ICTA to hold seminars at Deyata Kirula 2012 exhibition
The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka ( I CTA) i s g e t t i ng r e a dy t o d i s - play several infor mation technology projects at the Deyata Kirula 2012 exhibition to be held at Oyamaduwa, Anuradhapura from February 4 to 10.
Elaborating on the main projects to go on display at the nationa l e x h i b i t i o n , I CTA Cha i r man Professor P.W. Epasinghe said that a mong t he pro j e c t s t o be hi g hlighted in the ICTA stall at Deyata Kirula 2012 would be Lanka Gate, Te l e medi c i n e, F r e e a n d Ope n Source Software (FOSS), ‘ediriya’ (the national IT literacy initiative) and Career Guidance (IT-BPO).
Lanka Gate comes in handy for e l e c t ro ni c p ay ment. El e c t ro ni c payment is a pivotal facility that contributes to making the optimum benefits of ICT accrue to the people. Lanka Gate is thus used for example when making electronic payments to obtain vehicle revenue licence from home, so to say, or to obtain online visa by foreign passport holders.
Te l e medi c i n e makes medi c a l treatment easier and less costly, less wearisome and less time-consuming for the patient and his/ her relatives and friends. At the same time, it makes more time available for the medical staf f to serve more patients. For the very first time in Sri Lanka, doctors in gover nment hospitals will be able to view a patient’s comprehensive medical records on their computer screen, thanks to the newly developed Hospital Health Infor mation Management System (HHIMS).
The HHIMS is a joint collaborative ef fort between the ICT agen- cy of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the Ministry of Health. The initiative stemmed from the gover nment’s t hr ust t o s i g ni f i c antly i mprove service delivery to the citizens by using ICT.
T he relevant software has been tested in f ive h o s p i t a l s – K a r av a n e l l a , M aw a n e l l a , Endegoda, Kitugala, and De r i ya n a g a l a – i n t h e Ke g a l l e District for over six months. It is now ready to be installed in other government hospitals island-wide.
The Hospital Health Information Management System is a free open source software that will enable d o c t o r s t o make a c c u r a t e a n d well-infor med diagnosis on their patients.
By simply having a registration number, the hospital staff will dispense medication and car ry out tests as per the doctor’s ‘prescription’ which is documented on the electronic patient record available to them on their computer screens.
This user-friendly software enables accurate diagnosis and will be crucial in helping gover nment hospitals go paperless. In addition, it also facilitates the production of many routine but essential hospital reports thus saving time and much paperwork. As stated above, a positive indirect ef fect of the system is that the medical staff has more time to attend to their patients.
A specialty of the ICTA stall this time will be practical seminar sessions three times a day. Simulating i n s o me way l ay man’s medical parlance, the three times a day, one before lunch and two after lunch seminar sessions are poised to make a g reat transfor mation. They have been ‘tailor-prepared’ to make the participants make themselves more IT savvy, more ICT literate, more familiar with free and open source software, and more prepared to launch into an IT-BPO career.
Accordingly, ICTA has planned t o c o n d u c t t h r e e s e mi n a r s e s - sions at 10 a.m. 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on February 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, at the Dayata Kirula ICTA stall themed mainly on three topics –ediriya, FOSS and IT-BPO career guidance with two days for each theme.
The seminar sessions on February 5 and 6 will be based on the ICTA ediriya project launched recently to improve the ICT literacy level of the country. These ediriya seminars will be targeted especially for school children and they will be given awareness about the value of being ICT literate. In addition, there will be opportunities for students to get hands on training on basic ICT skills as the stall will be equipped with computers and internet connectivity.
The seminar sessions on February 7 and 8, at the ICTA stall will be on free and open source software (FOSS) with a onehour workshop conducted by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka. The FOSS seminars on these two days will cover five subjects such as (1) Introduction to FOSS, (2) Education and FOSS, (3) Hanthana Linux OS, (4) FOSS and ICTA and (5) How to contribute to FOSS community.
A special feature at the ICTA stall of Deyata Kirula on 7th and 8th will be the workshop by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) refer red to above. Called Dayata IT, the CSSL workshop at the ICTA stall in the Deyata Kirula exhibition will be an ICT awareness programme. It will be aimed at giving some awareness about IT, IT education, IT higher education road map and ICT career road map to students and parents. This CSSL workshop at the ICTA stall will be a one-hour workshop on both 7th and 8th beginning at around 11 a.m.
The seminar sessions of the last two days, 9th and 10th, at the ICTA stall will be devoted for career guidance (IT-BPO). This will focus in particular, on school leavers and students in the OL and AL classes. I CTA s o u r c e s s a i d p r o s p e c t ive participants in the IT-BPO career guidance seminars were encouraged to register themselves online. Although those without this prior online registration will also be able to par ticipate in the seminar if they are present at the stall at the scheduled time, prior online registration will be useful in organising the seminar career (IT-BPO) guidance sessions in smoother manner while also helping statistical record-keeping.