategic Consultant Assam Khalid

DEFY, Sri Lanka’s youngest advertising and design agency, proved that impact is not a function of age but of vision.

On 29 and 30 May, DEFY FEST, a two-day learning festival organised entirely by the eight-month-old Colombo-based agency, brought international-standard advertising and marketing education to over 700 professionals, freelancers, and students. And it did so entirely free of charge.

By hosting six world-renowned speakers from across the Asia-Pacific region, DEFY injected an estimated Rs. 490 million worth of training value into the Sri Lankan marketing and advertising industries — a figure calculated based on costs of attending comparable overseas conferences (typically ranging from Rs. 700,000 to 1 million per delegate).

Held at the Bishop’s College Auditorium and Idea Hell Warehouse, the festival featured a robust curriculum of six keynote sessions, including “Writing for the Screen” by Rajesh Ramaswamy, “Creativity vs the Copy Machine” by Sosuke Koyama, “Blah to Brilliant – The Art of the Brief” by Saji Abraham, “The Real Work” by Binaifer Dulani, “How to Choose a Production Partner” by Harsh Dave, and “Oddvertising: DEFY the Odds Stacked Against Ads” by Assam Khalid.

In addition, four immersive workshops tackled topics like “40 Years of Production Mess Ups” (Dave), “How to Kill Advertising” (Khalid), “State of Mind. State of Power” (Dulani), and “Brains, Biases, and Behavior” (Abraham), creating space for deeper engagement and reflection.

Led by Festival Director and DEFY Chief Creative Officer Dilshara Jayamanna, the agency’s nine-person team envisioned the event as a genuine contribution to uplift an industry still recovering from economic strain and talent drain.

“DEFY FEST was created with one objective: to raise the bar. Not for our agency, but for the entire ecosystem,” said Jayamanna. “We wanted to prove that Sri Lanka can host, create, and benefit from world-class creative education — right here at home.”

The event was generously supported by Revello Chocolates and Zesta Tea (Gold Sponsors), Nutrifix and JKCG (Bronze Sponsors), and Daily FT (Print Media Partner) — all of whom believed in the festival’s mission to democratise access to knowledge.

One attendee summed up the festival’s impact in a widely shared social media post:

“This world-class festival was nothing short of extraordinary. And it was free. For marketers, students, freelancers, and even other agencies — big and small… You could have made this exclusive. But you didn’t. You opened the doors wide, and in doing so, you lifted the entire industry.”

As Sri Lanka’s advertising community looks ahead, DEFY FEST may well be remembered as the moment the industry stopped waiting for change and started building it from within.

– Pix by Ruwan Walpola

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