Sanchala as Operations Manager was responsible for all administrative functions at LIRNEasia. She has also worked at the Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology and the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, where she provided secretarial and administrative support in organizing meetings and seminars with local and foreign officials. She completed her studies at the Sri Lanka Law College in 2009 and subsequently joined the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka as an Attorney- at- Law. Sanchala is an Attorney-At-Law, a Company Secretary and Notary Public. She is currently a partner of a law firm offering a range of legal services to the corporate sector.
As project manager for LIRNEasia’s Knowledge to Innovation project, Samangi worked with municipal councils in Sri Lanka, among other entities, to build a network of stakeholders with resources to educate and implement the program through the network. Samangi joined a leading hotel in Sri Lanka as a coordinator for nature and cultural activities after leaving LIRNEasia in August 2008. Samangi is a Consultant and a Director of a consultancy firm established with four of her university batch mates, called Green Team Consultancies and Research (Pvt) Ltd. The company provides specialised consultancy services on environmental matters, such as compliance with environmental regulations, environmental impact assessments and environmentally friendly solutions, for companies in Sri Lanka. Samangi says LIRNEasia had a significant impact on her current career choice.
As a researcher for LIRNEasia’s Knowledge to Innovation project,, Sajee examined the use of stakeholder networks for fostering innovation in services. Her main area of focus was on building knowledge networks among local authorities and community groups in the management of solid waste services. Sajee left LIRNEasia in March 2010 to pursue a teaching career in the sciences. Sajeevani is a teacher at the Kalutara National School (a government school in the Kalutara District, Sri Lanka), where she teaches general science to students in the English medium, and Agriculture to Advanced Level students in the Sinhala medium. At LIRNEasia, Sajeevani worked as a researcher for nearly three years, from November 2007 to March 2010.
Roshanthi was a Research Manager at LIRNEasia. She managed the Ford Foundation Funded project on ‘facilitating policy discourse on increasing broadband access by the poor in India’. Her work entailed organization of Expert Forums which are attended by many senior telecommunication regulatory officials, residential courses to enable Indian civil-society to marshal available research for effective participation in broadband policy and regulatory processes, and creating an archive of relevant research and documentation.She holds a MBA from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK and a BSc. Eng (Hons) specializing in Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
Robert Galyean was a researcher working on the Big Data for Development (BD4D) project. Prior to joining LIRNEasia, he worked as a junior researcher at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Sciences Lab (NDSSL) at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and with the Condensed Matter Theory group of Virginia Tech. He holds bachelors degrees in mathematics and physics from Virginia Tech.
Ranmalee was a junior researcher at LIRNEasia. She was responsible for the compilation of LIRNEasia’s annual reports on fixed and mobile broadband price and their quality indicators (both fixed and mobile), international voice prices and international roaming tariffs in emerging Asia. She also managed CPRsouth, LIRNEasia’s capacity-building initiative to develop Asia-Pacific expertise and knowledge networks in ICT policy regulation. Before joining LIRNEasia, Ranmalee worked at Dialog Telekom PLC. She has Bachelors’ degree in Economics and Management from the London School of Economics, University of London (External).
Ranjula was involved in LIRNEasia‘s multi-country Micro-entrepreneur survey, a demand side survey looking at customer relationship management in telecom, electricity and government services in South Asia. She has previously worked on a study on how the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) access government services through telecenters in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as well as a study on rubber and pineapple value chains in Sri Lanka. She assisted the management of Teleuse@BOP4 a six-country 10,000 sample quantitative and qualitative study on mobile use by the BOP. She was also responsible for LIRNEasia’s annual report. Ranjula holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Economics from the University of Warwick, UK.
Radhika was at LIRNEasia at the capacity of Senior Researcher, and was involved in the demand side research in Myanmar which includes a nationwide baseline survey of information, knowledge and communications technology needs and uses, as well as an impact evaluation of mobile phones in the country. She holds an Honors degree in Computing from the University of Staffordshire, UK, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Economic Development from the Colombo University. Prior to joining LIRNEasia, she worked at the Public Enterprises Reforms Commission of Sri Lanka as a member of a divestiture team which advised the Cabinet of Ministers on the reform of various State run Corporations. She joined the Transition Recovery Programme of the UNDP in 2007 where she functioned as a Project Assistant to large scale donor funded development projects based in the Northern and Eastern districts of Sri Lanka, as well as being the Project Manager to the smaller International Refugee Fund Livelihood Development Project (IRF LDP). She is currently reading for a Master of Arts in Regional Development at the Colombo University.
