Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) at the Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) level is still not too common. Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala accompanied by a LIRNEasia team made a visit to Mahawilachchiya to have a close look at the first (still emerging) rural BPO there recently. On the same day, The Economic Times of India quoted Prof. Jhunjhunwala saying: ““Like manufacturing grew in China, services and manufacturing should grow in rural India. The sourcing and design can happen here (metros like Chennai) but the manufacturing should be taken to the rural areas and be managed through IT.”
Professor Jhunjhunwala has added that eventually people will set up their own enterprises in rural areas, thus mitigating widespread migration.Read the full story: http://tinyurl.com/2qugz2
Addendum by Rohan Samarajiva:
I happened upon an early account by Chulie de Silva of how it all began at Mahavilachchiya and Nivaththakachethiya that may be of interest to the readers of this thread (since it was, for a long time available on the web, I am assuming it is in the public domain): chulie_onwanni.doc
70 Comments
R
What are they upto? Web designing? I’ve seen some pretty well designed and colorful websites by the kids. It’s good to know that they’ll get paid for what they do.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear R,
Please visit http://ontimetechnologies.wordpress.com/ to read more about the BPO venture we started. This is a fully pledged BPO company started under the patronage of Horizon Lanka, FARO http://www.farolanka.org and John Keells is our first client. The BPO company is named OnTime Technologies Pvt. Ltd. OnTime carries out some financial documentation from Mahavilachchiya through a VPN for JKH. All activities are done by the youth in Mahavilachchiya. They were trained for this in Laos, India and JKH. (ICTA also helped in training two youths abroad.)
Small time assignments like web designing, etc. either go to Horizon Lanka and the money goes both to HL’s running cost and for the students who do the work. Some assignments directly went to the students and they made some money too. One of the students dreams of having a better house within next 3 years by doing similar assignments. We will let small time operations go in that way (to the students) but when it comes to serious operations like what we do for JKH, they go through OnTime which is professionally trained for such activities.
Young Nirosh is the CEO of OnTime and Isuru, a teenager is a director. We guide them from a distance.
We started small with just two operators and within this month it will go up to 5 and by December number of operators will go up to 25. Once we successfully achieve that target, we are going to expand OnTime to suburban villages as well. We should walk before running so, at this stage things will go little slow. We don’t need to fail.
Hope other village level projects also can start similar ventures.
Pramod V
Can someone educate me on the Rural BPO ventures in Bangalore and other locations in India?
R
The sustainability of grassroot level efforts become a reality when they move out of a non-profit frame to a business frame. It’s good to see companies like JKH giving a hand to you in all this.
Wish you and farolanka the best of luck!
samarajiva
A good source for info on rural BPOs is http://www.desicrew.in/. Just google desicrew, you’ll get more info.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Three more girls, Nilanka,Lalitha and Nadeeka were trained at JKH and will start working at OnTime BPO, Mahavilachchiya from today. Hope we can go for 25 operators as scheduled by December.
Gama Rala
Sri Lankan rural society is mainly agriculture based. It has been built on the solid foundation of the ‘wewa’ and ‘dagaba’ for so many millennia. There was a time during king Parakramabahu’s period that our country exported rice and was known to be the granary of Asia.
The prosperity of this balanced economy was ruined only after the advent of open economy in 1977. What JRJ did was to destroy the developed agriculture sector in Lanka, which even the colonial powers could not destroy for so many centuries.
The task ahead of us right now to build that national economy based on agriculture.
We should not demolish that balanced economy by introducing industrialised solutions to rural areas like call centres and BPOs. They are only good for urban areas. We should not destroy our villages from these unnecessary things. If we let these things happen after sometime we will not be able to find a single decent girl from any of our villages.
See what happened after President Premadasa introduced garment factories at village level. The society was completely destroyed by these garment factories. Then they start sending women Middle East and it has become a total mess. The damage to the society was irreparable. Can any amount of money compensate that?
We should not think only about money.
Our culture and heritage is more important for us than earning a fast buck.
So what the government should do is to develop the rural areas based only on agriculture. Villages should be discouraged to implement call centers. We do not want more rubbish coming to the villages through them.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Pramod V,
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/48779/09_2007/mera_gaon_mera_bandwidth1/mera-gaon-mera-bandwidth-rural-indias-techies.html shows us a nice video clip about India’s first rural BPO.
samarajiva
It appears that the Internet is good for Gamarala but not good for the kids in the village. But since Gamarala has access to the Internet, he may wish to read the full argument on why we need rural BPOs at: http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?newsID=1803905964&no_view=1&SEARCH_TERM=24. I wrote this more than two years ago and it was published in Sinhala in Lankadeepa first. Ig Gamarala reads Sinhala papers he could have got into the debate back then. But he seems very much like Soloman West Ridgeway Dias B who decreed that we should all look after our culture and study in Sinhala only while his family members were all sent to study in foreign universities.
R
The ‘wewa’ ‘dagaba’ concept may have worked in the times of Mahsen or Parakarama bahu. But today the world is a little different. There are no longer isolated nations that survive on their own. Everyone is inter-dependent. So Gamarala, wake up! It’s 2007, not 1815!
The key to survival in this kind of environment is to focus on a niche, and be very good at it. We cannot afford cheap labour in the same manner as China, so the best thing is to go for value addition (adding quality not quantity) and diversity. So Prof, in the long run I don’t believe we should follow India. But BPOs at this stage are more than welcome as Mr. Wanninayaka elaborately points out; we should walk before running.
Gamarala, one more thing. And this will surely get your panties up in a bunch…..
The paradigm of agriculture in Sri Lanka also needs to be changed drastically, if it’s to survive.
Read
http://towards-a-utopia.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-love-ricebut.html
Concerned
I partially agree with Gamarala, we should not embrace everything coming from west. We should adopt things only if they are good for our environment and culture. Otherwise we will be destroying even the rural villages.
Before building a factory it is customary to do a study to see that does not destroy the environment. Why we cannot do that here? Why not let independent organisation do a study to find out the negative effects of this call centre in the village? Has somebody done that type of a study before this project?
Can someone also tell me is this the only option available to develop this village? I do not say villagers using Internet is bad, but why cannot they use Internet to develop the agriculture in this village instead of brining in these undesired elements?
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear Concerned,
If a study is done, multiple answers can be found to develop a village with the resources found in a village. Extensive lands, huge reservoirs, courageous villagers who don’t give up under difficult situations, etc. may be few things to mention. But did any authority had any sensible plans after Independence to utilize these? Though the farmers produce a good harvest doesn’t the vicious circle in marketing deprive the farmers a fair price? Agricultural ventures have proved failures for a long time.
Who worries to develop Mahavilachchiya if not we at Horizon Lanka started it 10 years ago? There are thousands of villages which are left alone from the development process and Mahavilachchiya struggles to create a different path with its resources, ie, computer and English literate youths. Why does someone try to deviate the focus at this stage?
Some people in Mahavilachchiya say that they saw three positive changes in Mahavilachchiya during their lifetimes.
