Technology

e-freight pilot projects kick off

Surekha Galagoda reporting from Switzerland

e-freight pilot projects got off the ground recently in six locations including Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, the Netherlands, UK and Canada covering 20 major trade routes, said global Head of Cargo IATA Aleks Popovich.

He said that seven forwarders , seven airlines, nine ground handlers, 11 customs and government bodies and six industry associations were involved in the pilot project.

Addressing the Global Media Day in Geneva, Switzerland, he said that IATA's objective is to implement it at eight more locations in 2008. He said that eliminating paper from the shipping process is critical. We still ship goods with the same documentation we used 60 years ago. It takes us one day to move the goods and five days for the paper work.

The result is that air transport is losing its competitiveness. World trade is growing by 10% and sea freight is growing at 12%. The impact of fuel prices is less for sea shipping than for air cargo and faster ships are narrowing the speed gap. Air cargo is growing only by 4%. e-freight will help regain competitiveness.

He said that e-freight is paper free. The purpose of e-freight is to stop transporting paper by air along with the freight. In the air cargo industry an average of typically 35 paper documents accompany the freight and many of them are attached in a thick pouch with the freight.

Therefore, we are replacing what is a complex, jumbled up physical freight and paper document process with a simplified freight process supported by quality electronic messages.

Popovich said that delivering e-freight is like delivering an e-ticket and e-passport for customers who can't walk or talk. Compared to the e-ticket project the e-freight project is constrained by the legislation process and the technical capability of the governments.

The e-freight project will amount to US$1.2 million in cost savings globally. The cost can be reduced by removing the cost of the air cargo supply chain currently wasted in issuing and processing paper, improving the speed of the air cargo supply chain and improving of the freight speed by 12 hours in 33 hours to over six days.

Customers get visibility on the movement of their freight through the air cargo supply chain.

The e-freight supports the cargo 2000 quality management system and has consistency.

On average at present there are 35 paper documents and there is scope to remove 13 documents. The e-freight pilots will obviate the need to transport 12 of the documents. These documents are estimated to represent 50-60% of all documents transported. The remaining documents do not yet have international standards but the project will strive to implement a paper free process for these documents too, he said.

Popovich said that IATA's first priority is to secure the pilots as a laboratory and showcase the new e-freight process and standard in operation for the future expansion of e-freight which means increasing the capability, for example remove document scanning for three of the document types and implement electronic standards for them, increase participation, define document standards for three documents to go digital - the certificate of origin, packing list , commercial invoice and pilots being at a stage where IATA can hand over to industry and focus on further expansion.

Our next priority will be to increase the number of locations.

The new locations must fulfill the set high level criteria such as having ratified the appropriate Montreal convention/protocol, the customs modernisation program must be in place which allows the electronic transmission of customs documentation and the governments and industry capability and willingness to participate.

Locations meeting such criteria would then be subject to a detailed assessment to test the capability and willingness to participate in e-freight.

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ICBT Campus to offer cutting edge IT certification testing system

ICBT Campus has signed an agreement with Pearson VUE, the electronic certification and licensure testing business of Pearson Education, to provide Information Technology certification test delivery using the Pearson VUE Testing System.

The Pearson VUE advanced computer-based testing system administers examination for leading IT certification programs such as Cisco, CompTIA, Citrix, Novell and others through a global network of quality test centres.

"We're very excited about our new partnership with Pearson VUE," said Director/General Manager of ICBT Campus Mohan Pathirana.

"The Pearson VUE Testing System is the most powerful available. We're pleased to partner with a company whose breakthrough technology and passion for service will allow us to provide even greater service for our customers."

Among the technological advances of the Pearson VUE system is the ability of test candidates to register and reschedule their tests at the test centre, on the Pearson VUE website or through a Pearson VUE call centre, all in real time via the Internet.

"The Pearson VUE Testing System gives us unparalleled control and flexibility over our ability to manage our business our way," said Director/General Manager of ICBT Campus Mohan Pathirana. "With so many options, we will be able to experiment with testing hours and number of testing stations.

We can easily offer same-day testing, or bring testing to our customers' locations.

Virtusa silver sponsor at EDEX

Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), a global IT services company that provides IT consulting, technology implementation and application outsourcing services, will be a silver sponsor at EDEX, National Higher Education and Careers Expo next month at the BMICH and Queen's Hotel Kandy.

The event offers Virtusa the platform to educate the next generation of IT professionals on the IT industry and the value of global IT careers. EDEX forms part of a larger national strategy of elevating Sri Lanka's position as a priority destination in global IT offshoring.

EDEX has received endorsement from the Presidential Secretariat, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour Relations and Manpower and Ministry of Vocational and Technical Training.

This will be the fifth EXPO and will include 130 exhibitors and over 100,000 participants.

