Sri Lanka's e-Society Program at World Bank's Innovation Fair

30th October 2009, www.dailymirror.lk

Sri Lanka’s e-society program that connects the unconnected rural and disadvantaged communities to the world of information and communication through new technologies drew plaudits at the recent Innovation Fair held at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. The Innovation Fair was organized to draw attention of the top management of the World Bank to creative and fresh approaches in global development programs.

The e-Society program was one of the six most distinctive projects from the South Asia region showcased at this inaugural World Bank forum. The program initiated and implemented under the e-Sri Lanka project by the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Agency stood out for its community-driven use of ICT for Development (ICT4D). Encouraging local expertise, the e-society program showed how it has adroitly used ICT to develop programs that have helped rural farmers obtain access to agricultural market information, provide social services and education opportunities to individuals and assist the disabled.

In addition, the program demonstrated how new digital content products developed through e-society grants have harnessed local expertise to provide easier access to knowledge and learning for the vision and hearing impaired persons.

The e-Society Program was also presented at the “Ideas Market” – a forum which presented emerging opportunities in ICTs and social media that would augment the Bank’s development work. “Many senior managers from a number of regions expressed much interest in learning more and replicating the e-Society concept and resulting projects and suggested that workshops be held for Task Managers of the World Bank,” said Sandra Sargent, Operations Officer at the World Bank.

Suggestions were also made for establishing further cross-country and cross-regional collaboration between the ICTA and agencies implementing similar initiatives in other countries.