1. Repairing the huge reservoir
2. Electricity coming to the village in 1993
3. Birth of Horizon Lanka
I don’t think we as Horizon Lanka has done such a big impact in the village as we cater to only 100 students and youths. But mobile coverage, better road facilities, internet, etc. came to Mahavilachchiya as a result of Horizon Lanka. Besides Mahavilachchiya has a huge publicity worldwide and any smart smalltime businessman can capitalize on this and start business ventures like food processing, etc. and sell under Mahavilachchiya name.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear Concerned,
Our BPO venture is not a call center. We are digitizing financial data to our client from Mahavilachchiya through a VPN. That doesn’t mean that we will not go into call center operations in future. Once we develop the right human resources, we can start a call center as well. For more information about our BPO you can visit http://ontimetechnologies.wordpress.com/
Sampath Bandara
I think having a call centre in a village is a stupid idea. Call centres require people who can not only speak good English but speak with the correct accent. Even many people in Colombo do not qualify. Can we have that level of English skills in a village?
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Sampath,
Good point. This is why we have started with something we can. This does not rule out a possibility of a future call center though. If we have the right resources people like elocution teachers, foreign volunteers, I don’t think accent problem will become a big problem. Never underestimate village students. Once they are provided with the basics, they will surprise you with what they can do. Take the Sri Lanka cricket team, athletes, artistes for an example. Most of the village guys and gals are doing extremely well. It is a question of providing the basics.
Indians did have an “Indian accent” and they still do. But they overcame that problem and now they not only work in call centers but also teach American students from India. Read “World is Flat” and understand the potential of ourselves as a nation.
Sri Lankan
Sampath,
What type of idiot are you? Here the MW people trying to do some good work and you start questioning their accents!
You are like that Captain in the movie Lagaan, who thought Indian villagers could never play cricket. You need some big shock to come out of your middle class dreams.
Donald Gaminitillake
Please note that my institute is registed for “TOEIC” examinations in Sri Lanka only for Sri Lanka nationals
Contact me for details
Donald Gaminitillake (242-1846)
samarajiva
We have come to know Mr Gaminitillaka through this blog, so hesitate to delete the above comment, but I think he will understand that it looks like spam unconnected to the thread. Unless the connection is established, it will be deleted.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
According to Wikipedia “Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) measures the ability of non-native English-speaking examinees to use English in everyday work activities.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOEIC
Hope this is the message what Mr Donald wanted to convey. It looks relevant to the subject but would have been better if the post didn’t look like an advertisement. Instead it should have been mentioned as a source of information. Anyway, we will follow this up.
Donald Gaminitillake
Whats wrong in introducing “TOIEC” to Sri Lanka? Why do we deprive these children in MV or any village sits for the examination. .
No 17 is not spam.It is the truth. When these children are “TOIEC” qualified ___ people like Sampath will have to keep the mouth closed.
When I try to teach Sinhala every one oppose Now English
Great Nation
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Double Digit
Informal adult English education was a part of the original e-Sri Lanka programme. I guess this was included because the designers realised without English one cannot go far in ICTs – specially in ITES. I do not know what happened to that idea. Is that still on agenda of capacity building for BPO industry?
Can someone educate me?
@Donald,
The problem with you is you try to involve in important initiatives but purely for personal gains. Even in that try to be more innovative and partner with others for common good rather than personal gains. Then perhaps ICTA might want to use your expertise in capacity building the current and prospective BPO employees.
S. Wijesinghe
Why the O/L English results still so poor in rural areas?
Hasn’t ICTs helped in improving the English education?
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear Wijesinghe,
Your comment is true with most of the rural areas but in Mahavilachchiya this is different. Horizon students have started getting A’s for English whereas they get B’s or C’s for Sinhala. But this trend is not there in the government schools. So, we are doing a pilot in public schools in 5 other rural villages with the Ministry of Education. If you are interested you can read the English Plan at http://evillage.wordpress.com/
Plan may look very simple but this worked well in Mahavilachchiya. If you see the links under BLOGROLLS of the above link, you can see 5 public schools improving their English using ICTs. Also see http://dunuwila.wordpress.com/ to see how ICT is being used for English improvement.
Another good example is the new breed of bloggers from the villages you can find in http://www.kottu.org. At the moment their writing may look monotonous but they will start writing about different things once they gain the confidence.
But this is not enough. We should go for e-learning methods to improve English. Someone should create good e-learning content for the local needs.
Doanld Gaminitillake
Since you all have missed the bus and when I talk of some productive idea, You talk of my personal gains. If I am correct and productive why cant I gain directly.
There are enough of e-learning methods for English because the Latin script have registered in unicode consortium as individual characters falling into several pages unlike Sinhala. ETS have these systems. But you will have to sit for the examination. Obtain the grades.Then move towards the higher grades by taking courses. I cannot write more because they will think I am advertising “TOEIC”
If you want to enter a university you need SAT and TEST OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE(TOEFEL)
To use English in everyday work activities you need “TOEIC”
To do any BPO you need a human language.
Unless you talk in machine language 010101000
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Double Digit
Donald,
You have misunderstood me.
I do not see anything wrong in one working for personal gains. We all in private sector do the same. However, we couple our ideas with things important for other people. Otherwise we cannot survive, let alone move forward.
The problem of you is you do not know how to couple your ideas with things important to others. So they remain only within your head and eventually die. I do not call them ‘productive’ because whether good or bad, an idea not tested is useless.
Take the example of Prof. Yunus. He started Grameen Bank not as charity but as business. He too might have gained from it but only because he could couple his idea with something important to the society. If he too wasted his time like you, ranting in blogs, there would not have been any Grameen Bank.
I do not know head or tail about this TOEIC, but if I think it is important the first thing I would do is to talk to ICTA or Ministry of Education (or whoever relevant) and see whether I could couple that with one of their initiatives. If you can’t do that the next best thing is to keep your mouth shut without wasting forum space.
This is my last mail on this topic.
Donald Gaminitillake
Details of “TOIEC” should be discussed inan educational forum not in BPO. I brought this topic into BPO is someone was talking about the language ability of MV children who are trying to do BPO related activity in MV.
IF ICTA wants to know about TOIEC came to me. I am under the ministry of vocational traning assisting Ingrin institute of Printing from August.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Nirosh
I am happy to let you all know the progress of OnTime Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd, the rural BPO venture stated with Horizon Lanka Foundation with the guidance of FARO (www.farolanka.org) .
Currently we work with John Keells Holdings one of the biggest companies in Sri Lanka. Having started with two operators now we have moved up to five operators with the target of 25 at the end of this year.
Chanuka
Sri Lanka is often inaccurately called an agriculture society. Agricultural contribution to GDP was about 50% in 1948 but now it has dropped to 11%.
The only reason what makes agriculture important is that it sustains 32% of the workforce. (thus 32% of population) That itself shows the unproductivity. (32% contributes only 11%.)
For 60 years traditional subsistent agriculture has made nobody rich. A section of a community might now be a bit above its ’48 level (with many subsidies, easy loan schemes and micro financing) but it is highly doubtful this sector becoming productive, if nothing changes, given saturated local markets uncompetitive international market prices.
This gives only two options:
(a) Add value to products and aim international markets (Instead of growing paddy, encourage them to grow crops which has a high international demand)
(b) Diverge a section of workforce (preferably youth) to other more productive avenues in services and industrial sector
LIRNEasia already has a project based on (a). BPO at MW is based on (b)
Singapore and Hong Kong both have zero agricultural contribution to GDP. In case of developed countries it is less than 5%.
So why should we place all our bets in traditional agriculture? Lets change the model and see the outcome. It is a risk worth taking.
R
What’s the project based on (a)?
Donald Gaminitillake
We need food to eat. Project “a” is more viable.
one village one product.
