Technology

Navantis Inc. gets Microsoft IT award

Navantis Inc. a Canadian software company operating in Sri Lanka has secured Microsoft Ignite IT award 2009 for its web-based healthcare solution developed for VON, a health care organisation in Canada.

The CEO of Navantis Indaka Raigama said that the award has recognised the technical spirit and vast human impacts of the solution.

VON is a not-for-profit, national healthcare organisation in Canada that offers a wide range of community healthcare solutions.

In 2007 Navantis was commissioned to build an integrated health service web-based caregiver community portal using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. A team was assigned from Canada and Sri Lanka to do the project, Raigama said.

The solution addresses the difficulties faced by caregivers in assisting those who are suffering from chronic diseases or acute conditions and relied on someone as the main source of constant care.

Caregivers have great difficulty in finding services to assist them, finding people that understand their experience and finding resources to help them better.

Online solution

VON understood these difficulties caregivers face and wanted to build an online solution that would alleviate these issues.

Navantis faced a difficult challenge, Raigama said.

We needed to create a bilingual, collaborative, user-friendly and informative social networking platform to serve 3 million caregivers across Canada.

The portal needed to provide caregivers with valuable resources and a network of support.

The platform allowed the Canadian caregiver community to; connect with others, caregivers across Canada, for information sharing and moral support, create highly customisable features specific to the caregiver and make a profile visible to other users, quickly and easily update the portal with information on new diseases and condition-related content, ask health questions to a team of experts, access features to create and eHealth record based on the caregiver's observations and understanding of a patient's conditions, communicate a patient's health conditions directly to doctors and nurses through the discussion

Impacts

It is estimated that caregivers provide over $5 billion in savings on healthcare costs every year. As such, they are essential to the Canadian healthcare system. However, caregivers often feel isolated due to the sustained challenges of caring for a loved one with an illness or disability over a long duration.

Our solution has addressed this problem by providing an interactive link between caregivers and patients, doctors, and nurses. Our portal gives these caregivers a voice, and alleviates their burden by providing a network of support. Now over three million caregivers across Canada have access to a site that allows direct communication with doctors, nurses, and patients.

The portal is fully bilingual, and provides access to information and resources that caregivers need to care for themselves, to provide better quality care to their family members and/or friends, and to connect and share with other caregivers through a virtual discussion forum.

Explaining impacts of the global financial crisis on software industry Rigama said that Navantis too faced a lot of difficulties as the company's main market North America suffered heavily from the crisis.

However, we did not lay off a single employee and the measures we undertook to face the crisis is working well.

Colombo is one of the main R&D centres of Navantis. He said that an end of the global crisis cannot be seen so far and there are no tangible indicators of a recovery. Our customers are more concerned over the cost structure. However, the industries Navantis is catering; energy and utility, healthcare and government sector are resilient, he said.

(GW)

Intel intl. science and engineering fair:

Student team to represent Sri Lanka

The winners of the Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) 2008 Chandula Padmasiri of Ananda College, Colombo, Yenushka Madusanka Dissanayake of Gnanodaya Maha Vidyalaya, Kalutara, and a three-member team comprising Nishadi Ekanayake, Chaturika Sithumini and Nazeela Mazahim, of Southlands College, Galle will represent Sri Lanka at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Reno, Nevada, USA from May 10 to 15. They will be competing for nearly 4 million dollars in awards and scholarships. Indika de Zoysa, Country Business Manager, Intel EM Limited, Sri Lanka Liaison office said, "Through scientific discovery and research, Intel is inspiring a new generation of innovative thinkers. The Intel ISEF provides students from Sri Lanka and around the world the opportunity to share ideas, showcase cutting-edge technology and compete at the highest level. These and other efforts in collaboration with governments and educators are building student capacity for success in a knowledge-driven economy. I wish the participants all the very best." Professor M. T. M. Jiffrey Chairperson of the Science Review Committee of Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) said, "On behalf of SLSEF I would like to congratulate the participants on their achievement. The opportunity to compete at this level will provide an unmatched experience that will hold these students in good stead. These students represent the next generation of Sri Lankan innovators. It is of utmost importance that their talents and skills are nurtured, and exposure received via international competitions such as ISEF is vital to this process."

