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Friday, 13 February 2015 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
From left: Zone 24x7 GM Dr. Sankalpa Gamwarige, Sustain Soloutions Director Anoka Abeyratne, MicroImage CEO Harsha Purasinhe, Mission Trust Executive Committee Member Sharanya Sekaram and WSO2 Vice President of Delivery Samisa Abeysinghe
By Senuri de Silva
Saviman, a website service designed to deliver tech support to social enterprises and non-profit organisations, was launched by British Council last Monday.
The concept behind Saviman is to support social enterprises and non-profit organisations to scale their social impact by connecting them to the best experts available in the field of IT so that they may overcome any tech related obstacles such as creating websites, raising funds or selling their products online.
Saviman was founded by a team of entrepreneurs and pioneers in the field of IT which includes Microimage Founder/CEO Harsha Purasinghe, Microimage Mobile Media COO Rohan Jayaweera, WS02 Vice President of Delivery Samisa Abeysinghe, Cinergix CEO Chandika Jayasundara and Unity Mission Trust Executive Committee Member Sharanya Sekaram.
With a name derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘guidance’, Saviman is set to provide an incredible advantage to social enterprises through its esteemed panel of experts who would not be accessible to such organisations for such consultations under usual circumstances.
Chandika Jayasundara described the unique service offered by Saviman through its depository of formidable IT talent saying: “At the start we are quite fortunate to have a fairly large number of excellent people whose time you will not be able to usually afford, volunteering and coming in to help with a lot of passion. Experts are categorised into different areas so you’ll be able to get a better understanding of who might be able to help.”
At the launch, Saviman brought together 18 experts to respond to questions submitted through the website and sorted according to categories like e commerce, cloud, web development, networking and digital marketing among many others.
Saviman experts filter the requests based on their nature and type and offer one-to-one advice and guidance. This way the question can be directed to the most suitable expert for a more specific and therefore more effective response. The number of experts available will also increase as more and more experts volunteer their time to lend a hand to these enterprises to expand increase their ability to do social good.
Jayasundara demonstrated the process of getting help through Saviman after its launch saying, “When we receive the request we sort out the queries and someone is responsible for finding the right expert to point that question towards. From there on the expert engages with the organisation that requires help. Getting advice is as simple as explaining what kind of problem you have.”
The direction of Saviman
Saviman was created as a part of ‘FUTURES – Social Innovation Forum’ which was organised by British Council last year. The launch was followed by an evening talk on ‘Technology for Social Impact’ where a panel of leading social entrepreneurs shared their thoughts on the significance of this venture.
Speaking at the panel discussion, Samisa Abeysinghe shared his thoughts on the ultimate intent of ‘Saviman’: “To me Saviman is all about inspiring people in terms of unimaginable projects with unimaginable capabilities by bridging gaps.”
Sharanya Sekaram, one of the founders and also a speaker on the panel, spoke of how Saviman helped her organisation set up a much-needed website.
Social enterprises need to engage with the public for a number of reasons, ranging from raising awareness to securing funding and technology is an integral part of this process. However, organisations may not be equipped to overcome this technology barrier and this may in turn handicap their ability to reach out to their supporters. Most importantly, there is a large pool of international funding and support which becomes accessible through the having of a proper website that displays the activity and proves the legitimacy of an organisation.
Sekaram said: “You can’t avoid technology. It is now integrated into our lives. The problem is not all of us understand exactly how it works so any non-profit or social enterprise needs to work with technology to get the best you can but if it is blocking you and holding you back you are limiting what you can really do. That’s where a service like Saviman has the potential to help our thousands of non-profits not just in Sri Lanka but around the world because sometimes it’s something as simple as what is the difference between .com and .org that is preventing you from reaching out to thousands of people. It seems like nothing but it can really go very far.”
Sustain Solutions Director Anoka Abeyrathne added to this sentiment by sharing the story of her organisation’s ‘Growing Money’ program which creates designer handicrafts using mangroves and uplifts the lives of those in villages affected by the tsunami. She is now in the process of setting up an e-commerce venture to reach a wider online market for their products.
“We want to venture out to an e commerce venture so we really need to have things like our products displayed correctly. A project like Saviman would be really beneficial in helping not just ‘Growing Money’ but also any other social enterprise or any venture who wants to scale out and go really far,” she said.
Chandika Jayasundara understands the reason such organisations need the extra IT support. Some solutions may seem simple enough to someone from an IT background, but be a ‘black hole’ to an organisation without the proper IT know how and whose main focus is their cause. Sometimes the solution may elude them for a reason as simple as not knowing where to look.
Speaking to the representatives from various non-profit organisations present at the event, Jayasundara said: “Almost 99.99% of your software requirement is already built by somebody and most probably available online for free. Most of our job would be to actually connect you to it and help you find that right fit and these things will help you scale massively.”
24X7 General Manager Dr. Sankalpa Gamwarige and WS02 Director Research Dr. Srinath Perera were also on the panel. Dr. Gamwarige gave an example of the extent to which technology can be used to enrich lives as a member of a local team that built an award winning device that uses braille and enriches the volume of literature available to the visually-impaired. Dr. Perera spoke of heat maps and how they have been used to display data that has influenced the way funding is allocated and shifted to the regions that need it the most.
The development of Saviman
Some thoughts were also shared on the many directions this project may take in the future. The website will be available in all three languages soon. The team also hopes to attract more local and even foreign experts and take in queries from foreign organisations, creating an international support systems for enterprise of this calibre.
They plan on reducing the lag time between responses by automating the categorisation process as the website grows. Furthermore, as the number of responses increase, they hope to create a common depository of solutions that can be accessed at any time. An open forum may even be created for questions can be asked and answered online.
There is also the possibility of the website being open to corporates that need advice to develop their CSR projects in the future. A nominal fee will be charged for this service, which will go towards its expansion.
Pix by Shehan Gunasekara