Donald Gaminitillake
samarajiva
The LIRNEasia project is described at http://www.lirneasia.net/projects/current-projects/icts-transaction-costs-traceability/. The project team will get additional information up shortly.
Chanuka
Donald,
Just because we need to eat, that does not mean we ourselves have to produce what we eat.
Even during ancient times Sri Lanka became the ‘granary’ of Asia not necessarily because we produced our own stuff, but this was the trading point for the produce from other countries (like Singapore today)
People in Singapore and Hong Kong too eat though they do not produce any.
Also it need not be a choice between (a) or (b). We can have both in parallel.
samarajiva
Please see addendum to the main post that includes an early (~1999-2000), informative account of the origins of the e-village initiative by Ms Chulie de Silva.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear Prof Samarajiva,
Thanks for attaching the addendum by Ms Chulie de Silva. This takes us to the “beginning of the beginning.” It is high time we did a professional documentary about Mahavilachchiya with all these sources to showcase the Mahavilachchiya story and the challenges it faced and how it grew from humble beginnings with the support of many quarters and amidst the resistance from some other quarters as well. This would be a good case study for any other village level project as Mahavilachchiya had to face “every possible problems under the sun that a village project would face” and still managed to survive.
I am very happy to see that all the people who were instrumental in Mahavilachchiya are regrouping around Mahavilachchiya to take it to the next level. This has been a wonderful learning experience for me as well. I appreciate this unity and let’s get together to create more Mahavilachchiyas in Sri Lanka. One such project I am involved with is http://evillage.wordpress.com/ and there are many other village level projects that need the attention from the patriotic Sri Lankans and the international community.
Agriculture has failed to reduce poverty
Agriculture keeps showing it’s a failure in this country. Best thing is to look for other avenues such as BPO, etc.
Agriculture has failed to reduce poverty http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/09/27/bus50.asp
A USAID sponsored study of Sri Lanka’s economic performance last year found that 34.3% of the labour force is engaged in agriculture, while it is generating only 17.8% of GDP, said Mission director, USAID, Rebecca Cohn.
Speaking at the annual general meeting of the National Agri Business Council, (NAC) she said that FAO data for Sri Lanka show that production is virtually unchanged from 15 years ago and not made the contribution to economic performance and reduction of poverty that it should. “In Sri Lanka agricultural productivity has not kept pace and rural incomes of the small farmers are not benefiting,” she said.
Policy advocacy is an important function of the NAC and I would urge you to continue this role, consistently representing the interests of the private sector to help the government to formulate policies appropriate to facilitate rapid growth in the economic contribution of this sector.
“I believe that NAC can play an important role in advocacy and policy dialogue with the Government because policies that maintain the rural population in paddy farming are not going to bring these small farmers out of poverty.”
SS
harsha de silva
agricultural poverty has many dimensions. i simply categorise these in to two groups. one, institutional issues that are beyond the realm of the individual farmer and the other, things that can be changed by him.
land policies [farmers not having ownership to their land], incentive structures [fertilizer subsidy only for paddy so farmers over produce and prices drop] and trade regimes [tariff issues] fall in to the first. unless reforms in these areas are undertaken by the state farmers will be at a competitive disadvantage.
the second is about planning and implementing a strategy in whatever agricultural enterprise [big or small] the farmer is involved in. we know that farmers do not necessarily consider options before planting as to what the alternative crops could be. they also dont undertake even simple demand analyses to assess if the price at harvest time would be sufficient to cover costs and a decent margin. also, they hardly ever consider market prices prior to actually transporting the produce to a particular market. this asymmetry in information more often than not end up costing the farmer. of course there are times that windfalls do materialize and they purchase tvs, motor cycles etc., but over the term, this volatility in income feeds poverty. another point is working capital. banks are reluctant to lend without collateral to poor farmers, but farmers hardly ever structure financing with banks to offer their expected produce as collateral; a simple bill-discounting procedure that every pettah trader does. so farmers end up getting squeezed by the money lender.
so how can farmers use ICT to rid themselves of poverty? numerous ways, this blog is not the place for that discussion, but suffice it to say that ICTs, particularly mobile phones, can be used effectively to reduce the asymmetry in information, be it on past and trend prices for alternate crops, information on existing forward agreements on possible alternate crops and real-time prices at various markets. with new m-commerce applications that are being developed, it is quite possible that mobiles could also help in playing the financial intermediary role as well.
in my view changes in policy, or the institutional framework, will take long to realize and if we wait for it the agricultural poverty problem will only get worse. with the work many people [including us at LIRNEasia] are doing now to show evidence of the fortune at the BOP, and innovative companies actually profiting hand over fist in the BOP, i am optimistic that the before long mobile centric ICTs will lead a new and profitable business model in agriculture.
Chanuka
Once I did a simple experiment coming from Anuradhapura to Colombo in the mango season by checking the prices same type of mangoes along the road.
At Anuradhapura (assumed closest to the production site) the price was Rs. 8. Near Colombo it was Rs. 15. At two different places it was Rs. 10 and 12. (This was about 2 years back. Prices might differ now!)
Anyway, the point is, the price almost proportionately increased from the place of production. The increment can be justified by the transport cost.
This shows there is hardly any information asymmetry in the Sri Lankan mango market. They might be checking the prices on mobiles.
I think this might be true for most argi products.
However, it is a different question whether or how much they use ICTs in the planning and production process.
Merrill Thilakasiri (Retired public servant)
Creating knowledge based jobs at the village level is a good idea. I realised this after reading today’s Sunday Times.
The highest percentage of students passing Grade 5 scholarship is recorded not from Colombo, contrary to the popular belief. Colombo district is in the pathetic 13th position. Colombo was even beaten by districts like Anuradhapura, Pollonnaruwa, Hambantota and Badulla.
This is a good indication that the percentage of educated in the outstation is increasing as never before.
In another 10 years time, the students who passed Grade 5 scholarship from all these agri-districts will be out from universities with degrees.
Can any sane person think they would settle down for traditional agriculture?
So opening up new job prospect for this young population is a must. If we do not do that today, you can expect another insurrection like 1971 and 1989 in another 10 years.
Doanld Gaminitillake
Dear Merrill
Apart from BPO’s using English there are many more work to be done in Sri Lanka.
The same type of work using other languages.
Languages issues are discussed else where. Visit
http://www.lirneasia.net/2007/06/software-issues-in-sri-lanka-part-8/
Donald Gaminitillake
Concerned
Donald,
Please, please, please will you not bring other issues to this thread?
Enough is enough.
donald Gaminitillake
Hi Concerned
Can you give one example of a BPO project that a (any) langauge is not used?
Donald
Punchi Putha
Hi Donald uncle,
The question is not directed at me, but of course as somebody who has enough experience in the field I can give enough BPO examples where language matters little.
In Sri Lanka more than half of the BPO work involves either (a) data entry or (b) digitising. Both of these operations do not need any language skills. Why somebody should need language skills to enter some data to a computer. Anyone with common sense can do it. In fact, the companies who do such work never check the language skills of the operators when hiring. If you have asked any recruitment consultant, he would have told you that knowing touch system is more important than language skills for such a job.
Language skills are only required in some BPO operations like a call centre.
It looks like to me you are standing on your tail thinking BPO means only call centres.
Donald uncle, if you think a bit before making posts here I think you can escape from this frequent humiliation.
