Inclusion is central to everything we do at LIRNEasia. We are also cognizant of windows of opportunity for getting issues on the policy agenda. Thus this oped on elections in a time of pandemic. EVMs can be designed to allow persons with disabilities to exercise their right to vote. They can reduce errors in tabulation and speed up the release of results, but they do not eliminate the need for people to congregate.
In light of the lessons emerging from international experience, it is important to avoid local-government authorities from being tempted to sign exclusive agreements before becoming fully informed of the implications. What positive contributions can be made by higher levels of government? What network and facility sharing will be allowed? Is there value in providing general guidelines and model contracts, while allowing for normal negotiations to take place, perhaps backed up by some forms of low-cost dispute resolution mechanisms? When lamp posts and similar public fixtures become sophisticated sensing devices that pull in massive amounts of data, questions of who has access to the data under what terms will become important.
Access to the right devices (internet-enabled smartphones), affordable internet services, relevant content in a language known to the user, and the appropriate skills to make use of these digital services are collectively seen to be important to ensure economic and social development.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a huge role in our economy. It is estimated that 52% of Sri Lanka’s GDP comes from the SME sector. Therefore, if SMEs perform better, the economy as a whole will perform better. But how can SMEs improve their business? Our AfterAccess SME survey in Sri Lanka conducted in early 2019 (pre-COVID19) showed that SMEs who are more digitally connected SMEs are more successful in their businesses in various aspects.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Sri Lanka that make use of the internet and ICTs for business are better off than those that do not.
The Myanmar Digital Rights Forum took place on 28 and 29 February 2020. It was the fourth iteration of the event, and my third. It was also the biggest yet, seeing approx. 350 participants from civil society, government, private sector, and academia. Many of these participants believed that digital rights and freedom had depleted in Myanmar over the past year, a poll taken at the forum indicated.
Presented by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva on 20 February 2020 in Colombo
Notes from a talk given by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva at "Launch & Panel Discussion | Sambandh: Reconnecting India and the Region"
A research paper exploring an alternative approach to address the concern of privacy in sharing big data datasets by generating privacy-preserving artificial call detail records (CDRs) in accordance with the desired macro features of the dataset.
A whitepaper outlining the development of an alternative socioeconomic index for Sri Lanka, using principal component analysis (PCA) and publicly available census data
This involves working up from specific use cases, not only working down from principles.
An extended research abstract which identifies several criteria that can be used to identify mobile network call detail records (CDRs) affected by load sharing and establishes why that is a prevalent issue, especially in urban areas.
A research brief exploring the possibility of using remote sensing and neural networks to estimate the paddy crop extent in Sri Lanka