World Congress and Exhibition in November

Java to bolster economy

Java World Congress:

Charumini DE SILVA

CEO Nigel Dye

Sri Lanka has a great opportunity to develop in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) industry. The Government and the Board of Investment (BoI) is taking many initiatives to promote and develop the skills of the youth of the country, Metanaia Pertners CEO Nigel Dye said at the launch of the Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010 yesterday.

The Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010 is schedule to be held on November 19 to 21 at SLECC and BMICH.

The population in Asia accounts to over two billion which is 48 percent of the world’s population. Sri Lanka therefore has the advantage of locating in the Asian region and having the benefit of advanced technology, he said.

Europe and America are prospective markets for Sri Lanka as these countries evolve very regularly. If Sri Lanka could provide a better service and show the world to service knowledge based economy, the country will again be highlighted on the world map, Dye said.

Dye said the country should focus more on large project management skills. “Evolution is all about innovation. The key element of innovation is cultural and social diversification. Sri Lanka should make use of the cultural diversity in their production system,” he said.

Java World Congress and Exhibition Secretary General Dr Ishantha Siribaddana said Sri Lanka can make use of the Java technology to develop a knowledge based economy. Java is one of the fastest and it is recommended as one of the best technologies in the world.

It is important to improve the professional education and skill development of our youth. Although the young entrepreneurs have academic education most of them lack the professional and skill developments.

Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa launching the official website of the Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010. Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010 Chairman Dilanthe Withanage and Java World Congress and Exhibition Secretary General Dr Ishantha Siribaddana look on. Picture by Rukmal Gamage

Dr Siribaddana said by enhancing the youth capacity and empowering them with Java technology will create avenues to attract more foreign remittances without depending on the foreign remittances from the Middle East expatriates.

The country should ease regulation on Internet payments. Many young entrepreneurs seek ICT job opportunities overseas as regulations are stiff. The brain-drain should be stopped and we should make use of it for our economy to prosper, he said.

Java World Congress and Exhibition 2010 Chairman Dilanthe Withanage said chronic poverty is the worst crime of the humanity.

“To overcome this situation, we need an innovative and creative structural change in all our systems. Although we are in an ICT era we still use old mechanisms to solve our problems,” he said.

During the industrial revolution the main difficulty was to gather capital in our productions, but today it has changed into ICT.

Building and strengthening the social capital is vital in developing the country’s economy. Therefore, we should promote using open source Java technology to empower the youth with many opportunities, he said.

attached from - http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/07/14/bus01.asp