Donald Gaminitillake
I am not addressing about call centers PUNCHI PUTHA
What is data entry?
is it entering numerals only from 0 to 9 or what?
What do you mean by digitising? “Ankika karanaya” in Sinhala
eg
Scan an image and save as what?? “buruwa1.jpg” ??? instead of Donkey1.jpg
I am dumb so lets go talking of BPO without language
I say:
To do any BPO accuracy of a person and the knowledge of the language is an absolute requirement.
The language has to be compatible across all platforms for the BPO to progerss.
If you say No punchi putha publish an example.
Donald Gaminitillake
Punchi Putha
Ane Donald uncle,
You are like a typical tube light. Takes its own time to light.
When I said ‘language skills’ I did not mean the basic language most of us gain from our primary and secondary education. I mean special language skills for the industry.
In the modern world, ability to communicate is a requirement for living (like the ability to breathe) not just for the job. That is taken for granted, so no need to emphasise.
What needs an emphasis is the other skills necessary for BPO business. (which most of our youth should be trained to have.)
I shun from responding to the second part, not that I cannot, but I have no intention of giving you an opportunity to revert to your obsolete stupid arguments. If you have any problems go to ICT Agency and comlain and please do not waste our time here. We are not interested in any language issues.
Donald Gaminitillake
Sri Lanka’s basic english language is not enough to run any BPO. They are not able to communicate at the “phase” the BPO require. The people should be trained educated more than the O/L or A/L level in the language.
If we go on this level we will lose the little BPO’s that we have soon.
Quote
I have no intention of giving you an opportunity……
unquote
This cleary confirm that I am correct
Thanks
Donald Gaminitillake
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
BPO in Mahavilachchiya is improving day by day with our client, John Keells offering more seats. More village level projects are looking at replicating Mahavilachchiya model BPOs in their respective villages and hope this can be done towards the end of the year.
As mentioned above by few that agriculture will not be a deciding factor in village development in the future. These days paddy price has gone up (around 27 LKR per kilo I heard) in Mahavilachchiya but the price of a loaf of bread also has gone up to 35.00 LKR. This shows that we need to look up for alternative income sources, especially for the younger generation who are not willing to work in the agricultural sector anymore. Rural BPOs would be a good option if right attention is paid to its potential. I hope Nenasala centers also can become rural BPO centers in time to come as they already have PCs and connectivity.
A presentation about Mahavilachchiya BPO is uploaded at http://ontimetechnologies.wordpress.com/ for those who need guidance from us.
Doanld Gaminitillake
quote
younger generation who are not willing to work in the agricultural sector anymore
unquote
Can you give reasons for the above quote. Just because one can use a computer as a tool he or she need not be shy to work in a paddy field. With modern technology with drip irrigation one need only to spend about 4 to 5 hours in the field the rest is free to do BPO or anything.
The same farmer can do a BPO plus agriculture without any problem.
Donald Gaminitillake
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Young people going away from agriculture is not directly related to shyness to work in paddyfields. It is because that they have continuously seen that agriculture is not profitable venture. They shift to other means due to that. You can see the same in estate sector. Estate workers sons and daughters prefer to work in cities creating a big labor problem for the estates.
In Mahavilachchiya we are piloting a drip irrigation system. There is nothing wrong with it except the big capital one has to invest on. The problem is selling the crop. With the price of water supply, pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers farmers cannot sell their products to a decent price. Vicious circle in marketing agro products prevails for few decades now. This problem is visible everywhere in the country. This is why we should create alternative opportunities for the younger generation.
Punchi Putha
Donald uncle,
Why should anyone work in paddy field when they can work elsewhere and earn not just a better income, but also a social status in the society?
Do you like your kid working in a paddy field wearing an ‘amude’? (while your neighbours’ kid has a white collar job)
Do you yourself treat an ordinary famer with respect?
Do you have any idea what an unrewarding job agriculture in anywhere?
Your views reflect nothing but the typical middle class thinking of Colombo elite who still think the only way a village kid can come up is through agriculture.
Doanld Gaminitillake
Do you need to wear an Amude to work in paddy field? Why not a pair of shorts and go to work in a BMW. Park your BMW near the field and do the work. Return home in A/C comfort
I told you one can do multiple work in a Village, Do farming and BPO or internet related sales , Direct marketing of vegis etc
Some can drive a van with GPS running to deliver the goods. many more areas will open.
“”One village one product”” for better quality
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
Faizul
I am not sure whether you understand the crux of the matter. These BPOs call centers etc good to dream, but what we should understand the overly expansion of the service sector will always end in a bubble. This is what happened at USA in 2001-2 period and it is going to happen in India soon. The IT/BPO/Call center expansion in India and elsewhere in South Asia is often presented with big hype and it is unfortunate that we cannot follow what really happens. Rapid growth is a salient feature of any bubble. All will be celebrating till it eventually bursts. The real growth of a country, on the other hand, is marked by the expansion of agriculture and industry. That is the sectors which can offer tangible results, not the service sector. No country in South Asia could grow neglecting the industry and the agriculture sector. Wait and see what will happen with the next global recession.
M. Faizul Bari
Khulna, Bangladesh
Doanld Gaminitillake
Thank you Faizul for true comments
Everything should be balanced. We need food to eat
First ten companies of a country should be Agri and Industry — not service sector
Use IT as a tool to manage the agriculture and Industry. Maintain the balance
farmer could be named as = Cultivating Engineer
Likewise you rename the whole process to suit the IT sector, Then the young will join the team
Donald Gaminitillake
Punchi Putha
Donald uncle,
Please do not talk nonsense.
Let us take your BMW for example. Do you know the price of a BMW? I am not good at car prices, but I guess it might be around $ 100,000. So when it comes to Sri Lanka with taxes etc the price would be $ 200,000.
Do you know how much a farmer in Sri Lanka earns? The average household income in North Central province is Rs. 14, 500 pm. That is $ 130.
So even if we assume even a farmer and his family not only eat nothing, spend zero amount in shelter, clothes, education, healthcare but also make no investments in his agri-business and save the entire amount it takes him more than 1,500 months or 125 years to save enough money to purchase a BMW!
You remind me that old Chinese yarn Chairman Mao was fond of repeating.
There was this poor Chinese farmer who tried to flatten a mountain (which he had to cross every time to reach the town). When somebody pointed out that he would never complete in his life time, the old farmer responded saying if I cannot finish it, my sons, grandsons and great grandsons would complete it one day.
Chairman Mao exploited that stupid example to push millions of Chinese youth to agriculture, where obviously many did not see any future prospects. We know the grave results of the agriculture mania in China. It led to famines and millions and millions died as a result.
Fortunately for us the Sri Lankan rural youth are no more ‘konde bandapu cheenas’ They are not going to buy your BMW dreams.
Donald Gaminitillake
Mahavilachchiya came to todays level with a single used 486 computer. $200,000 BMW is not that far for MV.
Commence a project with IT and farming
eg
have a – cultivating Engineers – Horizon co-operative
Collect the agri products
Grade – Sort – and pack them
Have non refrigerated Van and a refrigerated van for perishables
Sell them to whole sale market directly — part could be sold on Direct marketing or to the retail chain like Keels or cargills
Still you can export products to Middle east and Maldives
Use IT for on demand delivery
$200,000 is not that far
Donald Gaminitillake
Shanika Sandamali Siriwardana
Dear Sir,
I am already to start a BPO data entry project. We have 10 computers and 17 trained operators. I am shool leaver and I have trained my friends for start data entry projeect. Sir, If you can please help us.
