Information Technology in Sri Lanka

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Information Technology in Sri Lanka refers to the business process outsourcing, knowledge process outsourcing, software development, IT Services and IT education in Sri Lanka.[1] Sri Lanka is ranked among the top 50 outsourcing destinations by AT Kearney, and Colombo is ranked among "Top 20 Emerging Cities" by Global Services Magazine.[2] The export revenue of this industry grew from USD 213 million in 2007 to an estimated USD 720 million in 2013.[3][4][4]

History

For the purpose of developing IT in Sri Lanka, Computer Society of Sri Lanka was started in 1976.[citation needed]

Sri Lanka's IT, KPO/BPO industry has a short span of history starting around 2000.[1]

IT/BPO sector has identified as priority sector for economic development in the country.[3]

Business process outsourcing

Sri Lanka is an offshore development center and Joint venture hub for several Fortune 500 companies from North America, UK, Australia, Sweden, Norway and Japan. Well known customers of Sri Lankan BPO industry include Google, J.P. Morgan & Co, Microsoft, Emirates and Qatar Airways.[3][4]

Sri Lanka's BPO cost is 30% lower than other offshore destinations.[citation needed]

Sri Lanka also won the Outsourcing Destination of the Year award by National Outsourcing Association.

Rankings[3]

Publication Publisher Rank
Local Trends Reports IBM 12
Global Services Location Index AT Kearney within top 25
Leading Locations For Offshore Services Gartner within top 30
Global Centers of Excellence for Finance & Accounting Outsourcing Global Services within top 19
Emerging Global Cities For Finance & Accounting Outsourcing Tholons 7
Outsourcing Destination of the Year National Outsourcing Association 1

Authorities

Government Bodies

The prominent government body related to IT in Sri Lanka is the Ministry of Technology and Research. Other than that Ministries of Education, Skills development are working on developing the education while Ministry of Industry and Commerce is on industrial level activities.[5]

IT in Sri Lanka is governed under the Information and Communication Technology Act No. 27 of 2003.[6][7]

Agencies

The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) is the government agent of ICT.[6][7]

Computer Society of Sri Lanka founded in 1976 is a professional body of IT professionals.

Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM) similar to India's NASSCOM is another agency working on the development of business, education and employment.[8]

Recent development

There are many global IT services companies established in Sri Lanka such as HSBC, IFS, Intel, Motorola, WNS,RR Donnelley, Virtusa, Pearsons and Accenture.[3]

IT parks

File:Virtusa.jpg
Virtusa At Orion Cirt IT Park
File:Millennium Information Technologies.JPG
Millennium Information Technologies Campus At Malabe

Sri Lanka has few government owned and privately managed IT Parks.[9]

Orion City IT Park established in 2009 is a privately owned IT park situated in Dematagoda area in Colombo. The Park is spread over 16 acres and currently has 550,000 sq feet of developed space.[10] Currently this park houses, Virtusa and several other IT and non-IT companies.[11]

In 2011 a full featured IT park was proposed to be built at Hambantota as a government project.[12] In 2012 this project was approved by the Cabinet.[13]

Trace Expert City is a similar one. This was developed by Urban Development Authority, working with the Ministry of Defense, This is situated in Maradana.[14]

In February 2016 India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced that they are offering an IT park for Sri Lanka considering the IT industry's importance in the country.[15]

Employment

According to the National ICT workforce Survey 2013, the positive domestic developments and gradual recovery of the global economic situation have created a conducive environment for growth of the industry’s workforce and the projection figure shows that this trend is likely to continue. The overall workforce has grown to 75,107 in 2013 with a projection. In 2013, 63% of the workforce held graduate or post-graduate level qualifications.[3]

IT education

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See also: Education in Sri Lanka and Higher education in Sri Lanka

Secondary Education

In the national level curriculum, first computer related subject taught at public schools is Information and Communication Technology. This is an elective subject for GCE Ordinary Level in Sri Lanka. For GCE Advanced Level in Sri Lanka a compulsory subject and an exam called General Information Technology was introduced considering the need of IT literacy for every student. Under the technology stream introduced for GCE Advanced Level in past years a new main subject for IT, Information and Communication Technology is added.[16][17]

Despite the public education, there are numerous IT training institutes in Sri Lanka which provides IT and computer related education.

Higher Education

With the rapid development of IT industry and job demand in 90's, steps were taken by both government and private sector to improve the IT education in the country.

Criticism

CEPA Controversy

In 2016 January, Sri Lankan government announced that Indo-Sri Lankan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will be finalized. It is assumed that Sri Lankan IT industry's job market will be opened to Indians by this agreement causing unemployment among Sri Lankans.[18][19][20]

Future

Sri Lanka's IT industry's goal is to achieve USD 5 billion in exports by 2022 while creating 200,000 jobs and uplifting 1,000 tech start-ups.[21]

In 2012 Computer literacy of Sri Lanka was 38%.[13]

This industry also has a target of USD one billion export revenue by 2016.

See also

References

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