Sri Lanka to Gain from Silicon Valley Technologies

26th February 2010, www.island.lk, By Mario Andree

The import of technologies from Silicon Valley will empower businesses, helping entrepreneurs to raise revenues and boost profits, said Latitude 655 chief execrative officer Shanil Fernando.

It will also assist Sri Lanka to gain a fair global market share in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), he added.

He was speaking at the launch of Latitude 655, a new company.

Silicon Valley has remained the leading high-tech hub for the past several years with a large number of entrepreneurs investing in the IT engineering fields.

However, Sri Lankan companies have so far been unable to gain major benefits from these latest technologies, innovations and insights, Fernando pointed out.

There are around one million online users in Sri Lanka at present and the growth rate has been phenomenal over the years. Most of the technology and services used overseas are not available in Sri Lanka, a vibrant market,

"Sri Lanka is at the early stages of an economic boom, and our analysis in the past three years has shown that the economic boom will be followed by a technology boom," he said.

The CEO also said that Latitude 655 had assembled a world-class team to form this partnership. "Our partners are veterans in the global IT industry and have been instrumental in luring high potential talent from local as well as foreign companies and universities."