A village based business process outsourcing (BPO) service that handles part of the backoffice operations of Sri Lanka’s largest diversified company, has also been contracted by the country’s biggest telecoms operator, whilst having talks to provide similar services to Sri Lanka’s largest white goods supplier.

This BPO operation located at Mahawillachchiya, Anuradhapura, that processes data of suppliers’ to John Keells supermarket chain (a process that began some months ago) has now been employed by Dialog Telekom to process some of their market research data, Dilip Jayawickrama, Projects Director, Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunity in Sri Lanka (FARO), an NGO, told The Sunday Leader.

FARO, which was among seven NGOs to receive World Bank grants of Rs. five million each through the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) on Wednesday to develop ICT opportunities to the rural and disadvantaged people, provides support to this BPO operation in Mahavillachchiya.

The village youth involved in this project, some eight of them, had their basics right, that is having a working knowledge of English and in the use of computers, due to the work of another NGO, Horizon, said Jayaweera.

“This made it possible for our entry, such a foundation has to be first laid before we can move in,” he added. Jayaweera said that outsourcing of this work by Keells has helped them to cut costs, with eight of their staff who were involved in this work earlier, being relocated to other departments.

He alleged that Dialog which hit the top in a short span of under 15 years, with most, if not all of their work done inhouse, were somewhat cautious in outsourcing their work, though a start has been made, with some of their market research data being now handled at Mahavillachchiya.

In the case of Singer, talks have been initiated, with no business deals having been yet procured, he said. Jayaweera further said that he wants to start a similar BPO unit in Seenigama, a village which was devastated in the recent tsunami.

Thanks for the concern. We have taken remedial action by now. Let us hope for the best from now onwards. Visit http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/cyberskills/index.html

HORIZON LANKA – CYBERSKILLS ICT CAMPUS (UPDATED: February 4, 2008 )

Horizon Lanka Academy of Mahavilachchiya joined hands with MMBL CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd., the Sri Lankan and the Maldivian franchisee of NIIT, India on February 03, 2008. This new partnership will enable the students and the youth in and around Mahavilachchiya to study ICT (and English) from the nursery level up to the Bachelors and Masters Degree from Mahavilachchiya. The youth from Mahavilachchiya will have the opportunity of studying at NIIT-affiliated 12 leading universities in Australia, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand in time to come.

The launch of the new program took place at Horizon Lanka with a simple ceremony. Reverend Maraka Suseela Thero performed religious rites. Mr. J. W. S. Kithsiri, The Divisional Secretary of Mahavilachchiya DS Division, Mr Nandasiri Wanninayaka, the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation, Mr. Chamila Algewatta, the Manager, CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd, Anuradhapura, Mr. Chatura Thilanga Vijekoon, the Manager of CyberSkills – Horizon Lanka Campus, Mahavilachchiya, Mr. H. A. Wickramasinghe, the Principal, Ashoka Mala Public School, Kadurupitiya, Mr. H. Jayathunga, the Principal of Thakshila Public School, Mahavilachchiya graced the occasion. Miss Anusha Priyadarshani and Miss Krishanthi Priyadarshani compeered the event while Nipuna Roshan Wiskramasuriya delivered the vote of thanks.

Students and the parents were present at the event and 15 students and youth were registered for the new courses on the first day alone. Others can register themselves till the 15th of February for the first batch and the courses will be commenced on the 16th of February.

Horizon Lanka Foundation is happy to announce that it will tie up with a reputed ICT institute of Sri Lanka which is a franchise of an international institute from the academic year 2008. From February, the ICT academic activities will be taken over by this new entity and standard ICT courses will be offered to the students in Mahavilachchiya and the suburbs on an affordable fee. Those who find it difficult to pay the fees will be given scholarships through Global Giving scholarships program. http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1700/proj1657a.html?RF=widget_large1657 You can help students in Mahavilachchiya to get a quality ICT education by contributing to this fund.

The proposed company offers many other areas of training such as BPO, English Language, Soft Skills, Business Administration etc. The company is also the licensee in Sri Lanka for Australasian Education & Training Services (AETS) and the Australian Center for Languages (ACL) through which a wide range of internationally accredited training products are offered.

