Harsha de Silva's efforts & Indrajit Samarajiva's talk

Harsha de Silva’s efforts & Indrajit Samarajiva’s talk

Posted on January 8, 2005 / 6 Comments

Led to the Colombo Regency Rotary Club’s successful web relief operation. This has been featured in Rotary International’s publication, without either of their names .

We, in our small way, seek to correct this by this post. Good work, guys. You are appreciated, by us as at least.

6 Comments

Harsha
January 8, 2005, 8:06 am
Names really dont matter; its the work that matters!

I invited Indi for a talk at our Rotary Club a few weeks back because I was convinced we could use his expertise in creating a blog-based communications platform. The idea was to try it out first with our Club; then perhaps the Rotary District in Sri Lanka and just maybe Rotary International; some day. His talk went really well and our members were introduced to the word “blog”. We were in fact contemplating on getting started.

But, then suddenly the waves came and we had to act. We set up the blog almost immediately and it has shown everyone [our Club, the Sri Lanka District and Rotary International] the sheer power of ICT!! We are still auditing our accounts; but I think we have collected over $150,000 through the blog platform in just few days.

I feel one of the key reasons for the success was that we were able to keep the world informed through our blog as to what we were doing with the donations that were coming in. One person from Australia sent a second [large] donation after seeing what we were doing with his first donation.

Just imagine, how limited we would have been in our effort to help the survivors if we didnt have access to ICTs… I am sure this is one of many similar stories.

Thank you Indi.

Harsha and everyone at Rotary Club of Colombo Regency.
Mark Colombo
January 10, 2005, 2:16 pm
Is the author Harsha de Silva who went to Univ of Mo-Columbia (PHD Econ)?
harsha
January 10, 2005, 10:33 pm
hey mark, it’s me alright!! please mail me on hdes1@yahoo.com
Ananda Jayawardhana
January 23, 2005, 8:47 pm
Harsa,

Are you Harsa Mahen de Silva who was at Mizzou in early 90’s?

Ananda & Manel
Sanjana Hattotuwa
January 26, 2005, 7:35 pm
Harsha,

Who from Oz sent you the large private donation?

As a Rotary World Peace Scholar, I pointed a lot of Australians to your (Rotary’s) blog in Sri Lanka and I know that my host club (I am not a Rotarian myself, but we are linked with host clubs as part of the scholarship) did send quite a bit of money your way.

Cheers,

Sanjana
Harsha
January 27, 2005, 12:47 am
Sanjana

Let me check. Please mail me at hdes1@yahoo.com with copy to chamila@blissforme.com.

Hey, thanks for the help!

Cheers
Harsha