Sri Lankan ICT industry creates history at APICTA Awards 2017 held in Bangladesh

The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) conducted its Annual ICT Awards competition in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 7-10 December. This competition is held to identify the best ICT products that have won awards in their respective country competitions. 

The APICTA Awards is the largest such competition in the Asia Pacific Region and is sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of ICT. The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards are dedicated to the increase of ICT awareness in the region and assists in bridging the digital divide.

The highlight of the awards ceremony was Sri Lanka winning three gold trophies and six merit awards. As per the APICTA Awards rules, merit recognition is awarded only if the product receives less than .05% marks difference to the winning product of the category. 

The competition consists of 17 categories and Sri Lanka competed in eight categories and won the above awards. This is the largest number of awards that Sri Lanka has won in one year and it made Sri Lanka the second highest ranking country just behind Hong Kong in the 2017 competition. The participants were selected from the winners of the National Best Quality ICT Awards (NBQSA) 2017 which was organised by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT Sri Lanka Section (BCSSL), and secondary student projects were selected from the participants of Young Computer Scientist (YCS) organised by the Federation of IT Industry for Sri Lanka (FITIS) Software Chapter. Prior to their departure to Dhaka, the participants were coached for over a month by experienced judges from BCSSL Vajeendra S. Kandegamage, Geethapriya Tillekeratne, Ruwan Amarasekara, Shanaka Rajapakse and Welinton Perera, supported by the FITIS Software Chapter.

A 49-member delegation was led by the two main bodies of the ICT industry in Sri Lanka - BCSSL and FITIS Software Chapter.

The officials representing Sri Lanka at this international event consisted of the incumbent Dr. Dileepa De Silva - APICTA Chairman; Ruwan Amaresekara – Chairman, BCSSL as the APICTA Executive Committee Member and the judges were Vajeendra S. Kandegamage, Geethpariya Thilakarathna, Ransit Fernando, Shanaka Rjapaksha and Welinton Perera - President FITIS Software Chapter and Exco Member. The country coordinator for the event was Chadika Yahampath.

Expressing his views on this global awards program, Ruwan Ameraseka stated: “In 2015 we hosted the APICTA Awards very successfully in Sri Lanka making it the benchmark for all other countries. Although we won gold and merit awards in 2015, at APICTA 2017 we managed to become the second best nation among APICTA member countries which is a great success.”

APICTA Chairman Dr. Dileepa De Silva stressed: “These awards bring regional countries together for a healthy competitive environment so that the best innovative ICT products in the region are recognised while giving participants a chance to learn from each other.”

As part of the BCS Sri Lanka Section’s Business Support Initiative Biz2Biz.lk, N. Nirmalan - Exco Member of BCS Sri Lanka Section coordinated over 50 business matching meetings for the Sri Lankan delegates with their Bangladeshi counterparts at Digital World 2017 which is the national ICT exhibition of Bangladesh.