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Friday Feb 07, 2025
Wednesday, 7 May 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Asanga Abeyagoo-nasekera, the Executive Director of the Institute delivered the welcome address and explained that it is important to alarm the society about the importance of innovation and science education. “Sri Lanka which was ranked at the 69th place in the Global Information Technology Report in 2013 is placed in the 76th place in 2014. Our place has declined from seven places. This is not a positive sign. It means that we have been unable to cope with the current trends”, said Abeyagoonasekera. The Kadirgamar Institute as a multidisciplinary think tank will continue its initiative for making the awareness of the society on the importance of innovation.
Chulanee Attanayake, a Research Associate at the Kadirgamar Institute, presented on the findings of this seminar report. This report launched focused on the situation in Sri Lanka with regard to problems in the innovation ecosystem, shortcomings and way forward. The most prominent issue identified was the low priority given to research and development, and innovation.
Expenditure for R&D is less than two percent and as a result there is no adequate infrastructure to carry out research. Despite the fact that the current world economy is knowledge driven and high-tech industry based, Sri Lanka still focus on low-tech industry and importing raw material. The report also highlights the shortcomings in the current education system.
Education system does not promote scientific thinking
The education system does not promote scientific thinking and the undergraduates are not encouraged to take the risk of starting their own enterprise. The lack of safety networks to encourage innovators and entrepreneurs have prevented them from taking the risk of doing something new. Most of the innovations die at the initial stage due to the lack of financial capital to develop the products for commercialisation.
The report also identifies the society in general and the media for discouraging innovation. As some speakers rightly pointed out innovation are not popular discussion topics in the mainstream media. Considering the power media has in moulding the society’s thinking, it was emphasised that the media can play a more significant and positive role to alarm the society about the need for innovation.
Introducing the future initiatives of the Kadirgamar Institute, Archana Heenpella, a Research Assistant introduced the ‘Innovation Lab’ which is a space for the innovators to share their ideas and display their innovations. “The Institute will partner with Internews to carry out this project. Google Sri Lanka too has shown its interest for this initiative. We welcome the support from all the interested stakeholders,” said Heenpella.
Valuable document
for Government
Prof. Tissa Vitharana speaking on the occasion emphasised that the report is a valuable document for the Government in general and for the Ministry for Scientific Affairs and the Coordinating Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI) in particular whose mandate covers the coordination of various ministries and research institutes. Hon. Minister further said that the ministry introduced the National Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation with the objective of achieving development through science, technology and Innovation. “The crux of this is to learn from the other countries. The developed countries came out of poverty through making the maximum use of science and technology”, said the Minister. Bringing examples from the developed countries in Asia, the Minister highlighted that Sri Lanka’s high-tech exports are less than 1.5% as opposed to the high-tech exports from countries such as Japan (85%), Korea (70%), Singapore (60%) and Thailand (30%).
“Innovating ideas that can be commercialised and making them competitive in the market is the key for rapid economic development. However, this is a tremendous challenge in the context of an economic downturn in the world,” said the Minister. Speaking of developing science labs for 1,000 secondary schools all around the country, Vitharana said, “In order to achieve our target we need to be really innovative in all the socioeconomic aspects. We need promote science and technology education. We need to develop human resources in the technology stream. We need to build capacities in terms of world class laboratories. We have to give the facilities to the people to generate innovations.”
He further illustrated that an entire mechanism to be built to support innovations including a strong intellectual property system, so that when scientists come up with innovations they have the ability to commercialise them in the competitive market.
The Minister appreciated the efforts of the Kadirgamar Institute to promote the idea of innovation in the country and its initiatives to create a dialogue on innovation in the country.
