IIT demonstrates commitment to Sri Lanka’s higher education sector and economy by rapidly transitioning to an online platform for uninterrupted services

Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT), the pioneer in British higher education in Sri Lanka and the country’s premier IT and Business campus, has taken progressive steps to fulfill its responsibilities to the country and thousands of its students by rapidly shifting its entire operations to an online platform in order to ensure the smooth functioning of all aspects of the institute and mitigate the threat of the COVID-19 disease.

The ICT industry of Sri Lanka is optimistic of achieving USD 5 billion in exports by 2022, while creating 200,000 direct jobs and launching 1,000 start-ups in the process. This is an ambitious yet achievable target provided that the Government and the private sector work closely together to enable ICT companies to grow rapidly and ICT students are given all necessary resources to acquire the required knowledge, skills and experience in the shortest possible time.

Leading education institutes such as IIT have a significant role in achieving this goal and it is imperative that students’ education is continued without interruptions, even during the uncertain of times such as what the country and the whole world is going through due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. A steady output of ICT professionals entering the job market will also give a much-needed boost to the economy which is expected to enter a period of negative growth owing to the current pandemic.

Having realized the importance of responding in a firm and positive manner to the lockdown triggered by COVID-19, IIT immediately took the necessary steps to shut down the entire operations at the campus and transitioned to a robust online platform for all its functions. In keeping with the directives given by the authorities and in view of safeguarding students and staff from the threat of the disease, IIT has taken numerous progressive steps to ensure the safety of all students and IIT staff.

Currently, all lectures are conducted online as per the original schedules so that students do not fall behind on their respective courses and are able to sit for their exams on time. Having effortlessly transferred to a Working From Home operations, all administrative functions of IIT are also carried out online in an efficient manner by the IIT staff. As a result, students can make enquiries, enroll for courses and make payments online without having to step out of their homes. Those who are seeking to enroll for the upcoming Master’s programmes in May can do so easily using IIT’s online services where all aspects of the process, from interviews to submission of documents to payments, are conducted online.

Additionally, IIT staff has continuously engaged with the students and ensured that all of them are kept up-to-date on the latest information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Sri Lanka.

In keeping with its objective to support ICT education at all levels, IIT has also elevated its ongoing series of support seminars in ICT, to an online platform, which helps prepare Ordinary Level ( O/ L) and Advanced Level (A/L) students for their examinations later this year. IIT has been conducting these support seminars on a regular basis for several years with hundreds of schools and thousands of students across the island benefiting significantly. Given the current restrictions due to the lockdown, this timely arrangement provides an ideal platform for principals and teachers to educate their students in ICT thereby allowing them to continue with their studies without any disruptions and providing a much- needed boost to their attempts to cover their respective ICT subject syllabuses.

The 2- hour seminars cover topics such as Internet of Things ( IoT), Programming, Flowcharts and several others. They are conducted by a highlyexperienced academic member of IIT and are of two types.

We are commencing this series, beginning with the book The $ 100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. The review and analysis of this book will be carried out in three phases so that you could reap the maximum benefit, where we try and include as much inspiring details as possible.

We are choosing this book for the first review because of the significance it has during this economic down turn created by the COVID19 epidemic. With companies closing down or staff being reduced, it is easy to get depressed. However under even the most difficult circumstances, human creativity, intelligence, ingenuity, will power, confidence and the urge to be free and happy can go a long way.

This book is therefore about how you can: Fire your boss, Do what you love, Work better To Live More.The above words in italics, is what it says in the cover of the book which is a New York Times bestseller. Basically this book could be described as a toolkit to take a simple hobby or a passion of an individual and give it wings to make it a money reaping business.

This book talks of top professionals such as lawyers leaving their jobs to do something they feel keenly on but there are others who combine their professions with something they love and at times make more money than they do as ‘professionals.’This book could therefore be described as a book of happiness, where the focus is on people doing what they have a passion for, sometimes a forgotten child

hood hobby, or a new skill they learn out of boredom in their well-paying but monotonous 9 to 5 jobs.

The focus in this book is therefore people who started as individuals, at times involving their spouse or family as the business grows but the concept of happiness is not limited to these people who start their own ‘one or two human show’ business. Their success as the book shows is about wanting to bring happiness to others.

Let us before we go any further into the book, learn a bit about the author; Chris Guillebeau, a 42 year old non-conformist creator of originalitythrough entrepreneurship who had never chosen the path of traditional ‘office work’. Before age 35Guillebeau had travelled to every country in the world by taking up volunteering jobs and honing his skill as a writer, all the time watching out for other renegades such as him who were their own boss and word 24 hours a day, their way. His previous book was the Art of Non Conformity (which we will also review in detail soon).

