Bandara Dissanayake of Sakya Education excels at the ‘Sri Lanka Entrepreneur of the year 2016 Award’

Mr.Bandara Dissanayake, the Founding Chairman of Sakya Higher Education Group and Saegis University Campus,Nugegoda, was recognized for his transformative leadership in the Sri Lankan private higher education sector at the recently concluded ‘Sri Lanka Entrepreneur Awards 2016’ held at the SIRASA (STEIN) Studios. He was award- ed the entrepreneur of the year Gold Award (extra-large business category) for Western Province whilst his Sakya Higher Education Group also walked away with a National Silver Award at the ceremony. This also marks a mile stone as the first time an Educational Services Provider was awarded these prestigious business awards.

Organized by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce Sri Lanka (FCCISL) under the theme “Innovation and Sustainability for Transformation” the sole intention of the awards was to recognize and reward entrepreneurs’’ hard work in building up their businesses and also to encourage them and their organisations to carry forward their transformative work in taking the country to a new level.

Identifying the essential gaps within the private education providers and addressing them with the sole determination of providing better learning and teaching environments for his students brought out the entrepreneur within Bandara Dissanayake and enabled him to transform the secondary and tertiary education sector in the country giving birth to ‘Sakya’and Saegis. Particularly, his efforts to make quality private higher education affordable to the many students who are denied of state university entrance, gave birth to ‘Saegis University Campus,’ a state-of the-art, ultra-modern campus facility in the heart of Nugegoda nearly 4 years ago. Saegis University Campus today is a pioneer private higher education provider in the country offering degrees in the streams of Commerce, Business, Accounting and Finance, Marketing, English and Information Technology. It is affiliated with leading universities in UK and Australia such as Heriot-Watt University and Deakin University, respectively. Several more prestigious universities in the world will soon offer their programs in Sri Lanka in collaboration with Saegis University Campus. MrBandara’sentrepreneurship skills coupled with visionary thinking has elevated the Sakya Higher Education Group and Saegis University Campus to such magnanimous heights. Today he is rightly rewarded, by a distinguished panel of independent judges appointed by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Sri Lanka, for the transformative changes he was able to successfully initiate within the context of Sri Lankan secondary and higher education spheres.