Chulie De Silva

Colombo, 29 October 2009: Sri Lanka’s e-society program that connects the unconnected rural and disadvantaged communities to the world of information and communication through new technologies drew plaudits at the recent Innovation Fair held at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., U.S.A. The Innovation Fair was organized to draw attention of the top Management of the World Bank to creative and fresh approaches in global development programs.

The e-Society program was one of six most distinctive projects from the South Asia region show cased at this inaugural World Bank Innovation fair. The program initiated and implemented under the e-Sri Lanka project by the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Agency stood out for its community driven use of ICT for Development (ICT4D). Encouraging local expertise, the e-society program showed how it has adroitly used ICT to develop programs that have helped rural farmers to access agricultural market information, provide social services and education opportunities to individuals and assist the disabled. In addition, the program demonstrated how new digital content products developed through e-society grants have harnessed local expertise to provide easier access to knowledge and learning for the vision and hearing impaired persons.

Sinhala numerals were used in  the Kandyan convention signed between Kandyan chieftains and the British governor in 1815.  This is revealed in the newest  book published by the Strategic Communications Unit, Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) that was launched at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies, 24, Horton Place Colombo 7 on Friday (23 October).

Fruition of extensive research initiated by ICTA entitled "Numerations in the Sinhala Language" authored by Harsha Wijayawardhana, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing, University of Colombo and edited by  Aruni Goonetilleke Programme Manager- Information Infrastructure, ICTA,the 144-page book complete with the English and Sinhala versions with about 80 black and white and colour illustrations of inscriptions etc provides the beginning of a long journey into the world of Sinhala mathematics and Sinhala writing. One of the highlights of the book consists in the photographs of the second and third pages of the Kandyan convention where the reader can clearly see the Sinhala numeral one, two and three.