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Another
Global Award for Shilpa Sayura
The winners of the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Awards
2008 were announced on the 22nd of May at a colourful ceremony
in the Blue Hall of the City of Stockholm before a multinational
gathering of dignitaries, community leaders and finalists
from 158 projects representing 52 countries. Shilpa Sayura,
a project, initiated under the Information and Communication
Technology Agency of Sri Lanka’s (ICTA) e-Society Development
Initiative gained international recognition when it won an
award in the education category.
The Stockholm Challenge promotes ICT for development with
a six category award that invites entries from projects that
use ICT to tackle the world’s biggest problems. Participants
present their methods and their achievements to the Challenge
jury, the world and each other through the Challenge online
platform. Shilpa Sayura was among seven winners selected from
158 projects representing six thematic areas – culture,
environment, health, public administration, economic development
and education.
Shilpa Sayura is a project initiated by eFusion (Pvt) Ltd
with a vision to empower rural students with an ICT based
educational system, to improve self-learning capacity while
leveraging on the island wide ICT infrastructure provided
through the Nenasala Network developed by the ICTA. The pilot
project, initiated with a grant received from ICTA’s
e-SDI, aimed to create a digital educational content system
in the Sinhala Language and promotes a participatory approach
to learning. It was originally launched in a remote corner
of the Country - at the Kandiyapitawewa Nenasala in the Moneragala
District. It was subsequently introduced to 25 other Nenasalas
and 7 schools. Shilpa Sayura will eventually be deployed across
the entire Nenasala network presently numbering over 500.
It provides an interactive means of self study and is particularly
helpful to children in remote, rural areas who do not have
access to teachers. The content includes text, supported by
movie clips, photographs, animations and applet-based interactive
exercises, totalling over 4.7GB. Furthermore Shilpa Sayura
also provides a platform on which students can interact with
one another, share and exchange knowledge. The content has
been generated and reviewed by a panel of teachers from around
the country. The feedback received has been used to further
upgrade subject matter and improve its delivery.
The Stockholm Global Challenge represents the third in a series
of coveted awards won by Shilp Sayura. In August last year
it won an i4d award at the eINDIA 2007 Conference in New Delhi,
India. In December at the GK3 Conference in Malaysia it once
again came out on top in the education category winning a
Stockholm Challenge GKP Award. This award was especially for
those Challenge participants that are also Multi Stakeholder
Partnerships (MSPs). The Stockholm Challenge GKP Awards 2007
were presented in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the Global Knowledge
III conference.
Reshan Dewapura, COO, ICTA commending the achievement said,
“This is a very prestigious award and we are proud to
be associated with Shilpa Sayura. It really is a tribute to
e-Fusion, the e-Soc team at ICTA and everyone else who contributed
to this effort. It goes to show that we can develop home grown,
bottom-up applications that can make a difference in our rural
societies.”
“Shilpa Sayura is one of the first five projects to be
funded through the e-Society Development Initiative. The fact
that it is the first project to be completed and launched
speaks for the dedication and commitment displayed by Niranjan.
It is indeed fitting that Shilpa Sayura, as the first e-SDI
project to be ‘birthed’, aptly reflects the essence
of this initiative by addressing the needs and aspirations
of remote rural communities,” said Chitranganie Mubarak,
Programme Head, e-Society Programme.
Niranjan Meegammana was a proud and happy man and commented;
“In winning the Stockholm Challenge we have succeeded
as a nation, it’s an indication of success of the e Sri
Lanka initiative, which created a platform for new ideas to
emerge as global innovations. Our success and strength lies
in our partners the ICTA, ICT community, developers, professionals,
Nenasala operators, village communities, students and all
those who supported us. This is only a beginning, we will
go further and higher.”
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