SJB unveils digital policy for Sri Lanka

National Digitisation policy of the future Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Government was unveiled by the Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa accompanied by Parliamentarians Eran Wickramaratne and Professor G.L. Peiris with the participation of host of academia in the relevant sphere of Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. The launching of digital policy for Sri Lanka by the future SJB Government was launched at the Lakshman Kadirgamar institute in Colombo on Wednesday under the leadership of the Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa.

MP Eran Wickram-aratne who was the pioneering Chairman of the ICTA in Sri Lanka led the team of experts who prepared this policy document to take the country into Artificial Intelligence with a leap forward beyond Information Technology.

Wickramaratne speaking on the occasion articulating the overview on the importance of digitisation to Sri Lanka as a country, its Government and the people said that the importance of information technology to a country today cannot be overstated. 

Even though the world is living in an artificial intelligence technology beyond information technology, Sri Lanka is twenty years behind in information technology.

Therefore, since these technologies are needed, the SJB has decided to give priority to popularising this digital technology in the country during its term of office in order to take a leap and move forward, second only to school education.

For this, we are focusing on the development of human resources as the basic need. Sri Lanka’s geographical location and human resources are advantageous for this. Earlier, literacy was measured by being able to write and sign one’s name. Wickramaratne emphasised that since it is now measured on digital literacy, raising all citizens to that position is the basic priority of the policy of the future Sajith Premadasa Government.

He further said that the digital Sri Lanka policy will have a positive impact on the economic development of the country as if we have a digital literacy human resource we can make inputs to the global needs which in turn provide us the economic and financial benefits to the country, households and individuals.

Conducive atmosphere is needed to expedite accruing benefits, with high speed internet connection covering the whole country. Korea gave high priority to internet connections and IT, so when there is a technological innovation in the world, Korea becomes one of the first countries to have such innovations. Expertise and the requisite investment may come through the private sector participation. He said that the Opposition leader is of the firm view that the contribution of the private sector participation into this field is inevitable to reap the benefits of IT.

The MP said that since technology always raises legal issues, we as a country should also prepare the necessary laws for that. Now that ChatGPT has jumped forward under artificial intelligence over information technology, he strongly stated that laws should be made for it now.

Wikcramaratne asserted that as a banker about 20 year ago realising the needs of IT, he along with Dushan Soza went to the USA and had a discussion with Bill Gates and made arrangements with Microsoft to open up their branch in Sri Lanka. We had a plan to bring multinational companies to the country by first bringing SAMSUNG into the country. Unfortunately as we missed the opportunity with the change of Government in 2004, SAMSUNG started their project in Vietnam and that country made it successful in the field of IT.

But we were able to bring in IT companies to provide BPO services and HSBC was one such company, but very unfortunately for the last 15 to 20 years there have been no major advancement in the use of IT in this country. Enactments are needed to make IT workable efficiently. The piece of Law on IT by the EU has been made a law now. 

MP Eran Wickramaratne urged that its duration for compliance should be expedited in Sri Lanka