IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Aparajitha Corporate Services Private Limited, India’s no.1 company for Compliance, today announced the introduction of its Global E-Governance and Compliance Platform – ‘Compfie’ in Sri Lanka in association with Colombo headquartered 3W Consulting. This move to position ‘Compfie’ in Sri Lanka’s compliance market marks the first major development for the strategic country partnership between Aparajitha and 3W.

Compfie is an online Compliance Management tool on a cloud platform designed to global standards with a combination of sector/industry-specific knowledge, with compliance metrics within the legal framework & policy standards of Sri Lanka. Technological insights uniquely position our teams to work with organizations to achieve end-to-end digital transformation. From strategy to processes to tech enablement to regulatory changes, our multi-disciplinary teams take a holistic view of how country-specific laws, platforms and compliance output behaviours across the front, middle and back offices need to evolve.

The GIC was first launched on 24th August 2006 under the leadership and guidance of His Excellency Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka.

My column last month on how Google Loons and a Cloud Based Health Record System can transform healthcare in Sri Lanka attracted much attention.

I received emails from across the world, all positive. It was even posted on a LinkedIn group ‘Healthcare Board’ with the caption “Is Sri Lanka ready for Digital Health?” My answer to that is, “Yes we are, but we need the political commitment to make it happen, it is too important to leave it in the hands of a few enthusiastic health administrators who struggle to obtain the necessary support.”

The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) together with the Ministry of Technology, Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRCSL), telecommunications partners and industry partners recently launched a two-day national forum to create awareness about the national digital transformation agenda, which also engages regional partners.

The Southern Region Roadshow was the second of the five regional cluster development programmes commenced by ICTA. The first Regional Development Roadshow was organised in June focusing on the Northern Region. There will be three more Roadshows in the Western, Eastern, and Central Regions scheduled to unfold in the next few months, ICTA said in a media release.

President Maithripala Sirisena has declared November 16-22 as 'National Information and Communication Technology Week'. This is the first time that such a week dedicated to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has ever been declared at national level.

It is in recognition of the significant role the ICT industry plays in all spheres of life, and also in honour of the ICT-related national and international conferences due to be convened in Sri Lanka that the President declared a week devoted to this sector.

Reported in ColomboPage, the Sri Lankan government has just received cabinet approval to implement fingerprint data to the country’s passports.

This project is expected to cost US $5.11 million (Rs.679.7 million). Nearly all of this capital will come in the form of a grant from the Australian government, through the International Organization for Migration. According to the ColomboPage report, the International Organization for Migration, along with the Department of Immigration and Emigration will be responsible for project management and procurement.

Sri Lanka's state owned telecom authority, the Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), on Tuesday said that plans were underway to transform the north central district of Polonnaruwa into the country's first "smart city" following several projects launched to upgrade education, health and transportation in the area.

SLT Chairman Kumarasinghe Sirisena told local media that the government was currently discussing the transformation of Polonnaruwa by launching the smart health, smart education, and smart transportation concept, which will accelerate economic development and social progress in the district.

Sri Lanka has taken major strides towards enhancing the effectiveness, efficiency and transparency in the public procurement system making it more accountable, streamlined and cost effective.

In this endeavour, National Procurement Commission (NPC) has devised an Action Plan, which will contribute to the efforts of the government financial management reforms.

"The United nations e-Government Development Index (UN eGDI) has advanced Sri Lanka to 74th rank among 193 countries, from its previous 115th rank, within just two years.

Recent reports in the Vietnamese press indicate that state-owned operator MobiFone has successfully piloted a 5G mobile network in four Vietnamese cities.

The trials, in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang and Hai Phong, achieved download speeds of approximately 2Gbps, according to a MobiFone spokesman.

Measures to provide government services through e- governance

• Hotline 1919 to be reactivated
• A “Talents Pool” for the government sector

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has proposed to centralize all government institutes through a single data network to ensure a public sector service free of inefficiency, delays and corruption.

The Survey Department of Sri Lanka (SDSL) completed a recent upgrade to their ‘Online’ Land Information System (LIS) which was implemented using ArcGIS as the Software Platform.ArcGISis the world leading software in geographical information systems (GIS) is distributed in Sri Lanka by GIS Solutions (Pvt) Ltd, a subsidiary of Just In Time Group. SDSL is the authority for the LIS, which has now given the public online access through thisactivesystem. SDSL continues to be in the forefrontof all developing GIS projects in Sri Lanka as they are the National Surveying & Mapping Organization in Sri Lanka.

The visit was within the framework of strengthening bilateral relations between Bahrain and Sri Lanka as well as boosting co-operation within the eGovernment and information and communications technology (ICT) fields between both nations.

Set against the backdrop of a continuing health crisis, governments and organisations are reinvigorating conversations about how smart city technologies can be leveraged to mitigate or avoid future disruptions. In particular, the focus is on how critical data can be used to anticipate events and allocate resources to help build urban resiliency.

The pandemic has brought forward new perceptions into the long-term sustainability of urban metropolises and their rapid urbanisation. Cities continue to attract an influx of people for various reasons—from the promise of better job opportunities to an improved quality of life – leading the United Nations to estimate that 68% (1) of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050. However, the resulting high population densities provide the ideal conditions for a virus to spread rapidly.

Sri Lanka's Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake says that once the electronic Government Procurement system is introduced, it will help government to make the public procurement more efficient and transparent.

According to the Minister, electronic Government Procurement makes public procurement more strategic and serves as an effective innovation to institute procurement reforms. It will also boost performance in terms of efficiency, transparency, competition and fairness and bring value for money as well, the Minister said.

The Ministry of Health announces that a e-Health Card including a personal health record with an individual identification number will be given to each Sri Lankan citizen of the 21 million population by the year 2020.

Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that any person's health records will be included in the e-health card and it could be used to speed up patient care services.

The launch included three key services that will benefit millions of citizens. The first is the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) eService, which gives 13.3 million members of EPF online access to their account information after registering with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka for a login ID and password. The second eService by the Department of Examinations enables students to apply for certificates online the year they complete their examinations. Nearly 150 students apply for certificates in Sri Lanka per day. The third service, a collaboration between the Sri Lanka Tea Board and ICTA, allows nearly 700 tea factories and 40,000 tea growers to obtain real time tea prices, instead of waiting for prices to be issued once a month as before.

Government to place 'Chief Innovation Officer' instead of Chief Information Officers

Sri Lanka’s IT-savy Presidential Secretary and distinguished civil servant Lalith Weeratunga is hopeful that the emerging Indian Ocean economy, which is poised to become the ‘Wonder of Asia’, will accomplish its ambitious target 75 per cent e-literacy by 2016 by reengineering the country’s public sector, through government’s e-Sri Lanka programme.

Improvements: This programme pursues major and sustainable improvements in the Government of Sri Lanka’s (GOSL) efficiency, transparency, effectiveness, and quality of services. For this purpose, it will reinforce and expand fundamental governance and public management reforms as a complement and enabler of required solutions.