Govt. and Opposition to share same ICT platform at FutureGov SAARC Summit

Saturday, 22 June 2013 05:32 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The keenly-awaited two-day FutureGov SAARC Summit 2013 will be officially inaugurated by Public Management Reforms Minister Naveen Dissanayake at the Cinnamon Grand Colombo on Tuesday, 25 June. An important highlight in the morning of day two of the summit will be a VIP discussion between ruling party MP Thilanga Sumathipala and Main Opposition Party MP Eran Wickramaratne.

“This is a very rare opportunity to witness the views of the two key political philosophies in Sri Lanka on ICT,” said ICT Agency of Sri Lanka Director and Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando. The two legislators will express their views on the topic ‘e-Government: The energiser for public sector service excellence’. “It is important to have consensus among politicians on important subjects such as ICT and at the same time it is important to have their voice heard by the policy makers and the policy implementers,” the ICTA Legal Advisor added. Delegations from all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries including Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will, of course, be among the sure participants. More than 200 senior officials from SAARC countries are poised to participate. Sri Lanka is hosting the FutureGov SAARC Summit for the second consecutive year. This will at the same time be the fourth annual FutureGov Forum in Sri Lanka. The summit is organised by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) with the Strategic Partnership of Sri Lanka Telecom. Distinguished local and international participants are poised for valuable contribution at the conference on 25 and 26 June. The summit will focus in particular on effective and efficient e-Governance in the region. It will give participants the rare opportunity to share their views with some of the best practitioners in public service and industry experts in the world. Accordingly the forum will be an ideal opportunity for all interested in improvements in Government service provided to the public: Particularly Government officers will greatly benefit from the forum. Among the distinguished speakers at Future SAARC 2013 will be Public Management Reforms Minister Naveen Dissanayake, President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Dr. S. Batagoda, ICTA CEO Reshan Dewapura, Sri Lanka Telecom Group CEO Lalith De Silva, Head of Digital Austria Peter Reichstädter, CEO of Citizen Services Denmark Thomas Jakobsen and Undersecretary of Malaysian Ministry of Natural Resources Marsineh Jermin.