Thank you,
B/Rgds,
Shanika Sandamali Siriwardana.
Nandasiri Wanninayaka
Dear Faizul (Post 51),
I cannot understand as to why you are this pessimistic about the future of ICT related business. Read World is Flat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat by Thomas Friedman. He talks about the “dot com bubble” burst which you talk about during 2001-2 period and how the Americans faced it positively and changed the negative aspects to positive. It is same with the Millennium Bug phenomena. Though it created a big problem initially the aftermath was positive as it created a need of thousands of software Engineers which became a great human resource pool for ICT development of late. Outsourcing services to the Third World is one stage of the chain. (I am not going to explain the whole chain here because it is absurd to reproduce what Friedman said again here. Better read him.)
I personally don’t see as to why we should be so pessimistic about ICT related industries. Remember when we were schoolboys in 80’s all the science fictions and futurists had predicted a world with thousands of household robots which will rule the world by year 2000 but this didn’t happen. Instead, even I who live in a very remote village in Sri Lanka had a desktop computer on my table! It is more or less the same everywhere else. Robots will take another 50 years to come to households and still ICT will be ruling the world till the next 50 to 100 years. (Robots also will have to depend on ICT for their operations like new OS downloads, new updates, etc.) So, when one opportunity fades, say BPO, thousands of other opportunities will emerge.
Agriculture will be profitable for the countries which make it a huge business with thousands of acres is allocated to one farmer or company. What we do in our countries with less than 2 acres of plots of land for an individual is very difficult to make profits due to the reasons everyone is already aware. So, it is high time you thought outside the box. We, in the subcontinent have to change our thinking patterns for the future generations to prosper. We haven’t done nothing much than boasting about our age-old cultures and histories, have we?
samarajiva
Mr Faizul is supplying misinformation.
BPO cannot be equated to the Internet bubble. The BPO industry is a service industry. It is not driven by speculative investment. If the BPO industry in India goes down, it will be for reasons like protectionist policies in the US or the main markets; or the Indian companies being priced out because of inability to control high wages. But the same can be said for agricultural export and industrial export industries. There is no inherent special vulnerability of service industries.
There is a legitimate debate about whether a country can rely on the service industry to drive its economy. In a globalized market, the answer is yes. Singapore has proven it. Some people keep insisting the opposite. That is okay. But there is no need to bring misinformation about the Internet bubble into the discussion.
Cultivating Engineer
Dear Donald,
It was not very long ago I heard few Americans called their video man a “Video Engineer” at a conference in New Delhi. But we all knew that he was nothing more than a video man but the American organizers of the conference wanted to promote their American video man.
So, your nomenclature won’t help here. Calling a farmer a “Cultivating Engineer” won’t take him anywhere higher than where he already is. A farmer in this part of the world remain the same place in the society despite a name change. Hope you will understand my point. The problem is not with the name, it is with the sorry state of the farmers in this part of the world.
BMW CEO
Dear Mr. Donald Gaminitillake (hope I spelled your name correctly),
I am the CEO of BMW. While doing a casual surf at the VIP longue at Heathrow, I find these posts of yours which naturally interest me a lot. It was not the type of the information that I get every day.
Donald, you know, we at BMW have been making cars since 1920s, but all those years we never thought of making a model customised for farmers. As far as we were concerned they did not exist. We never thought farmers, plumbers or carpenters would not be within our customer base for all these days. How blind we were! The world is changing and your post was a real eye opener for everyone at BMW. (I have already circulated your post among all my Vice Presidents)
From your post I understand there is a huge potential for us to exploit this farmer market for our new products. We can start from Sri Lanka, then move to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. By the time we reach the Chinese farmers, I am sure we would have beaten both GM and Toyota bu volumes, let alone ROI.
What a great idea, Donald. We can call the new model BMW ‘Farmer series’. We can have them in different shades of green to give them a real agri look. We can also think of adding some new features like a separate space to keep their agricultural equipment etc, whatever they are. The potential is endless.
Donald, I do not know how to thank you for giving us this wonderful idea. If you happen to be in this part of the world, please do not hesitate to give me a buzz and I will drop anything to have a working lunch with such a brilliant guy like you. I have already instructed to my secretary to reserve you a VIP ticket for next Bimmerfest at Santa Barbara, CA.
I have asked my Vice President marketing to get in touch with you to further discuss your idea and he will be in touch with you sometime within this week.
Thanks again, Donald and Best Wishes from BMW.
Dr. Mervin Silva
Dear Dr. Donald Gaminitillake,
I will call you “Dr.” because the team which gave me my doctorate will give one to you soon. Apart from me, you are the only other one in Sri Lanka suitable to be honored with such a title due to your brilliant brain. Hope everyone else calls you a doctor too. I will get Dr Geethanjana Mendis to propose your name soon.
I see your following statement and it is hardly less funnier than what I talk in public.
“Why not a pair of shorts and go to work in a BMW. Park your BMW near the field and do the work.”
I also saw this link from from this village website. http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/broken_road/ See the roads there. Despite my “machang’s” presence in the picture, the roads look too good for a BMW.
Arachchila
Donald,
You live in Colombo and has no idea about the hardships undergone by the poor farmers. Many of them are ‘anda goviyas’ who do not have their own lands and depend on others. Then in some years the harvest drops drastically because of the droughts. When they produce the vendors and middlemen exploit them and hardly get good prices for the produce. Agriculture is a job which has the least means of security. You cannot blame people leaving agriculture to do something else, specially the youth.
Even in the developed countries the prices of agriculture products are kept artificially low by giving various types of subsidies. There is no strong economic reason for any country to protect agriculture. They do only because (a) it takes time to convert traditional farmers to other occupations and (b) by leaving agriculture you make a country vulnerable. (Singapore does not face that issue because it has no strong enemies)
If you have any sense, please help MV by finding enough BPO work for them. Don’t try to stop that and chase off these kids back to agriculture. Service sector is the only sector that allows them to come up. (Even industries require a significant investment) Don’t close that door for them.
Doanld Gaminitillake
I never chased the youth in MV to agriculture
I always advise that IT should use as a tool to manage agriculture
MV is under ‘Swarana bumi” not under ada Goviya
Even under ada goviya project the farmer has all the power not the owner of that land.
We need IT as well as agriculture.
In hotel industry we have a “CHEF” whether it is the ‘Cook” or “Kussi Amma” all three does the same job – cooking food
Likewise if people think the agriculture is a job that is underpaid or low status we got to change the image. Not all the farmers in this world where an “amude” they do he same job wearing other cloths
Think different
enjoy reading the comments about the BMW!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Chanuka
Coming back to the topic, I was at MV on Saturday and was glad to observe the progress of the MV BPO.
The challenge for MV BPO now is not the demand, but capacity building. If they cannot supply the skilled manpower in short notice, the prospects will surely explore other options. In my opinion, MV BPO should expand their HR capacity quickly to meet the growing demand. Perhaps it is the time for them to look HR from nearby villages, if not from Anuradhapura. This is the time to think BIG.
From MV BPO blog
http://ontimetechnologies.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/mahavilachchiya-bpos-progress/
Mahavilachchiya BPO’s progress
The Horizon Academy in Mahavilachchiya is a truly visionary project set up with an objective of providing the children and youth of the village with a knowledge of English and ICT. The advent of Horizon Academy brought great improvements to the little hamlet and Mahavilachchiya is today famed as an E-village and has produced several outstanding young men and women equipped with good English and computing skills.