General Manager Virtusa Madu Ratnayake said, "Virtusa's Campus Reach initiative focuses on empowering youth to win in the growing world of technology globalisation. EDEX presents a great opportunity to educate Sri Lankan youth on the career opportunities in the global IT field. We are delighted to be part of EDEX this year."

General Manager, Virtusa Madu Ratnayake and Director HR Virtusa, Ishan Dantanarayana present the confirmation of sponsorship to Kamal Abeysinghe and Chandrasiri Weerasekera of EDEX.

HP to hold leadership in the future

General Manager, Asia emerging markets of HP Prasenjith Sarkar said that HP has extended its lead position in the PC market in Sri Lanka and invested more in marketing in the country to hold the leadership in the future.

In the PC market HP holds 17.7% market share and according to the report released by Singapore based research group Springboard in the notebook segment, the HP market share has increased from 19.4% in the third quarter of 2006 to 35.8% in the third quarter 2007.

HP's success in Sri Lanka is a result of offering value position beyond hardware for our consumers, small and mid size businesses and enterprise customers. HP focuses on delivering the best customer experience while optimising its business model, targeting specific segments and delivering innovation that matters is driving growth and market share again, Sarkar said.

HP has held the PC market leadership in Sri Lanka from 2005. However, all three brands hold a very small share of the total PC market in Sri Lanka and local assemblers hold the rest.

Sarkar said that HP notebook prices are dropping fast and the market share of the global brand is increasing. Earlier the main customers were large businesses such as banks, telco companies and then educational institutions such as universities and government institutions.

Now the demand from individual customers is on the increase. As the e-literacy of the people increase this demand will increase, he said.

GW

ITI scientists win presidential awards for research

Dr. Shanthi Wilson, Head, Food Technology Section and Nihal Gunasekera, Head, Meteorlogy Laboratory, were the recipients of Presidential Awards for Research, 2002.

These awards of recognition are given to authors pursuing research in Sri Lankan institutions for their publications which have effectively appeared in international refereed, periodicals, figuring in the Science Citation Index. This year's awards were for the year 2002.

Dr. Wilson received her award for her share of authorship of the following publications.

Combined Effect of Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) Compounds and Trichoderma harzianum on the Control of Post harvest Diseases of Rambuttan, Phytoparasitica 30 (1) 43-51, 2002, D. Sivakumar, R. S. Wilson Wijeratnam, R. L. C. Wijesundera and M. Abeyesekere.

Control of Post harvest Diseases of Rambuttan Using Controlled Atmosphere Storage and Potassium Metabisulphite or Trichoderma harzianum, Phytoparasitica 30(4), 403-409, 2002. D. Sivakumar, R. S. Wilson Wijeratnam, R. L. C. Wijesundra and M. Abeysekere.

Control of post harvest diseases of rambuttan using cinnamaldehyde, Crop protection, 21:847-852, 2002 D. Sivakumara, R. S. Wilson Wijeratnam, R. L. C. Wijesundera, M. Abeysekera.

Effect of Ammonium Carbonate and Sodium Bicarbonate on Anthracnose of Papaya, Phytoparasitica 30(5): 486-492, 2002. D. Sivakumar, N. K. Hewarathgamagae, R. S. Wilson Wijeratnam and R. L. C. Wijesundera.

This award was also received by Dr. Malinee Abeysekere, a senior researcher of the Institute who retired recently.

Nihal Gunasekera's award was his share of authorship in the following publication. Spectroscopic studies of Temperature induced valence transition on EuNIx (Si 1-x Gex) 2 around Eu 3d-4f, 4d-4f nand Ni 2p-3d excitation regions. Journal of the Physical Society of Japan. 71 (1), 148-155, 2002.

Microsoft and Mobitel in strategic partnership agreement

Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel recently entered into a ground breaking strategic partnership with Microsoft Sri Lanka by signing an Enterprise Agreement and adopting the global software giant's most preferred offering for corporate customers.

Through this long-term partnership Mobitel will gain a significant competitive advantage to stay ahead in the highly competitive telecommunication industry, which will support the company's ever expanding business objectives.

Mobitel will have assured access to a host of Microsoft's innovative and up-to-date software products and solutions, including Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 to enhance personal productivity, Windows Server 2008 for Directory Services and Infrastructure security together with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for improved Messaging and Collaboration capabilities.

In addition, by deploying Microsoft's System Management Server 2007, Mobitel will be equipped to manage their software and hardware assets, improve security and patch management, as well as increase productivity by using automated software deployment technologies.

Applauding the partnership Microsoft's President, South East Asia Chris Atkinson said, "Mobitel, as an ICT solutions provider who sought world-class products for their technology needs, has selected Microsoft as their technological and strategic partner.

This partnership ensures that they will be on par with other major telecommunication entities around the world in terms of adopting the latest technologies and integrating them with the existing ICT infrastructure of the company giving them a clear competitive edge.

We are delighted to partner with Mobitel and provide them with the most up-to-date communications and technological solutions to serve their customers better".