Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Tuesday, 2 December 2014 00:15 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The competition ‘The Success Story’ was the highlight of this event. HIDA/AOTS , Japan has trained over 170,000 overseas delegates from Latin America , Africa , Eastern Europe, South Asia and South East Asia, in multiple disciplines such as manufacturing, quality assurance, management , production techniques, human resource management, financial services and entrepreneurship through carefully designed residential programs in Japan over the past several decades.
In addition, a further 200,000 personnel were trained in their own countries with Japanese experts sent to the host country. HIDA Alumni Societies and their members were invited to submit their ‘Success Stories’ describing the excellent results they achieved through HIDA training and specialist guidance, thereby contributing to the socio-economic betterment of the participant’s country or region. Kularatna was one of the 10 successful candidates who was selected and invited by the Japanese Government to present his Success Story at this global event. An international panel of judges headed by the First Lady of Japan conducted the rigorous selection process where over 300 applications were scrutinised from 40 countries. Kularatna, who was chosen as the first presenter to deliver the speech at this event of global success stories, articulated his presentation under the topic ‘Unleashing the entrepreneur within - the AOTS experience’.
The packed audience of over 500 international delegates at the prestigious Iino Hall in Japan was treated to a passionate narration of how a young corporate executive was transformed into a promising entrepreneur subsequent to a three-week entrepreneur development program in Japan in 2003. Premium International, which was incorporated in 2003, now has achieved leadership status in the healthcare industry as the only integrated turn-key healthcare infrastructure developer in the country. Premium’s portfolio of services include consultancy and project management in healthcare, contract administration, integrated technology supply and technical maintenance.
The company is credited with many accolades. The most noteworthy is their initiative to set up the first ever Research and Development Laboratory for Bio Medical Technologies in Sri Lanka as a private-public partnership with the University of Moratuwa with an investment of over Rs. 50 million to develop medical equipment manufacturing capacity in Sri Lanka harnessing the engineering expertise of fellow Sri Lankans. This professional approach to business and the commercial success of Premium International under the leadership of Prasantha Kularatna has been formally recognised in many forums both in the local and international arena for entrepreneurship. Premium International has achieved the highest-ever local accolade for corporate recognition, winning Gold at the National Business Excellence award in 2012. The outstanding presentation made by the CEO of Premium was so well-received by the audience that the Japanese First Lady personally congratulated him on his memorable narration. Delegates from more than 70 alumni societies representing as many as 55 countries participated in this event which was attended by many Japanese government agencies as well as individuals from the corporate sector and diplomatic missions. Some of the global names were JICA, METI, JETRO, JBIC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujifilm, Sakura, Toray, etc. Committee members from JASTECA, the Sri Lankan body through which HIDA programs are facilitated, were also represented at this global event.
