National ICT week from October 9-15

Two conferences - SEARCC 2006 and IITC 2006, the Infotel Lanka Exhibition and a host of events organised by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and others will be the highlights of the National ICT Week.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa obtained Cabinet approval to declare the week October 9-15 as the National Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Week thus emphasizing the Government's commitment towards supporting ICT at the request of the Information and Communications Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).

The ICT week will begin on the 9th with the signing of the award of contract for the US$15M LakGovNet project sponsored by the Korean Government. It would equip and digitally connect a large number of Divisional Secretariats, Ministries and Key Government Departments to each other to interchange information as well as to provide ICT based citizen services.

The Annual Industry Focused ICT Conference of the South East Asia Regional Computer Confederation SEARCC will be held on 10th and 11th at the BMICH Committee Room B on the Theme "Value Creation in the Modern Economy" with 20 presentations.

The 8th International IT Conference on the Theme "Innovations for a Knowledge Economy" will be held on the 12th and 13th at the BMICH with eight Keynote Addresses, 31 research presentations and 12 poster presentations. Five IITC Workshops will follow on the 14th and 15th at the University of Colombo School of Computing UCSC.

The Infotel Lanka ICT Exhibition will be inaugurated by Minister of Science and Technology Tissa Vitharana, on the 12th at 1000 hrs and will continue till 1800 hrs on the 15th at the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Exhibition Centre. Infotel is the largest ICT Exhibition held in Sri Lanka and is expected to provide an exposure to the latest technologies in the field of Computers and Communications.

Infotel Lanka Society members, include the Sri Lanka Computer Vendors Association [SLCVA], the Association of Computer Training Organizations [ACTOS], the Sri Lanka Association for the Software Industry [SLASI], the Lanka Internet Service Providers Association [LISPA], the British Computer Society Sri Lanka Section and the Information Systems, Audit and Control Association [ISACA].

The Young Computer Scientist Awards organized by the SLASI (www.slasi.com) and the National Schools Software Competition Awards organized by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka will take place on the 15th at 930 hrs at Hotel Trans Asia. Another significant event arranged for the week is the promotion of Free and Open Software in remote Buttala by a group of enthusiasts on the 15th.

Several sponsors have come forward to assist. SLT and PC House are Diamond sponsors for SEARCC, IITC and Infotel while Intel and Virtusa are Gold sponsors and RedHat and EMC Silver sponsors for SEARCC and IITC with ANCL as the media sponsor. Microsoft and EPSI are Gold sponsors for Infotel with MTV as the electronic media sponsor and Wijeya Group as the print media sponsor.