The concept of carrying out work for Colombo based and overseas companies from the precincts of Mahavilachchiya was envisioned by Horizon Lanka’s charismatic founder Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka, even before the term “BPO” was widely known. John Keells was introduced to Horizon Lanka by the Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunity (FARO) and the idea of carrying out outsourced accounting work from Mahavilachchiya was mooted. A new BPO Company, On-Time Ltd, was incorporated and it was envisaged that it would operate out of Mahavilachchiya, renting out the facility and IT infrastructure of Horizon Lanka academy. Nirosh Ranathunge, a Kelaniya university graduate, functions as the CEO of the Company and Isuru Senevirathna, functions as a Director and trusted deputy to Nirosh. John Keells chose one of its subsidiaries, InfoMate Ltd, to pioneer the outsourcing of Transaction processing to On-Time Ltd. InfoMate Ltd, which is itself in the business of providing outsourced accounting services, was the natural candidate for this initiative owing to the availability of a high volume of data intensive transactions and the familiarity with the outsourcing model.
The John Keells Strategic Group IT division facilitated the set up of remote connectivity to JKH systems from Mahavilachchiya and On-Time Ltd’s high speed internet links facilitate data access and transaction processing. With the establishing of secure connectivity, a tripartite agreement between John Keells Holdings, FARO and On-Time Ltd was signed in May 2007 and commercial operations between InfoMate and On-Time commenced in the same month. Digitised images are electronically transmitted to On-Time Ltd and the On-Time team carries out Invoices processing and Document indexing based on the images.
InfoMate Ltd provides staff of On-Time with training in the BPO centre in Colombo and trainees they are taken through an induction programme as well as a structured training programme in the processing of accounting transactions. The John Keells CSR foundation provides accommodation in Colombo during the duration of the training. The third batch of trainees from On-Time is currently undergoing training in our facility and they will swell the number of dedicated On-Time resources to six.
We have found the employees of On-Time Ltd to be very committed, eager to learn, hard working and their processing quality is of a high standard. We are very impressed with their English, knowledge of ICT and professionalism. The On-Time team is also very popular with the staff of InfoMate Ltd, all of whom are delighted to have the opportunity to interact with the bright and pleasant young men and women of Mahavilachchiya and also to contribute towards a worthy CSR initiative. This project is an outstanding example of sustainable business, reaching across boundaries to provide equal opportunities and employment. It is also an important step towards creating BPO capacity in anticipation of the much hyped BPO boom which is much touted as a major growth area for the country.
Sunday Observer
Visit http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/10/21/fin21.asp for the source.
Mahavilachchiya – first village to have BPO operation – Sunday Observer
by Surekha Galagoda – Visit http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/10/21/fin21.asp
Mahavilachchiya, a village 245 kms from colombo is well known among locals and the international community as the first evillage and the village with the highest density of computers compared to any other village in Sri Lanka. Most parts of the village have broadband internet connectivity thanks to the hard work of the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) T. B. Nandasiri Wanninayaka.
Today it is the first village to have a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operation, which is totally handled by youngsters who are not only fluent in English and Computer knowledge but also play squash and rugger.
Wanni as he is popularly known has brought a smile to the youth of the village due to years of hard work and not accepting “No” for an answer. The concept of carrying out work for Colombo based and international companies from Mahavilachchiya was contemplated by Wanni even before the term BPO was widely known. Kapila Gunawardena based in the USA visited the HLF and seeing the potential of the youth wanted us to start a BPO operation, said Wanni.
John Keells was introduced to HLF by the Foundation for Advancing Rural Poverty (FARO). This saw the birth of the first BPO operation from rural Mahavilachchiya. The company On-Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., the BPO Company based in Mahavilachchiya rents the facility and the IT infrastructure of Horizon Lanka Academy.
Nirosh Ranatunga, a graduate from the University of Kelaniya functions as the CEO while Isuru Seneviratne is a director. John Keells selected one of its subsidiaries Infomate Ltd. to pioneer the outsourcing of transaction processing to On-Time Ltd. John Keells selected Infomate Ltd as they are in the business of providing outsourced accounting service owing to the availability of a high volume of data intensive transactions and the familiarity with the outsourcing model.
Tripartite agreement
The JK strategic group IT division facilitated the setting up of the remote connectivity to JKH systems from Mahavilachchiya and the high internet links of On-Time facilitate data access and transaction processing. Once the secure connectivity was set up a tripartite agreement was signed between John Keells, On-Time Ltd and FARO in May 2007 and there has been no turning back since then.
Infomate transfers digitised images electronically to On-Time and they carry out the processing of invoices and document indexing based on the images. The outsourcing work for Infomate (Pvt) Ltd. is done from Mahavilachchiya using advanced communication technology. At present the operation is handled by four youth of Horizon Lanka Foundation while two are undergoing training at Infomate Ltd.
The staffers of On-Time said that they could break even when the two students join them after the training. At present each operator processes 150 invoices per day.
Nirosh Ranatunga said that a separate data link provided free by LankaCom, is used to connect Mahavilachchiya and JKH avoiding internet for a secured connectivity. Security tokens are being used to make the connectivity more secure but it creates high overheads since we have to pay a monthly rental for each token.
We use two software systems for the BPO operation which is SAP and BPO Mate. SAP is a client server software of which the client is installed at our site and our operators give user names and passwords to connect to the server at JKH.
The BPO Mate a web based system that we access via a web browser giving its URL. Separate user names and passwords are given to our operators for BPO Mate. This is used to retrieve images. The Speed of the datalink is 128 kbps.
Customer data
Wanni said that they have also signed a contract with Dialog Telekom to process customer data while FARO is in discussion with Singer as well.
He said that since JKH was their first client it was easy to get recognition and secure a client as JKH is well recognised.
Wanni said that creating jobs in the village has opened many opportunities for the youngsters, which were hitherto shut. Without the support and help of JKH and FARO we would not have achieved so much in such a short period of time, said a grateful Wanni.
He said that they would showcase this village as a model for teaching English and IT using modern technology. He said that technology should be accessible to all children be they in the village or city as all children are talented.
He said prior to this project being introduced girls joined garment factories while the boys joined the Armed Forces after completing their education. English and IT has opened a host of opportunities to these youngsters and expanded their horizon as the name implies.
Dr. Ashok Junjunwala of IIT India during his visit had suggested that Anuradhapura be made a BPO district with Mahavilachchiya as the base.
We as Sri Lankans should hope and pray that this becomes a reality sooner than later where every citizen can be proud of the youth of this country. During the training period Infomate takes the trainees through an induction program as well as a structured program in the processing of accounting transactions.
The Social Responsibility Foundation of John Keells also provides the trainees with accommodation during the training period.
The horizon Lanka Academy trains the students in Computers and English and now most of them are so tech savvy that they even have their own blogs, which has helped them, win laptops from donors.
The first lucky blogger to receive a laptop from Dr Ing. E. Leuthold of Switzerland was Tharanga Sampath. Among the other lucky winners are Ranuka Udayanga an 18-year-old Advanced Level student while the other was Hansi Sumedha (16), an O/L student.
