CEO Helani Galpaya took part in a panel discussion at the 2nd Digital Economy Working Group meeting of the G20, held in Hyderabad, India from 17-19 of April, 2023. 
CEO Helani Galpaya took part in a panel discussion at the 2nd Digital Economy Working Group meeting of the G20, held in Hyderabad, India from 17-19 of April, 2023. 
LIRNEasia CEO Helani Galpaya frames the discussions at the UN’s ongoing official consultations leading to the development of the Global Digital Compact, along with Vint Cerf and Tripti Sinha. 
Can ChatGPT do the job of a qualitative researcher? Isuru Samaratunga tested out ChatGPT's ability to carry out qualitative data analysis. Here's what he learnt. 
Helani Galpaya spoke on the information disorder at the panel discussion titled “Democracy in the Digital Age: How Canada Advances Internet Freedom for All," organised by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the International Development Research Center (IDRC).
LIRNEasia conducted a study on digital platform use across six countries in South and Southeast Asia. The working paper provides insights on popular platform types, drivers of and barriers to adoption, and the impact of COVID-19.
CEO Helani Galpaya was one of the participants at the Asia regional consultation on the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC) 
Helani Galpaya took part in a panel at the 67th UN Commission on the Status of Women, titled Innovation for Women and Equality. 
In our blogpost with Citra Labs, we explore the role digital and data can play in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of social safety nets (social assistance) in Sri Lanka. 
At a recent event organized by the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, LIRNEasia's chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva laid out examples of ways to address Sri Lanka's twin deficits in the path to collectively rise out of the current crisis.
Without dwelling too much on the causes, some solutions may be sketched out. They will range from actions that must be taken now (where the choices are highly constrained), to those that allow more play for creativity. Unless we are willing to live like in Afghanistan or in Jaffna during the war, we have little alternative but to take on more debt to get the economy to fire on all cylinders.
LIRNEasia’s comments on the proposed new regulations on integrated financial consumer protection framework seek to promote financial inclusion of persons with disabilities (PWD). These comments are based on insights derived from multiple quantitative and qualitative research projects on PWD by LIRNEasia
An Expert Round Table discussion on "Online harms: Content moderation and models of regulation" held on the 27th of October 2022, as the third of a series of discussions under the theme of “Frontiers of Digital Economy”
LIRNEasia’s chair Professor Rohan Samarajiva was invited to speak at the seminar ‘Power crisis and electricity tariffs’, organized by the Organization of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA), on the 11th of January 2023. His presentation was based on the role of the regulator in reforming the electricity sector, and it also broached upon related considerations when regulating the imposition of tariffs within the sector. The slides can be found here.
In his publication ‘International in scope and interdisciplinary in approach’, LIRNEasia’s chair Rohan Samarajiva addresses new media’s impact on societies bound by it and the policy implications that emerge as a product of the same within the three spheres of data protection, data localization and cybersecurity. He highlights the continuous need for interdisciplinary research and reflection on social implications of new media. The open access journal article can be accessed here
Dr Surangika Ranathunga and Dr Nisansa de Silva from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa recently became recipients of Google’s Inclusion Research award, 2022. Dr. Nisansa de Silva is affiliated with LIRNEasia as a Research Fellow. Google’s Inclusion Research Program is targeted towards academic research in computing and technology that globally addresses the needs of historically marginalized groups. It was launched in 2020 and research proposals under topics such as Accessibility, Algorithmic fairness, and Digital safety are supported.
Today, I delivered the keynote at the 9th International Conference on multidisciplinary approaches at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Here is on story that I told. In 2008, Nokia, then a leading global telecom equipment supplier, came to LIRNEasia with a question they wanted answered: How was it that countries in South Asia, not known for the highest standards of policy and regulation, were offering the lowest prices for mobile communication to their customers? Conventional wisdom was that a stable policy environment with an independent and efficient regulatory agency was essential for good performance. Nokia provided us with comparative price data which we looked at in the context of the findings of the extensive “Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid” surveys and qualitative studies we had conducted and the Telecom Policy and Regulatory Environment studies we were running in countries in South and Southeast Asia at that time.