Await more details on this new venture in our website soon. There is a big demand for the Mahavilachchiya youth in the job market since the students have shown outstanding talents in ICT, English and presentation skills so far. With the advent of the new partnership, the village students and youth will get a wide range of options to follow while in the village. We will start with a pilot in early February and then go for the expansions.
According to the agreement, the profits of the new venture will be shared on a 50-50 basis with the proposed company and Horizon Lanka Foundation so that both parties will benefit and Horizon Lanka Foundation will be able to gain self sustainability while producing more youth to the job market from Mahavilachchiya.

(Updated Sunday, January 13, 2008 4:26 PM )

We will officially announce this very soon. Apart from these courses, the students will be free to continue their regular web updates, blogging, etc. which they do. Standard courses will not disturb the creative side of the students.

Today we had lengthy discussions with a reputed ICT educational firm on a proposed 3-year plan to produce 1000 ICT skilled youth from Mahavilachchiya and suburbs. Mahavilachchiya is a big area and there are enough youth. Educational plan will include both ICT and English. We will announce once the deal is sealed.

What we focus on now is to start more ICT related business ventures in the area. Charity won’t work in the long run. So, we need to change the strategies at this stage.

Thanks for the guidance and enthusiasm shown in Mahavilachchiya.

It’s great to hear your story on reaching break even. I am sure the team will work hard to turn around it to a profitable venture. Is there any plan in place for capacity building? This is one of the most important thing to expand the BPO further. I think you should give your guidance and support to build the capacity for future.

Harsha

As I mentioned earlier, our mission is not accomplished yet. If you need more specific details, you can communicate with our young CEO of the BPO Nirosh nirosh@horizonlanka.org

Once the first year is over, we will have an Annual Report and it will answer your questions. Let’s wait for some more time till the foundation is strengthened further before replicating this model elsewhere.

We started the BPO with just two seats and adding more now. If we started big by now we would have failed perhaps.

If you are an MBA student, try to arrange a visit to MV and see yourself. Your comments will help us too.

I don’t get too involved in the BPO work. I am watching and guiding from a distance. If the young men and women in MV can prove themselves we can start more business ventures like e-commerce, software development, etc. in future.

If you are looking at Sri Lankika BPO’s you can employ over 50,000 to 100,000 but you have to solve one major problem with me. Read more at Sinhala software development blog

Donald Gaminitillake

There are very few businesses that you can breakeven within the first six months and if so this is a commendable effort. Congratulations!

Please tell me how you arrived at the conclusion that your business has reached the breakeven point. What was the capital investment for building, equipment etc? What are current expenditures? When you say breakeven do you mean that the profit earned within the first six months covered the capital and current expenditure for those six months?

This would be an ideal business case to be implemented at other villages too. What is the possibility of doing so? What are the barriers you think most significant? Lack of telecom facilities? Lack of skilled operators? Or is it purely because our corporate sector is not geared for such ventures yet?

(I am an MBA student keenly following the development of BPO at Mahawilachchiya.)

See the numbers below.

PCs at homes – 40 (under Digital Butterflies project
http://digitalbutterflies.wordpress.com/)

At Horizon Lanka Lab – 25

Siddhartha School – 20

Thakshila School – 15

Saliyamala – 1

Gamini School – 5 (unconfirmed)

Laptops -10 (under Digital Ambassadors project
http://digitalambassadors.wordpress.com/ )

Temples, police station, government offices, etc. 20

Total = 140

Real Number should be around 150.

Mahavilachchiya DS Division is fairly large. Mahavilachchiya is a colony.
Not a village. If you take the whole MV DS division numbers may go even
higher. Tantirimale, Kadurupitiya, etc. also come under MV DS division. If
we count all these PCs number will go up to 200 . But the PCs brought to
Mahavilachchiya through Horizon Lanka is around 100 . (We revealed these
numbers to Sunday Times because we don’t want to get the credits for the
computers brought to the village by other organizations.)

We donated some used and new PCs to village schools, temples, police
stations, etc. to help bridge the Digital Divide. There are some problems
with old PCs. You can help repair them by sending us used PCs, spare parts,
etc.