The e-Swabhimani Awards 2017 was held recently to recognise and champion the nation’s digital social innovators. It was organised by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure.
Awards were presented to those who made a definite high social impact, solving the real needs of local communities using digital technologies. The e-Swabhimani 2017 grand jury comprising experts drawn from various fields recognised 20 winners from nine categories, 15 Merit Awards and 8 Certificates of Appreciation. This year’s event organised for the seventh consecutive year attracted more than 200 submissions.
The chief guest was Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure Harin Fernando. Senior government officials, industry leaders, digital entrepreneurs and the media were also present. The Minister said, “The ministry was created with digital infrastructure as a road for you all to build your success upon. The government has taken many initiatives and amazing things are happening. With all the initiatives taking place, very soon Sri Lanka will be a digital island by 2025. You are the key pillars who will drive this project and I hope that you will not give up and strive harder and drive Sri Lanka to the greatest place that Sri Lanka deserves to go.”
e-Swabhimani also serves as a stepping stone to the World Summit Award (WSA), a global initiative implemented within the framework of the United Nations’ World Summit on Information Society (WSIS). As ICTA is the National Expert for WSA in Sri Lanka, the Jury selected from among the winners, eight nominations for submission to the WSA.
Impressively at the WSA 2017, six of Sri Lanka’s eight nominations made it to the final round with Sri Lanka second only to Germany which had seven entries. Of the six nominations three entries - chargeNET, Sciocardio and Yathra were included in the final round and chargeNET won in the Smart Settlement and Urbanization category. The applicant, chargeNET (Pvt) Ltd is a subsidiary of Codegen (Pvt) Ltd.