Top ten projects

SLSEF 2008 featured the

top ten projects of the Science Research Project Competition (SRPC) 2008 of the National Science Foundation and the IESL Junior Inventor of the Year 2008 competition. The SLSEF strives to provide young science students with the impetus to discover their scientific genius and a platform to win public recognition at the national and international level. Innovative ideas to be showcased by the Sri Lankan contingent at this year's ISEF include:

* A portable microscope by Padmasiri which when attached to mobile phone cameras provides researchers with the ability to examine their specimens on-site

* A dual base bulb holder by Dissanayake that resolves the compatibility issues faced with the two types of bulbs and the unique holders required for them

* A low cost environment-friendly method to remove the remaining thin layer of spilt oil after removing the thick layer from the surface of the sea using natural absorbents by Ekanayake, Sithumini and Mazahim.

Solving tomorrow's problems

As the world's largest pre-college science fair, and the only global science competition for students in grades 9-12, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science and the Public, encourages students to tackle challenging scientific questions and solve the problems of tomorrow.

This year, a record number of 1,563 high school students from over 50 countries representing 1,226 projects will be competing at the event.

Intel Teach launched in Sabaragamuwa

Intel EM Limited, in collaboration with the Secondary Education Modernisation Project (SEMP) of the Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka, launched the latest phase of the Intel Education initiative in Ratnapura bringing Intel(r) Teach program to the Sabaragamuwa Province. Adopted in over 40 countries around the world, Intel(r) Teach is aimed at enabling teachers to better exploit the full education potential of the technology age. The program has made tremendous headway in Sri Lanka as well, having already been successfully introduced to the Western, Central and Uva Provinces last year. Over 7,500 teachers have already been trained under this program in the Island.

Indika de Zoysa, Country Business Manager, Intel EM Limited, Sri Lanka Liaison office said, "The benefits of technology have permeated various areas of personal development, but its most manifest and tangible results are seen in education. Intel together with the Ministry of Education believes it is important that Sri Lanka receives these benefits so as to afford our student populations the same technological advantage and opportunity for progress reaped by students around the world.

Teach in-service program

We are thankful to the Ministry for all the support they have given us in taking this program to so many parts of the country already, without whom this project would could not have been the success it is.' Intel(r) Teach in-service program is a professional development program that trains teachers who are already working in schools.

This program aims to improve the instructional strategies of teachers and interactive quality of lessons by harnessing a technology-supported learning environment in the classroom.

It familiarizes teachers on how best to use technological resources in a lesson so as to promote problem solving and critical thinking skills among students and inculcate independent learning.

Elaborating on the Ministry of Education's ICT education initiatives, Anura Dissanayake, Director, Secondary Education Modernization Project (SEMP) of Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka noted that, "Though the Government sector uses ICT, the private sector leads us technologically in this area.

Ability to innovate

They have the resources and the ability to innovate. We have to get the benefits from them. Because of this, as the Ministry of Education of Sri Lanka, we have grabbed the opportunity given by Intel, the world's leading technology firm. With the help of Intel's programs we are looking forward to creating an e-society in Sri Lanka.

I hope that with the help of this technology and training, teachers will be better equipped to teach and students would learn in a colourful world. With that, we would be able to change the lifestyles of Sri Lankans."

The introduction of the program to a province in Sri Lanka is preceded by an Intel(r) Teach Directors Leadership Technology Forum, which introduces to officials and education directors of the Ministry of Education from the respective zones of a given Province, the nature and services of the program, equipping them with the expertise necessary to present the program to schools in their zones. The most recent forum was held at the Parakaduwa training centre in Ratnapura in April and was presented to the Directors of Education in the Sabaragamuwa Province.

Commending this joint initiative of the Ministry of Education and Intel, the participating zonal directors pointed out that the forum had helped them better understand the value of the Intel Teach initiative. They felt that they were now better equipped to brief the schools in their region and motivate them to participate in the program.

They were confident that this valuable partnership between the Ministry of Education and Intel would reap several benefits for their respective zones too just as it has done for the Western, Central, and Uva provinces.

The status and vision of ICT in education in the Sabaragamuwa Province was laid out by P. Kodithuwakku, Chief Secretary of Sabaragamuwa province, S. Kuruppuarachchi, Sabaragamuwa Province Project Manager SEMP, and Ms. Suneetha ICT coordinator from the province while Tilak Ekanayake, Central Province Project Manager SEMP commented on the department's past experience with the Intel(r) Teach Education initiative in the Central and Uva Provinces.

The Intel(r) Teach Education Team together with Program Manager Priyantha K. Weerabahu, presented the curriculum and services of the program in the light of the competitiveness and demands of the rapidly growing 21st century knowledge economy.