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By Ruwandi Gamage
Paving a digital journey towards a smart Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) together with Mobitel launched the ‘National Digital Roadmap’ on Tuesday in the presence of President Maithripala Sirisena.
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Telecommunication and Foreign Employment Minister Harin Fernando |
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SLT Group Chairman Kumarasinghe Sirisena |
The initiative is to build and develop strong digital infrastructure, and create digital platforms under 15 pillars, to bring about easy and fast delivery to the fingertips of the customers. Carrying the theme ‘Limitless you’, the concept brings Sri Lanka towards becoming a smart country, including smart security, smart government, smart education, smart industry, smart agriculture, smart sports, and smart media.
Speaking at the launch, Telecommunication, Foreign Employment and Sports Minister Harin Fernando commended the timely path SLT is paving towards a digital global future. The roadmap was launched by President Maithripala Sirisena.
“Digital means numbers, and digitalisation is connecting the Government, businesses and people digitally and delivery of services with ease and speed. It is bringing the world closer as a virtual reality, right to your mobile. The trend in the world now is data over voice. Sri Lanka can only compete with the world through such initiatives. Thus, SLT has embarked on a fantastic journey,” the Minister added.
Fernando stated that this concept will change governments and businesses, and mentioned that the entire concept depends on the digitalisation of the afore-mentioned platforms. He said communication is moving to where video calls are preferred over voice calls, and foreign meetings are done through video conferencing,saving money on air travel and accommodation. He affirmed the importance of government services becoming digital to save time and money, and the importance of protection of these digitalised data.
“Digitalisation is good and needed, but there are new risks that come with that and thus, protection is essential. Therefore, along with digitalisation, data protection and cyber security will strengthen, and that will bring about new change and added benefit for the businesses and the people. This is the way forward for our country and SLT has the capability to achieve these goals,” Fernando said.
SLT Group Chairman P.G. Kumarasinghe Sirisena echoed the Minister’s remarks, and said that this initiative is aimed at transforming the country towards a creative knowledge-based society through digitally empowered citizens, in order to become the digital hub of the region. He stated that this is achieved through globally connecting people with ever-changing technology, and across opportunities offered to keep pace with the world.
“The unveiling of the National Digital Roadmap displays the progress made so far in paving the way to a smart Sri Lanka. SLT being the major Government shareholding company, and the only State company in the telecommunication business, has contributed over Rs. 100 billion to the national economy during the past five years, and has invested over Rs. 50 billion in employee capital,” he said.
Sirisena further added that SLT has laid the Local Government Network (LGN) of more than 45,000 km of fibre optics, and thousands of kilometres of copper network, covering the entire island providing 4G LTE. He assured that all is set to achieve SLT’s goal of giving 4G LTE coverage to the entire country by 2022.
“SLT currently has an 11.5 million customer base, and we have a workforce of more than 10,000. By creating a smart workforce through digital training and knowledge, it is our promise that via this initiative we will be able to support your limitless skills through the acquiring of limitless knowledge for a limitless you,” he added.
Pix by Upul Abayasekera
