ICTA to host ‘APICTA – 2015’ Int’l Awards Ceremony
The AP I C TA - 2 0 1 5 International Awards ceremony, considered the ‘Oscars’ of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector i n Asia, will be held in Sri Lanka this time, t he Federation of Information Technology Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, Sri Lanka Section, said at a special ceremony to mark the official announcement at the Colombo Hilton recently.
APICTA, t he largest ICT awards ceremony in the Asia Pacific region, will be held in Colombo from November 18-21 this year, with the participation of around 650+ ICT Innovators, Experts, Investors, Traders and Entrepreneurs from 16 member countries. Many other ICT-related significant programs have been organized to run parallel to APICTA 2015 as it is a historic international event, which Sri Lanka is honored and privileged to host.
The National Partner of APICTA-2015 is Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).
At the ceremony, where the official announcement was made on Sri Lanka hosting APICTA-2015, ICTA Chairperson, Chitranganie Mubarak, read out to the audience the message sent by President Maithripala Sirisena to mark the occasion. Quoting from t he message, she said that the President has decided to declare November 16-22, 2015 as “ICT Week”. To coincide with the unveiling of APICTA–2015 Awards, the INFOTEL–2015 Exhibition, considered the biggest show in the ICT sector, will be held from November 20-22 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) in Colombo. Also ICTA is the National Partner of INFOTEL–2015.
Muhunthan Canagey, CEO, ICTA, said: “This is a great opportunity for Sri Lanka to position t he country among the international community. We can promote our products and services and this enables us t o showcase our talents to t he world. APICTA also brings leading ICT firms and professionals under one roof and we can certainly look forward to new business opportunities, investments, j oint ventures and technology transfers with APICTA-2015”.
Sixteen countries in the Asia Pacific region have been members of this regional alliance, including countries with developed and established economies like Australia, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, etc. By providing networking and product benchmarking opportunities to ICT innovators and entrepreneurs in the region, this awards program is designed to stimulate ICT innovation and cr e a t i v i t y, pr o m o t e economic and trade relations, facilitate technology transfer and offer business matching opportunities via exposure to venture capitalists and investors. APICTA Awards were founded in 2001 and it is for the first-ever time in the history that the event will be hosted by Sri Lanka. At present, Sri Lanka is the chair of this regional ICT Alliance.
Apart from the APICTA Awards, the other main parallel event is t he APICTA- 2015 Business Forum, which will create a common platform for investors, traders and the business community to benchmark their innovations, explore possible business partnerships and investments, explore import and export market entry points and share innovative ICT solutions for business etc. A business lounge will be operated during this event and would consist of a breakfast meeting with the Japanese delegation, a panel discussion and one-to-one business matchmaking lounge. Parallel to the Business Forum, a Student Knowledge Sharing Forum will also be conducted.
The events calendar for the APICTA -2015 are as follows: November 18-20 Asia Pacific ICT awards competition, November 20 APICTA 2015 Awards ceremony, November 20-21 AP I C TA - 2 0 1 5 Business Forum, November 20 APICTA-2015 Students’ Forum and November 20-22 – INFOTEL - 2015 Exhibition.