SLASSCOM to organise IT/BPM week in Galle

As part of SLASSCOM’s initiative to advocate the creation of regional cities and bring about inclusive growth to Sri Lanka, it is organising Galle IT/BPM Week on 22 June, 6 and 7 July, to build human capacity in the regional cities. Galle IT Week is the third of the SLASSCOM IT Week series where previous events were held in cities of Jaffna in year 2014 and Kandy in year 2016.

Together with SLASSCOM, Ministry of Education and ICTA has put forward a two-day Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Management (BPM) education mission to Galle. The program of this year will revolve around the theme of “Inspiring the Next Generation of Creative Global Leaders” and focuses on inspiring creativity through technology.

Primary objectives of 2018 IT/BPM Week in Galle are to encourage students to select ICT as a career for their future, to build awareness on the latest trends of ICT among educators and broaden the thinking of education ecosystem by inspiring innovations.

Galle IT/BPM Week is expected to help SLASSCOM’s vision for 2022 and beyond which is aiming to increase revenue from the IT/BPM industry to $ 5 billion and creating 200,000 strong direct employment workforce in the sector. 

It is identified that 80% of the workforce in IT/BPM comes from the regions but growth so far has been concentrated within the Western Province. The industry can operate from any location when the environment is conducive. SLASSCOM looked at certain key factors when identifying locations such as Kandy, Jaffna and Galle. There were access to resources such as universities, infrastructure and entrepreneurship.

Galle IT/BPM week is supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Education (MoE). The initiative will consist of five programmes, each focusing on target audiences varying from principals, ICT teachers, school children, parents, and girl students. 

A training program for 200 principals and ICT teachers will be held on 22nd of June. This half a day interactive workshop by the IT/BPM industry professionals is to raise awareness on latest trends on technology and innovation. The workshop will also cover topics such as how entrepreneurship and startups may contribute to change the dynamics of the economy and the methodical ways to inspire and guide students to think creatively to come up with such new innovations. 

On 6th July, there will be a student awareness program to inspire 2500+ young minds to select their future career path in IT/BPM field. Alongside the awareness session, students will visit an exhibition area to explore technology innovations done by children from all parts of the country. SLASSCOM expects to feature around 50 young innovators at this exhibition.

On 7 July, Deep Dive Workshops are planned to be conducted to give interactive hands-on experience for 500 children focusing on 3 different impact areas namely, Innovation (Maker), Programming (Scratch), and Robotics (micro:bit). Simultaneously there will be session for parents to encourage them to support their children in ICT education. Specific motivational session for girls and their parents are also arranged on this day.

Marking the commencement of Galle IT/BPM week, SLASSCOM believes that the empowerment of regional cities would accelerate the country’s economy and would see a paradigm shift from being Colombo-centric to being regional-involved.