SLT, Peradeniya varsity partnership a dynamo for economic growth - Don

by Elmo Leonard in Peradeniya

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) set up an Information and Communication Research Network (ICoRN) laboratory in the University of Peradeniya (UoP) campus premises, here, with the promise of undertaking joint research to enhance and expand the products and services coming from the telecom industry.

Such partnerships between industries and universities provide dynamos of economic growth, former vice chancellor of UoP, Prof K S A Goonasekera said.

The laboratory is intended to be a platform for researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, where professionals and experts will come together and carry out R&D. SLT CEO, Shoji Takahashi said that SLT wants to change from providing traditional telecom services to global services.

It will cover fixed telephones, mobiles and internet services and facilities where the services will be combined. As an outcome, a new model of telecom services is expected to emerge.

Telecom services will also be brought in to facilitate business diversification. Telecom was eager to develop new businesses. Also, to develop models for such services to be produced, in collaboration with UoP, Takahashi said.

Telecom wants to be a big partner with UoP, and the setting up of the ICoRN laboratory was just a first step. Takahashi told the media, that he will meet them in the future, to demonstrate the outcome of the Telecom-UoP partnership.

Dr. K. M Liyanage, director UoP, IT centre said that the creation of the ICoRn laboratory by SLT was in acknowledgement of the importance of creating a network which will help to further enhance ICT research and development in the country. It will foster an unprecedented range of avenues for global socio-economic development.

Vice chancellor of UoP Prof H Abegunawardena said that UoP is the oldest and largest university in Sri Lanka and carries the most resources. UoP was behind other local universities in partnerships with industries, because Peradeniya is 100 kilometres away from Colombo. But, the university will work towards cutting short the distance, enhancing the quality of research and development that will come out.

SLT's former CEO Suhei Anan said that SLT has training institutions in Galle, Moratuwa, SLT headquarters Colombo, Welisara and now at UoP. Such telecom-university industrial collaboration was carried out in Japan, UK, USA, besides.

Telecom, headquartered in Japan, had opened an office in Hong Kong recently and had plans to grow globally. Takahashi said that with the growing need for innovations and developments in ICT to match the rising expectations of humans as well as to make advances in ICT itself, this initiative helps to bridge the gap between the corporate sector and the academic arena, which usually operates independently of each other.

Rapid development in technologies and the industry as a whole bring pressure on graduates to meet the demands of the corporate sector, which exposure they lack. This results in the difficulty to adjust to the highly demanding and competitive corporate world. Working in collaboration with UoP is a fine example of how the academic and corporate sectors can work together for the betterment of the country.

The company's future Internet Protocol (IP) and broadband products requires customisation to be user friendly, thus the ICoRN labs will do research to develop products addressing the requirements of the SLT product development teams to bring innovative products to customers.

The ICoRN labs will also work closely with other professionals such as medical, agricultural and social sciences to support ICT based research in their respective fields.

This will enable to bring the outcome results of such research to benefit industries in Sri Lanka. Such research will also extend collaborative research environments to SLT and many other industries through the faculties in the university.

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