Internet connections
The village of Mahavilachchiya got Internet connections before the village got telephone connections thanks to Mesh technology, a project, donated by UNDP. Mahavilachchiya was selected as the testing ground for Mesh technology as it was the village with the highest density of computers.
Hansi Sumedha said that her ambition is to become a doctor. She said, “Before I joined HLF I didn’t have any knowledge of English or computers. Thanks to the teachers of HLF now I have my own blog to which I write often. Most importantly I perform better than my classmates in school. She said that she could use her laptop to do presentations.
Her parents are farmers and she has two sisters.
Isuru Seneviratna, now a director of On-Time studied up to the GCE (O/L) in Mahavilachchiya and has been groomed by Wanni from grade four. He sat for his A/L examination in the Science stream from Nivaththaka Chethiya Vidyalaya Anuradhapura. Speaking of Wanni’s teaching methods, he said that he used innovative methods, which made them like the subject.
He was a lucky recipient of a BPO training program, which he underwent in Laos and India for three months. We were fortunate to be trained by David Paulson in Laos. “I got a whole new experience and thanks to that I am very much changed. He also gave us a good training in management.
“I gained a lot of experience at JKH, Laos and India and I don’t know what I would have done if this project was not initiated by Wanninayaka Sir,” said Seneviratne who will be celebrating his 20th birthday this week. His future plans are developing the company and moving to the management side, as that is his pet area.
Nirosh Ranatunga sharing his experience about Laos and India said that Laos is not as developed as our country.
The English knowledge is somewhat good but they have excellent systems while some team members are good in IT. Therefore they follow the systems and do big projects for clients even in the USA.
Ranatunga, a commerce graduate from the University of Kelaniya has done some software projects even while a student and now owns his own software development facility in Anuradhapura. Among his future plans are developing On-Time technologies as well as his private business.
U. B. Seetha, a 54-year-old grandmother of one of the students of Horizon Lanka Academy said that prior to this project nobody knew about computers. Thanks to this project our grandchildren are very knowledgeable and my grandson can even speak in English said the proud grandmother. We even got an opportunity of looking at a computer thanks to HLF and the HLA.
Horizon Lanka Foundation
Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) is a non profit organisation registered under the Companies Act of Sri Lanka. It has been operating since 1998 in Mahavilachchiya. The Horizon Lanka Foundation was set up in 1998 due to the determination of a group of children from the rural village of Mahavilachchiya.
Their thirst for knowledge and educational advancement led them to the door of Nandasiri Wanninayaka (now CEO of HL Foundation), their former English teacher in the public school.
Thus began an after school club providing children further education in English and computers.
It has become a popular place for many children of the village. Since 1998, the Horizon Lanka Foundation has branched out. As well as providing an all-round education to the village children at Horizon Lanka Academy, they have expanded into the Information Age and now service the entire community with their computer lab, which has 24 Internet access.
In 2001, the website http://www.horizonlanka.org was launched by the children of Horizon Lanka Academy, opening a window to the world. Horizon Lanka Foundation is also responsible for beginning a project, which is bringing PCs to the homes of the villagers of Mahavilachchiya. So far more than 30 homes have been furnished with a computer and this is increasing monthly.
Micro Scholarships is a project of the Horizon Lanka Foundation that aims to help deserving students in their education. Many capable students in rural Sri Lanka are forced to interrupt their schooling because of financial difficulties.
Micro Scholarships ensure that every child covered under the scheme gets a quality education and a happy childhood. Under it, volunteers offer financial assistance that gives the child a small amount of money every month.
Horizon Lanka has fought against all odds to bring the Information Age to the small rural village of Mahavilachchiya.
Our efforts, funded purely by kind donations and sponsorship, are now providing over 100 students of the village with computing skills, access to the Internet, PCs in their homes, an Academy to improve their education specialising in ICT and English and most importantly we are giving the children and community fresh hope for their futures. Nandasiri Wanninayaka, a villager of Mahavilachchiya assumed duties as the English teacher in Saliyamala Public School in 1997.
This visionary thinker taught English to students using very innovative methods and also encouraged the little butterflies to maintain diaries and journals daily.
This made them improve their knowledge of English and win regional competitions as well.
“I am from this village and when I went to the city I had to face many barriers due to the limited knowledge of English. This is the reason I wanted to teach these children so that they not only master it but also become tech savvy and expand their horizons. I am happy about their progress since I groomed them from grade four. Now I want to implement the project in other villages as well, said Wanni.
Courtesy : HLF website
Sunday Observer Article
Original Story at http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/10/21/fin21.asp
Mahavilachchiya – first village to have BPO operation
by Surekha Galagoda
Mahavilachchiya, a village 245 kms from colombo is well known among locals and the international community as the first evillage and the village with the highest density of computers compared to any other village in Sri Lanka. Most parts of the village have broadband internet connectivity thanks to the hard work of the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) T. B. Nandasiri Wanninayaka.
Today it is the first village to have a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operation, which is totally handled by youngsters who are not only fluent in English and Computer knowledge but also play squash and rugger.
Wanni as he is popularly known has brought a smile to the youth of the village due to years of hard work and not accepting “No” for an answer. The concept of carrying out work for Colombo based and international companies from Mahavilachchiya was contemplated by Wanni even before the term BPO was widely known. Kapila Gunawardena based in the USA visited the HLF and seeing the potential of the youth wanted us to start a BPO operation, said Wanni.
John Keells was introduced to HLF by the Foundation for Advancing Rural Poverty (FARO). This saw the birth of the first BPO operation from rural Mahavilachchiya. The company On-Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., the BPO Company based in Mahavilachchiya rents the facility and the IT infrastructure of Horizon Lanka Academy.
Nirosh Ranatunga, a graduate from the University of Kelaniya functions as the CEO while Isuru Seneviratne is a director. John Keells selected one of its subsidiaries Infomate Ltd. to pioneer the outsourcing of transaction processing to On-Time Ltd. John Keells selected Infomate Ltd as they are in the business of providing outsourced accounting service owing to the availability of a high volume of data intensive transactions and the familiarity with the outsourcing model.
Tripartite agreement
The JK strategic group IT division facilitated the setting up of the remote connectivity to JKH systems from Mahavilachchiya and the high internet links of On-Time facilitate data access and transaction processing. Once the secure connectivity was set up a tripartite agreement was signed between John Keells, On-Time Ltd and FARO in May 2007 and there has been no turning back since then.
Infomate transfers digitised images electronically to On-Time and they carry out the processing of invoices and document indexing based on the images. The outsourcing work for Infomate (Pvt) Ltd. is done from Mahavilachchiya using advanced communication technology. At present the operation is handled by four youth of Horizon Lanka Foundation while two are undergoing training at Infomate Ltd.
The staffers of On-Time said that they could break even when the two students join them after the training. At present each operator processes 150 invoices per day.
Nirosh Ranatunga said that a separate data link provided free by LankaCom, is used to connect Mahavilachchiya and JKH avoiding internet for a secured connectivity. Security tokens are being used to make the connectivity more secure but it creates high overheads since we have to pay a monthly rental for each token.
We use two software systems for the BPO operation which is SAP and BPO Mate. SAP is a client server software of which the client is installed at our site and our operators give user names and passwords to connect to the server at JKH.
The BPO Mate a web based system that we access via a web browser giving its URL. Separate user names and passwords are given to our operators for BPO Mate. This is used to retrieve images. The Speed of the datalink is 128 kbps.
