FCCISL announces 18th Entrepreneur of the Year Awards scheme

By David Ebert

The Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) held a media briefing recently to announce the launch of the Sri Lanka Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 (SLEOTY) awards at the Kingsbury hotel under the theme ‘It’s your perseverance that drives the nation’.

The SLEOTY is recognised as the country’s highest national awards program for the business community and is designed to distinguish, reward and motivate Sri Lankan entrepreneurs and to help them effectively contribute to the local economy.

Last year’s competition saw a host of new segments being included among the categories, with categories such as the ‘Emerging Small Women Entrepreneur in the North and East’ and ‘Differently Abled Entrepreneur’ categories included on a regional level only. However, this time around the ‘Emerging Small Women Category’ will be taken to a national level with the aim of encouraging women entrepreneurs from across the island to participate in and seek the recognition for their efforts and in turn encourage more women to look at independent business activities with the aim of creating a more vibrant contribution towards national economic goals and employment creation.

The ‘Differently Abled Entrepreneur’ category is a premeditated category of the SLEOTY awards with a view to recognise highly motivated individuals who have achieved their set goals by overcoming their physical barriers. Participation was encouraging last year, however the FCCISL hopes to garner a greater level of participation nationally and regionally this year around with regional and national awareness programs planned ahead of the competition.

Contestants have been grouped into four categories; ‘small’ for investments greater than Rs. 1 million to Rs. 2 million, ‘medium’ for investments larger than Rs. 2 million up to Rs. 20 million, ‘large’ for investments between Rs. 20 million to 50 million and ‘extra-large’ for investments over Rs. 50 million.

Evaluations will be carried out based on the individual enterprise’s financial strength, management style, employment generation capacity, technology used, if the entrepreneur is a good corporate citizen, competitiveness and it future viability.

The candidates will have to go through four rounds of evaluations which will consist of a preliminary screening round, a desk review which will count for 50% of total marks, a site visit which accounts for 25% and individual interviews which will account for 15% of the marks. The final evaluation which is the most crucial will provide candidates with the balance 10% of the marks required.

Awards program staged at two levels

The awards program will also be staged at two levels, both provincial and national. The provincial awards will comprise of nine gold awards for the nine provinces and 36 silver awards comprising of four awards each for the nine provinces in the small, medium, large and extra-large categories. Similarly, there will be two bronze awards in each of the four categories giving it a total of 117 awards from all provinces.

Of the national awards, there will be an overall platinum award winner, followed by four gold awards, eight silver awards and 12 bronze awards. Each special award category will carry three awards per province for the winner, 1st runner-up, 2nd runner-up and five merit certificates at the provincial level. While a winner, 1st runner-up, 2nd runner-up and five merit certificates will be handed out at the national level based on the total marks obtained.

The event has earned a reputation for its independent processes of judging by professionals and experts, representing diverse disciplines nominated from state and private sector institutions of the country covering different aspects of the program.

Speaking at the event, FCCISL Past-President and founder of the SLEOTY awards Patrick Amarasinghe stated: “In 1992 when I first inaugurated this program and myself having been an entrepreneur I knew the battles that local entrepreneurs had to fight through. There are still a lot of them who are fighting them in Sri Lanka. The one thing that pushed me to do this was that we must give recognition to the entrepreneurs and not only the large but the small and medium categories should be recognised too.”

Amarasinghe added that the he is currently involved in a worldwide entrepreneurship program targeting schools and universities with the aim of promoting entrepreneurship among the youth which he felt was essential to avoid social uprisings as in the past.

“Entrepreneurship needs to be ingrained in the minds of our youth by giving them the avenues to want to contribute towards the social uplifting of their communities through entrepreneurship, or we risk reliving the same social problems such as the insurgencies we have had to face in our country’s past. We have today about five and a half million children under the age of 25 and it is a big challenge for both the private sector and the chambers to see how we can help them because there is so much talent available in the country. The challenge is before all of us and we have to give them the opportunity and give them the advice and inspiration they need.”

The SLEOTY 2013 program is sponsored by Dialog Axiata as the platinum partner, Janashakthi Insurance Company PLC as the gold partner and the Bank of Ceylon. Applications are available at the FCCISL Secretariat located at No.53, Vauxhall Lane, Colombo 2 and in the regional and district member Chambers of the FCCISL. Forms can also be downloaded at www.entrepreneur.fccisl.lk and details can be obtained via; [email protected].

Pix by Sameera Wijesinghe