National Apex Awards to honour top professionals

The Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) will hold its 26th annual conference and National Apex Awards on September 24 and 25 in Colombo.

The inaugural apex award ceremony will be the highlight of the national conference which showcases the talents and achievements of members of the affiliated professional associations in Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka's economic development depends on human capital which is a key factor for a country to achieve economic growth and to uplift the standard of living. This will help in reducing the level of poverty. The country needs to change the direction of the education and higher education system to achieve this goal. This will enable Sri Lanka also to achieve growth on par with the Asian Tigers to reach the goal of 'Wonder of Asia'," OPA General Secretary, Aruna Fernando said.

With this in mind, this year's annual conference will focus on development of human capital under the theme 'Human Capital Towards 2020'.

The aim of National Apex Awards is to recognise Sri Lankan professionals across the world in their fields of specialisation.

"The first edition of the OPA National Apex Awards will be a ground- breaking event where ten awards in the fields of finance and banking, engineering services, science and technology, legal, health and medical services, agriculture and veterinary, management, marketing and hospitality, maritime and defence and economic and statistics will be presented. There will also be a title award for outstanding contribution to our country through the profession," he said.

"The OPA has 43 member associations with 50,000 professionals in various fields," a spokesman for the organisation said.

SJ