Virtusa donates to Rehabilitation Efforts

I have been involved in a Virtusa CSR initiative to support the rehabilitation efforts in Sri Lanka for the Commissioner General Rehabilitation's Office. There are a lot of rehabilitates who are interested in a vocation in ITES/BPO and thus Virtusa was invited to help guide a program that would help meet those aspirations. Virtusa decided to make a significant donation at this critical post-civil war period to help the rehabilitation efforts. The donation included a computer lab with 30 computers (running Ubuntu) in Vavuniya, support for defining a program for those interested in a vocation in ITES/BPO and the development of a software solution to help better manage the training and rehabilitation efforts. The lab was opened on the 1st week of April by the President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapakse and it was a great honor to be part of that ceremony.

A further1300+ ex-combatants were released that day to their families and it was a heartwarming sight to see those who have suffered so much due to the civil war being reunited with their families with a fresh outlook for a peaceful future. Some of these kids are so talented and it is sad to see that they wasted so much of their lives being trained instead as lethal weapons. We hope they will have a better future in peaceful Sri Lanka.

The event also gave me another opportunity to observe the President quite close and I continue to be impressed with his charisma and down-to-earth nature with people, especially in this environment, where he was surrounded by ex-combatants, who not too long ago would have taken every opportunity to do him harm (as mandated by their previous commanders).

I was also very proud of our Virtusa team and leadership that gave their full backing for this initiative, given it's relevance to peace building post-civil war. I also had to opportunity to work with the Sri Lanka Army these past few months (from end of last year) on this initiative and I consistently found that everyone I met was very professional, ethical in their approach and disciplined on delivery. It was a pleasure and a honor to work with them and  we would not have been able to contribute on our CSR goals without their vision for rehabilitation and encouraging support of our contributions.

There is still a lot of work to do and you still find remnants of the war scattered around, yet you can see the progress being made on the ground. We hope and pray for a peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka of the future.

Speaker and RT participant at III International Congress, Spain

I had the opportunity to represent Sahana and Sri Lanka at III International Congress event in Gijon, Spain. The event was about building better corporation between “north” and “south” countries and for learning about the innovation in ICT that was coming up from the south. The audience was represented by policy makers in Europe and the UN and innovators from Africa and Asia. I was invited to speak as well as be a round table participant and I took that opportunity to talk about Sahana, H-FOSS and also brought some awareness to the ICT industry in South Asia. In the Round Table discussions keep points I mentioned was that innovation from the south too often get’s tagged with an ICT4D banner for novelty and this hides it’s true potential to be applicable as an globally applicable innovation in its own right. I also am not a fan of the "North/South" term and any demarcation that creates artificial barriers for collaboration. In cyberspace at least we are all equal and social networking is working to eliminate such divides as it no longer matter where you live. Overall I met some great people and made good friends amongst the participants and speakers and look forward to further collaboration with them. Notable for Sahana we made some good links to collaborate with Ushahadi, TachicalTech and UNDP.

References:

• III Congress Coop 2.0 Event: http://encuentro2010.fundacionctic.org/en/ponentes/
• Presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/cooperacionarroba/evolution-of-the-sahana-open-source-project
• Newspaper article: http://www.lne.es/gijon/2010/03/02/creamos-software-libre-sri-lanka-gestion-desastres-tsunami/880526.html
• Newspaper article 2: http://www.europapress.es/asturias/innova-00297/noticia-innova-fundacion-sahana-presentara-cooperacion-20-herramienta-gestion-ayuda-desastres-20100123120539.html
• Newspaper article 3: http://mas.lne.es/siasturias/etiquetas/iii-congreso-internacional-de-tic-en-cooperacion-al-desarrollo/

Sri Lankan President Launches OLPC program

I was invited to the Sri Lankan President's residence at temple trees today for the launch of the OLPC program in Sri Lankan. 1300 laptops are to be distributed to 13 rural schools. A lot of partners were involved in getting this off the ground including many members of the FOSS community. Virtusa specifically sponsored the server machines for the schools as part of their CSR "digital reach" effort. We wish the Ministry of Education, who is at the center of this effort the best success as it certainly will do wonders for kids in rural areas. I remember the amount of keen curiosity and interest the kids had when we did our field tests in the schools. Apart from that, it was an great opportunity to see the president up close, as he was sitting just two chairs just in front of me. I am generally a fan of our president as whatever said and done, he lead this country out of a devastating civil war, the magnitude of problem, militarily, economically, socially and politically (particularly international politics), which no other president before had to face or ever had firm a resolve to overcome. All our kids have a chance for a future in this country because of the end of this war, that deteriorated our nation for decades. So the president can rest on his laurels as far as I am concerned at least for now, as he delivered on this important promise to his fellow Citizens only just few months ago. Now it is time for all of us to contribute to heal the wounds left behind after the civil war and ensure that the reason for the civil war does not rise again.

Ref Article: http://blog.laptop.org/2009/12/10/sri-lankan-president-launches-a-national-xo-program/