IT-BPO sector targets $ 5b by 2022

The IT and knowledge services sector exports reached US $ 720 million in 2013. The industry is on the way to reach a revenue of $ 1 billion by 2016.

SLASSCOM's ambitious target under the Vision 2022 policy framework, is to reach US $ 5 billion in revenue, create 200,000 direct jobs and 1,000 start-ups by 2022 for which it seeks the active support of all stakeholders including academia, said Sri Lanka Software Service Companies, Vice Chairman Jayantha de Silva at the launch of the SLASSCOM Campus DirectLink recently.

The skills needed by today's tech workforce is constantly changing and if we are to make our workforce future proof, they need to acquire additional skills including, but not limited to product design skills, ability to mesh software with hardware to exploit the Internet of Things and user experience design skills.

Campus DirectLink, an online system that brings together the Sri Lankan corporate IT and knowledge services, universities and higher educational institutes, enabling team to actively engage in project ideas for universities at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level studies with mentorship from industry experts.

It also serves as a forum for internship collaboration, discussions around technology and adds value as a job portal.

"Our hope is that this portal becomes the one-stop-shop when it comes to collaboration between IT and the Knowledge Services industry where research proposals that interest the industry and academia professional bodies locally and internationally would go for from conceptualisation to reality," de Silva said.

"We also hope that valuable mentor relationships can be formed and sustained between various stakeholders via this unique web portal which has been designed using the latest social media techniques and applications to ensure maximum interactivity," he said.

"One additional area we are actively trying to develop is the BPM sector particularly on the FAO and KPO front. There are numerous opportunities for cooperation between professional bodies, higher education sector and knowledge services industry," de Silva said.

"These have not been fully used as each of these different parties have been duplicating each other's efforts and sometimes not reaching industry in a timely and effective manner.

With phase two of SLASSCOM Campus DirectLink we hope to permit other authorised professional bodies and the higher education sector to post information about almost all their relevant activities to our members directly," he said.