Customer data
Wanni said that they have also signed a contract with Dialog Telekom to process customer data while FARO is in discussion with Singer as well.
He said that since JKH was their first client it was easy to get recognition and secure a client as JKH is well recognised.
Wanni said that creating jobs in the village has opened many opportunities for the youngsters, which were hitherto shut. Without the support and help of JKH and FARO we would not have achieved so much in such a short period of time, said a grateful Wanni.
He said that they would showcase this village as a model for teaching English and IT using modern technology. He said that technology should be accessible to all children be they in the village or city as all children are talented.
He said prior to this project being introduced girls joined garment factories while the boys joined the Armed Forces after completing their education. English and IT has opened a host of opportunities to these youngsters and expanded their horizon as the name implies.
Dr. Ashok Junjunwala of IIT India during his visit had suggested that Anuradhapura be made a BPO district with Mahavilachchiya as the base.
We as Sri Lankans should hope and pray that this becomes a reality sooner than later where every citizen can be proud of the youth of this country. During the training period Infomate takes the trainees through an induction program as well as a structured program in the processing of accounting transactions.
The Social Responsibility Foundation of John Keells also provides the trainees with accommodation during the training period.
The horizon Lanka Academy trains the students in Computers and English and now most of them are so tech savvy that they even have their own blogs, which has helped them, win laptops from donors.
The first lucky blogger to receive a laptop from Dr Ing. E. Leuthold of Switzerland was Tharanga Sampath. Among the other lucky winners are Ranuka Udayanga an 18-year-old Advanced Level student while the other was Hansi Sumedha (16), an O/L student.
Internet connections
The village of Mahavilachchiya got Internet connections before the village got telephone connections thanks to Mesh technology, a project, donated by UNDP. Mahavilachchiya was selected as the testing ground for Mesh technology as it was the village with the highest density of computers.
Hansi Sumedha said that her ambition is to become a doctor. She said, “Before I joined HLF I didn’t have any knowledge of English or computers. Thanks to the teachers of HLF now I have my own blog to which I write often. Most importantly I perform better than my classmates in school. She said that she could use her laptop to do presentations.
Her parents are farmers and she has two sisters.
Isuru Seneviratna, now a director of On-Time studied up to the GCE (O/L) in Mahavilachchiya and has been groomed by Wanni from grade four. He sat for his A/L examination in the Science stream from Nivaththaka Chethiya Vidyalaya Anuradhapura. Speaking of Wanni’s teaching methods, he said that he used innovative methods, which made them like the subject.
He was a lucky recipient of a BPO training program, which he underwent in Laos and India for three months. We were fortunate to be trained by David Paulson in Laos. “I got a whole new experience and thanks to that I am very much changed. He also gave us a good training in management.
“I gained a lot of experience at JKH, Laos and India and I don’t know what I would have done if this project was not initiated by Wanninayaka Sir,” said Seneviratne who will be celebrating his 20th birthday this week. His future plans are developing the company and moving to the management side, as that is his pet area.
Nirosh Ranatunga sharing his experience about Laos and India said that Laos is not as developed as our country.
The English knowledge is somewhat good but they have excellent systems while some team members are good in IT. Therefore they follow the systems and do big projects for clients even in the USA.
Ranatunga, a commerce graduate from the University of Kelaniya has done some software projects even while a student and now owns his own software development facility in Anuradhapura. Among his future plans are developing On-Time technologies as well as his private business.
U. B. Seetha, a 54-year-old grandmother of one of the students of Horizon Lanka Academy said that prior to this project nobody knew about computers. Thanks to this project our grandchildren are very knowledgeable and my grandson can even speak in English said the proud grandmother. We even got an opportunity of looking at a computer thanks to HLF and the HLA.
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Horizon Lanka Foundation
Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) is a non profit organisation registered under the Companies Act of Sri Lanka. It has been operating since 1998 in Mahavilachchiya. The Horizon Lanka Foundation was set up in 1998 due to the determination of a group of children from the rural village of Mahavilachchiya.
Their thirst for knowledge and educational advancement led them to the door of Nandasiri Wanninayaka (now CEO of HL Foundation), their former English teacher in the public school.
Thus began an after school club providing children further education in English and computers.
It has become a popular place for many children of the village. Since 1998, the Horizon Lanka Foundation has branched out. As well as providing an all-round education to the village children at Horizon Lanka Academy, they have expanded into the Information Age and now service the entire community with their computer lab, which has 24 Internet access.
In 2001, the website http://www.horizonlanka.org was launched by the children of Horizon Lanka Academy, opening a window to the world. Horizon Lanka Foundation is also responsible for beginning a project, which is bringing PCs to the homes of the villagers of Mahavilachchiya. So far more than 30 homes have been furnished with a computer and this is increasing monthly.
Micro Scholarships is a project of the Horizon Lanka Foundation that aims to help deserving students in their education. Many capable students in rural Sri Lanka are forced to interrupt their schooling because of financial difficulties.
Micro Scholarships ensure that every child covered under the scheme gets a quality education and a happy childhood. Under it, volunteers offer financial assistance that gives the child a small amount of money every month.
Horizon Lanka has fought against all odds to bring the Information Age to the small rural village of Mahavilachchiya.
Our efforts, funded purely by kind donations and sponsorship, are now providing over 100 students of the village with computing skills, access to the Internet, PCs in their homes, an Academy to improve their education specialising in ICT and English and most importantly we are giving the children and community fresh hope for their futures. Nandasiri Wanninayaka, a villager of Mahavilachchiya assumed duties as the English teacher in Saliyamala Public School in 1997.
This visionary thinker taught English to students using very innovative methods and also encouraged the little butterflies to maintain diaries and journals daily.
This made them improve their knowledge of English and win regional competitions as well.
“I am from this village and when I went to the city I had to face many barriers due to the limited knowledge of English. This is the reason I wanted to teach these children so that they not only master it but also become tech savvy and expand their horizons. I am happy about their progress since I groomed them from grade four. Now I want to implement the project in other villages as well, said Wanni.
Courtesy : HLF website
Donald & JRJ
See http://www.lakbimanews.lk/feb/feb1.htm
World Bank and Donald (50-52) say the same thing on agriculture. WB discouraged agriculture some time back. Like in JRJ’s case, Donald’s professes take time to be realized and understood. Someday, those who laugh at Donald will say Donald is right like many say bringing IPKF and the 13th amendment by JRJ is right. Will all those who resist Donald will have to eat a humble pie someday?
Donald Gaminitillake
Thanks for the No 66 comments
I was at a work shop and they specified the functional map for farm mechanization.
The key purpose of the industry was to provide effective and sustainable farm mechanization technologies for increasing productivity of farms and improving quality agricultural products.
Using the computer and internet one group can study and move into farm mechanization.
This is a very wide subject. One has to recognize the skills in the village or at rural level and improve it for the development of the village.
These are the other branches of information communication technology.
“Think different” as steve jobs
Donald Gaminitillake
“I set the Standard”
WIDW
Hi,
I’m working as a HR EXEC at a Sri lanka No. 01 BPO company and having more than 5 years experience. I have a good knowledge/experience in Data Entry/Processing and also having Touch Typing skills. I have a PC and DSL internet connection at home. Please let me know the possibility of getting a JOB to do at my residence.
WIDW
pooja
hello friends i hope r u fine so now Liston i have good knowledge in computer or websites so r u interested. yes or not. please inform me.
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