His book that we are reviewing and explaining about now, The $ 100 Startup could also be described as a research based about people around the world who are coming up with ideas that become a business even without their conscious intention.

But as the writer says, the book is not about founding a big internet startup or about opening a traditional business ‘by putting on a suit and begging for money at

the bank.’ Instead, it is real life stories about people who have thought and found an alternative way to life and earning, where their core intention is not just to ‘get money’ but have the ‘time of their life’ getting it. All the narratives/quotes featured in the book are of people who made a success of what they cared deeply about and without the conventional business plans that often are treated as synonymous with starting a business. Also, the entrepreneurs featured in the book are of diverse age groups, so one cannot say that individual self-start entrepreneurship happens only for a particular age. All these people, whatever their age, got very rich but not by using complex business theories. They got rich because they learnt to mix their diverse skills, hobbies and interests to come up with an idea that will cater to a real need they saw around them.

The word ‘value’ figures importantly in this book. It is called the ‘Value Doctrine.’ It is pointed out that the people whose stories the reader will be exposed to, created ‘value’by making something useful to others, (a toy, a teaching platform, an economical home appliance ..the range is wide as one can see when one reads this book).

Before we end for today (because there is a word limit to this article set by the newspaper), let us look at one case study the book gives of two entrepreneur ‘renegades.’

Husband and wife duo, John and Barbara Varian transformed their ranch in California to make it an affordable ‘escape’ for people, selling them the ‘freedom’ it comes when one is flying away on a horse on a summer day. Well, before they started this they were furniture builders. As furniture builders they were doing alright financially. But one day disaster happened and their furniture was burnt down in a fire. After this calamity, they decided not to revert to the furniture business but combined their passion for horses by offering the experience of horse rides on their ranch to visitors. Soon there were requests for accommodation as well and the couple built a bunkhouse and upgraded other buildings by designing packages for riding groups. However their branding was a fact…that they are not selling ‘horse rides’ but ‘offering freedom.’ Let us conclude what has been penned so far in this review, by hoping that you will think about your hobbies or skill you are passionate about more insightfully with an entrepreneur’s eye. We also hope you will use this COVID19 pandemic time frame to plot out a business you could start easily, with zero or little investment. It may just end up as a million dollar business the way it has for those people featured in the book The $ 100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau.

We hope to reach out to you next week with our second part of the review of this book.

Oh by the way, Chris Guillebeau, the author of the above book had also free lanced as a Jazz musician!

The first type is specifically tailored to educate the audience on a topic put forward by a single school based on the requirements of their ICT syllabus.

On average, around 100 students from a school participate in these types of seminars at any given time. The second type is a general seminar that covers a wide variety of ICT topics and is open to students from all schools across the island. Approximately

400 students took part in each of these seminars.

Expressing his opinion about the current situation, Prof. Jayantha Wijeyaratne - Director of IIT stated, “Being the leading IT and Business Campus means that we have always been prepared to shift to an online operation should the need arise. As a result, when the COVID-19 disease hit Sri Lanka, we made arrangements to transition to the online platform so that we can ensure that all students and IIT staff are safe and sound as they can now attend to all functions from the comforts of their home.

A rapid response is crucial to ensure that there are no delays or disruptions in any of the courses as such a scenario would have negative impact not only to the student but also to the economy as it strives to bounce back from the downturn suffered during the lockdown period. We are taking all precautions and are fully geared to meet any challenges that we may encounter as this situation unfolds.”

IIT was established in 1990 as the first private higher education institute that awards reputed British degrees in the field of ICT and Business. IIT is an award-winning campus offering internal postgraduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Westminster, UK and the Robert Gordon University, UK. IIT has played a pivotal role in strengthening the IT and Business sectors in Sri Lanka over the years by producing world-class graduates. Since its inception in 1990, IIT has produced over 3,000 graduates that are now based in 25 countries.

These graduates have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs and IT/ Business professionals in both local and international corporate and government entities. They have played a pivotal role in empowering over 250 multinational and local blue-chip companies by holding key strategic positions while contributing immensely towards the growth of their respective organizations.

Expressing his opinion about the current situation, Prof. Jayantha Wijeyaratne - Director of IIT stated, “Being the leading IT and Business Campus means that we have always been prepared to shift to an online operation should the need arise.