LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya attended UNDP’s New Ways of Governing Conference in Oslo on 28–29 October 2025, contributing to discussions on AI and data governance. Her session drew on LIRNEasia’s research on data-governance policies across Asia and the organisation’s ongoing work on responsible AI. 
LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya attended UNDP’s New Ways of Governing Conference in Oslo on 28–29 October 2025, contributing to discussions on AI and data governance. Her session drew on LIRNEasia’s research on data-governance policies across Asia and the organisation’s ongoing work on responsible AI. 
“Untangling Data Governance – Sri Lanka’s Way Forward” was held on 13 November 2024 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The event formed part of the Harnessing Data for Democratic Development in South and Southeast Asia (D4D Asia) project, with funding support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a Crown corporation of the Government of Canada. 
On July 3, 2025, in Colombo, LIRNEasia organized the “Day of Information Disorder” to disseminate research findings from two major studies: a nationally representative survey and an experimental study measuring the effectiveness of misinformation countering measures. The event brought together researchers, journalists, media professionals, tech innovators, and policy experts to address one of today’s most urgent challenges: information disorder. The day began with an introduction by Helani Galpaya, CEO of LIRNEasia, who set the tone by unpacking what information disorder is and why it matters. LIRNEasia researcher Shenali Bamaramannage followed with a thought-provoking presentation titled “Are we idiots?”, sharing key findings from LIRNEasia’s national research on the human factors influencing susceptibility to misinformation in Sri Lanka. 
LIRNEasia is looking for a talented individual to join the team as a Communications Intern. The full job description is available below. The deadline for applying is November 23, 2026. Please note that this is a full–time, onsite position, and the Communications Intern is expected to provide a full–time working commitment from the office five days a week. 
What we recommended after the 2015 earthquake, and what 26 August 2026 showed Bottom Line Only 3 of 120 Nepal Telecom sites were flooded. On the worst day, 83 were down. The network failed on power and access, not water. Assessing that risk was Goal I of our 2016 report. Day two, 40% restored, same pattern from the 2015 earthquake and the 2026 flood. 
On 13–16 October 2026, the EdTech Hub hosted the IDRC EmpowerED Global Convening in Montevideo, Uruguay, bringing together regional partners to share lessons on educational technology (EdTech) and AI in education. LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya and Senior Research Manager Isuru Samaratunga participated in the convening, where Isuru shared emerging lessons from the EdTech Asia Hub, drawing on five regional country projects. 
On 26 August 2026, every component of Nepal's emergency communication system existed, including seismic monitoring, river gauges, a forecasting agency, a national SMS service, two mobile networks, volunteer mappers and a command post. What failed were the connections between them. This is the first part of a three-part blog series examining Nepal's Bhote Koshi disaster. 
RECON-SL is an open dataset developed by LIRNEasia with funding support from the Lacuna Fund and in partnership with LECO. It combines electricity consumption records, smart meter readings, and household survey data from over 4,000 Sri Lankan homes to support energy policymaking, social research, and machine learning. 
The Internet Governance Forum Sri Lanka (IGF Sri Lanka) 2026 was held on 23 September under the theme ‘Empowering the Internet in the Age of Intelligence through Multistakeholderism’. The event brought together stakeholders from government, industry, academia, civil society and the technical community to discuss key issues in internet governance. LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Gayani Hurulle moderated one of the sessions, titled ‘Internet Governance and Digital Economy’. 
In an article published on 25 September 2026 in the DailyFT, LIRNEasia Chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva discusses the risks of the state holding large amounts of personally identifiable information (PII). He looks at the misuse of electoral-registry information during the July 1983 pogrom, which critics of public-service digitalisation, particularly the Sri Lanka Unique Identity (SLUDI), cite as a reason for extreme caution, if not halting such initiatives. He argues that the 1983 attacks involved photocopied electoral registers, not digital systems. Therefore, the underlying risk, he explains, is not digitalisation itself. It is the scale of PII held by the state and the potential for it to be misused by insiders, such as government officials with access to the information, or outsiders who obtain copies. 
LIRNEasia is looking for a talented individual to join the team as a Senior Researcher to drive impactful research. The full job description can be accessed below. The deadline for applications is October 16, 2026. 
LIRNEasia is inviting proposals from qualified web development firms, service providers and consortia of individual professionals to design, develop and deploy a public-facing website for the Asia AI4D Observatory. The website is intended to serve as a searchable, interactive regional knowledge repository and engagement platform, making evidence and resources on responsible artificial intelligence easy to discover, use and share. Further details are available in the full RFP. 
LIRNEasia is looking for a talented individual to join the team as an Data Annotation Intern. The full job description is available below. The deadline for applying is September 30th, 2026. 
The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 was held in Shanghai from 17–20 July and brought global attention to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the increasingly important question of who gets to shape the rules governing it. This analysis examines the alignment between Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech and Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eng. Eranga Weeraratne’s speech across key themes, including inclusive global AI governance, the role of the Global South, international cooperation, and AI safety and security. 
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager and Team Lead for Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP), Merl Chandana, was interviewed on NewsFirst Sri Lanka’s Face to Face programme on 9 August 2026. The interview focused on the wonders and dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), covering a recent cybersecurity incident where an experimental agentic AI model developed by OpenAI was manipulated to execute multiple attacks on Hugging Face. 
The economic exclusion faced by people with mobility disabilities in Sri Lanka is substantial. Although Sri Lanka has made genuine investments in this area, yet, for many wheelchair users, the journey to work, school, university or a vocational training center remains difficult. The missing piece is not necessarily another wheelchair. It is whether the wheelchair a person receives actually enables them to move independently. 
LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya participated as a speaker at the Small Island Developing States Supreme Audit Institutions Symposium (SIDS SAIs), held in Ukulhas, Maldives, from 3–5 August 2026. The symposium was organised by the Auditor General’s Office of the Maldives and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and brought together over 50 participants from 26 countries. Speakers over the three-day event included Dr. Mahadeva Muizzu (President of the Maldives), Mr. Hussein Niyazy (Auditor General of the Republic of the Maldives), and several other government ministers. 
In today’s digital age, social media has become an integral part of children’s daily lives, shaping how they interact, communicate, and build friendships. In an article published in The Daily Star, LIRNEasia Senior Research Fellow Sujata Gamage examines the growing dependence of children on social media and the risks associated with these platforms. She argues that while digital platforms may not be suitable environments for children, addressing these challenges requires more than restricting access. As physical spaces for children to socialise, play, explore, and form meaningful friendships continue to disappear, rebuilding safe physical spaces is essential to creating a healthier social ecology of childhood. 
The UN Global Compact Network Sri Lanka, on 24 June 2026, convened CATALYZE 2026: Social — From Commitment to Collective Impact. LIRNEasia was a session partner for “AI, Jobs & the Future Workforce: Navigating Uncertainty, Skills & Inclusion”, which explored how AI is changing workplaces and labour markets, and what these shifts mean for businesses, workers, skills and inclusion. LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Gayani Hurulle moderated this session, framing the discussion around knowns and unknowns based on research emerging in the area.