As a research fellow in Thailand, Puree led a study on business models for delivering mobile value-added services, a part of LIRNEasia‘s Mobile 2.0 research project. As an professor at the Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, Thailand, her research interests included economics of regulation, industrial organization, and energy economics. Her experiences in the energy policy and regulatory field have been extensive, including research projects of energy tariff regulation in Thailand, implication of Energy Industry Act for Thai energy sector and Thai economic measures and policy on energy crisis. Her research interests have also extended to analysis of sectoral-level economic measures and policies on climate change such as energy and agricultural sectors.
Priyanwada joined LIRNEasia in 2008 as a part-time research intern working on a study on Indo-Lanka economic relations. She is currently assisting in research on mobile finance among those with irregular incomes in Sri Lanka. Previously, she worked as a research associate for a UNDP study on the Economic Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Sri Lanka, and has interned at Nathan Associates in Washington DC. Priyanwada holds a bachelor’s degree (special) in economics from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Pratichi joined LIRNEasia for a five-month internship in 2009. She was involved in research work examining preconditions for a knowledge-based economy in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the potential of online communication platforms for furthering LIRNEasia’s mission. Before joining LIRNEasia, she worked as a teaching assistant at the Department of Communication and New Media, National University of Singapore (NUS). At NUS, she also assisted in research on the Global Patterns of Creative Commons License Use and the PAN Localization Project on building local-language computing capacity in Asia. Pratichi is the State Focal Point of the Upper Nile Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme Cluster, of the South of Sudan, under the French INGO, Solidarites International.
Peter Cihon is the Google Policy Fellow at LIRNEasia. He leads a user-focused research project on free and subsidized data in Myanmar. Peter is a mixed-methods researcher who seeks to combine in-depth qualitative insight with advanced quantitative data and analysis. He is an incoming Herchel Smith Scholar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His research interests broadly encompass information technologies and social change, as well as the regulatory challenges posed therein.
Ovini joined LIRNEasia as a Junior Researcher and was involved in the Big Data research. She holds a Bachelors of Engineering Honors degree for Software Engineering from the University of Westminster, UK. Prior to LIRNEasia she has worked as a trainee software engineer at Navantis IT and as a software engineer at IFS R&D International (Pvt.) Ltd.
As a research fellow at LIRNEasia, Onno was involved in research into the use of Wi-Fi to extend connectivity in Indonesia. He established and led a technology movement through which several innovative and alternative low-cost Internet technologies have been introduced and adopted by Indonesian ICT communities, such as Wi-Fi-based Internet Infrastructure and VoIP MaverickNet. Onno is a former civil servant and retired lecturer, and holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada. More information available here.
Nirosha Nissanka has been serving as a training consultant to the Human Capital Development (HCD) Program at LIRNEasia since 2008. Nirosha’s consultancies with LIRNEasia also included the report on the topic “Value Chain Development in SWM : Promoting Green jobs in Sri Lanka” prepared for ILO. Nirosha holds a BSc and an MSc in Agriculture, respectively, from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Nirosha Nissanka has been serving as a training consultant to the Human Capital Development (HCD) Program at LIRNEasia since 2008. Nirosha has extensive experience in training and capacity building at various organizations in the public and private sector.
As a researcher at LIRNEasia, Nirmali was primarily involved in research exploring the demand for ICTs among low-income earners or the BOP. Her areas of focus were on examining the use of mobiles for sending remittances between migrant workers and their families at home as well as the significant decline in the use of public phones and the corresponding uptake of mobile telephony. Before joining LIRNEasia, Nirmali interned at the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, the country’s leading economic policy think-tank. She has also worked as a part-time field researcher for Nielsen Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd, where she was involved in various quantitative and qualitative projects both in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.