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INFOTEL 2008, Sri Lanka’s Biggest ICT Showcase Offers 3 Days of the Latest in Technology |
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Colombo, 2008-31-10; The 9th INFOTEL exhibition, declared open by Hon. Naveen Dissanayake, Minister for Investment Promotion, at the BMICH, is undoubtedly the best yet, offering 3 more days of the latest in Information Communications Technology and drawing larger crowds than ever. Special attractions are Dialog Telekom’s SATNav, a navigation device for vehicles with a digital street directory of Sri Lanka that locates directions through satellite and WIMAX, providing up to 70MB per second broadband speed without the use of cables. On the theme ‘The Future is Already Here’, the exhibition focuses on already available infrastructure and offerings and invites the public to exploit on the available ICT facilities and potential. Infotel Chairman Roshan Rasool said at the opening, “We hope that INFOTEL 2008 will stimulate and expand people’s minds into what is actually available here and little used. Developing human capacity for furthering the ICT potential is crucial if we are to be competitive with the region,” he emphasized. The Exhibition was inaugurated By the Hon Naveen Dissanayake, Minister of Investment Promotion as Chief Guest and Mrs Nauoko Ishii Director , World Bank as the Guest of Honour . |
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The Chief Guest, Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion Navin Dissanayake congratulated the Infotel for organising this event on a regular basis. He also urged that Sri Lanka has to do a great deal to catch up in the ICT industry. Our neighbour India has taken a giant leap forward and Sri Lanka failed to be on par with India. However, in the recent past we see a tremendous progress in the sector, he said. Though there are initiatives such as Nenasala to take ICT to the rural sector there is a serious disparity in urban and rural areas. In the urban sector ICT is booming but it is not so in the rural sector. Disparity in the education sector, specially lack of English knowledge and lack of qualified English teachers hinders the ICT sector growth in rural areas in Sri Lanka and if we fail to bridge this gap it will create huge problems. He envisaged the support of the Industry to make this a reality The Exhibition is part of the National ICT week which commenced on the 27th of October. The three day exhibition scheduled from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. hopes to draw attention to the already available infrastructure and offerings in the local ICT field and highlight that human capability and a broadened outlook are the pre-requisites to exploit the available facilities to its full potential. A key attraction is the ‘Careers Pavilion’ which will be an eye-opener to students. This section aims to provide career seekers, students and visitors with information on how to match career/job opportunities in ICT with the required academic/professional qualifications and skills required by the industry. It will also showcase the strengths in the market in terms of academic and professional courses available. Finally it aims to create awareness while providing guidance to match available skills with the requirements of the industry/ market. The 9th International IT Conference (IITC) - 2008 organized by the University of Colombo School of computing was another key event of the National ICT week. The event brought together international researchers who presented papers and generated discussions on current research and development in all aspects of IT. The conference featured 3 key note addresses from international researchers from Sweden, Australia and USA plus the launch of “ICTer”, the International Journal on Advances in ICT for emerging regions. INFOTEL 2008 is supported by strategic partner; Dialog Telecom, Dialog Broadband as the Communications partner and sponsors for the event are Microsoft-Sri Lanka, and Intel. |
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