Horizon Lanka Foundation secured a grant to provide Internet access to the village of Mahavilachchiya using mesh technology. The preliminary work has already begun and the project will be completed within coming weeks.
In 2006 also Horizon Lanka provided internet access to the Mahavilachchiya village through mesh technology by providing Internet access to 30 users. That covered 1/4th of the geographical area of the village and this time around the network will be extended to rest of the village as well.

More details of the project will be made available through Horizon Lanka website www.horizonlanka.org as and when they are available. (Due credits to the relevant parties who support us will be attributed in our next newsletter once the project is completed.)

We expect you will help us by providing new or used PCs and laptops to us so that we can distribute them among the children of Mahavilachchiya, public schools, dhamma schools, community centers, etc. so that more people from the village could use Internet productively. You can donate us through this website (Global Giving http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1700/proj1657a.html?RF=widget_large1657 ) to donate us money to buy PCs and laptops.

We hope to provide Internet access to more than 100 users through this project. There are already more than 50 PCs available in the village and we need your support to provide more PCs to the villagers.

Please contact us. Email: info@horizonlanka.org Mobile: 077-7702678 (Local) / 0094-77-7702678 (IDD)

Pictures:

• LankaCom team testing mesh signals at a student’s house … … (JPG)
• A technician on a mesh tower (JPG)
• Mesh signals are being tested at a temple (JPG)

Nine students have been selected to universities from Mahavilachchiya from the Advanced Level exam that was held last year. Six of these students have been ranked below 50 from the whole Anuradhapura district. All of these who were ranked below 50 have got A passes for all three subjects at the exam. Sidhdhartha (6), Thakshila (2) and Saliyamala (1) public schools have produced those students. Some of these students also studied computers and English at Horizon Lanka. Though scores of other students also have qualified for the university literally, they will not stand a chance to enter universities due to the tight competition at the universities in Sri Lanka.

Links:

• Link to the Original Story in Horizon Lanka website

Pictures:

• Some of the students who passed Advanced Levels (JPG)
• Charika got A passes for all three subjects (JPG)
• This girl also got A passes for all three subjects (JPG)

Niki Li Ke, Beijing, China - January 31, 2009

As I was walking down the small path surrounded by coconut trees and crops, a bright color building house came out. That is the computer lab of Horizon Lanka- the unique Internet-access building in Mahavilachchiya area, Anuradhapura. Horizon Lanka Foundation was founded by Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka and aims at teaching local students English and computer skills. Because of low entrance rate of university, student who speaks fluent English and being familiar with computer skills becomes more competitive.

In Horizon Lanka Foundation I met two groups of students who came from Mahavilachchiya village, teenagers and junior students. The teenage girls were very shy but showed strong eager to learn, as I showed them how to use Facebook they were excited and registered one by one. Although they sometimes found hard to speak in fluent English but they tried hard to express with words and postures. Looking at their beautiful and satisfied smile I can image a bright future of them. The other group consists of pupils who were lovely and learned fast. I taught simply MS Word and PowerPoint skill and found them performed creatively beyond my imagination.
I lived with Mr. Wanninayaka's wife’s family there I experienced open-air bath and saw family-owned bus for the first time. I was warmly welcomed by Mrs. Wanni's whole family and make new friends. I like their peaceful lifestyle and enjoy starry night very much. Mr. Wanni's brother-in-law and sister-in-law also showed me around the Anuradhapura city that was full of historical and religious atmosphere.

Thanks to Mr. Wanni's creative idea that introduce Internet and English class into Mahavilachchiya village that provide local students more opportunity to go to university and compete in job market. My trip is short but harvest and I will keep these memories forever.

Links:

• Link to the Original Story in Horizon Lanka website

Pictures:

• Nicky with junior students (JPG)
• Nicky with junior students (JPG)
• Nicky in a temple in Anuradhapura (JPG)

Miss Nicky from China visited Mahavilachchiya on the 26th of January and spent the whole day at Horizon Lanka with the students the following day. She taught students web 2.0 related tools and English. She taught both the youth and junior students at Horizon Lanka. Students enjoyed her teaching a lot. They are very excited about volunteers starting to come back to Horizon Lanka after the peace is established by the government during last year. More volunteers are waiting to visit Mahavilachchiya in the coming months.

Links:

• Link to the Original Story in Horizon Lanka website

Pictures:

• Nicky with the teenageirs (JPG)
• Nicky with the teenagers (JPG)
• Nicky with the teenagers (JPG)

Academic activities for the year 2009 were resumed at Horizon Lanka Academy since mid December last year. Horizon Lanka has obtained the services of two experienced teachers, Mr Mahendra Illangasinghe for English and Mr Sisira Rajapaksha for ICT teaching. New students are joining every week for the new classes. Horizon Lanka also expects to receive local and foreign volunteers to support ICT and English teaching at Horizon Lanka like in the past.
The students are taught English and IT at Horizon Lanka. Once the mesh network is repaired we hope to resume e-learning as well.

Links:

• Link to the Original Story in Horizon Lanka website

Pictures:

• Some of the students who joined Horizon Lanka in January 2009 (JPG)
• With the new computer teacher (JPG)
• With the new English teacher (JPG)

Benefits of eVillage Project

The benefits of making Mahavilachchiya a model e-village are endless.

1. Children

The work of Horizon Lanka has already seen success by making village students IT professionals. Public schools in rural areas have poor resources, meaning that subjects like ICT are often overlooked. By providing children access to computers and the internet, they can learn to use these tools to improve their standard of work and stand them in the same ground as students from city schools. Opening communication links between children from other schools will bring about better understanding and perhaps a sharing of resources. Horizon Lanka is helping the public schools, temples, etc. by providing computers and Internet so that more children in the village can benefit.

2. Healthcare

The Local hospital, doctors, nurses, midwives and pharmacies have very limited means of communication with each other presently. This specific section of the community is probably one of the most important. The Horizon Lanka Foundation project donated a used PC to the hospital and hopes to provide Internet access to the hospital if mesh network can be extended to that area too. If the health workers use IT, hopefully it will cut down time wastage, improve record keeping and provide a better sharing of information. More importantly, patients can begin to seek health advice from the internet rather than traveling to see a doctor. We hope to initiate a telemedicine project by combining Mahavilachchiya hospital with a city hospital if there is necessary funding and government help.

3. Banking

The community can access their bank accounts using internet now from their homes. Information on accounts and services can be accessed without having to travel and waste time in queues. Most of the Sri Lankan banks provide online fund management facilities and they respond to queries send as emails, so the people do not have to spend on phone calls and traveling to Anuradhapura town anymore for most of the banking needs now.

4. Information Services

The need for disseminating information quickly is sometimes of the utmost importance especially in a crisis like a national disaster, war or drought. Presently supplying the rural areas with this information has been near impossible. Public information suppliers from NGOs and government can now access the rural communities. Thus the community will begin to feel less isolated and become more interested in what is happening in the rest of the country.

5. Community

ICT in the rural village will benefit the community the most. Farmers now have easier access to wholesalers, weather reports, crop prices, and other relevant information which will facilitate their work at harvesting time and during the year. For the unemployed, access to information from the multimedia library and internet will help them in searching for employment. Gaining ICT skills will be beneficial for their future employment as well. Communication between villagers will be enhanced. With access to the web at home and now the knowledge to use it, families can talk with each other using web mail and IP Telephony services like Skype, all without any cost to themselves.
Horizon Lanka’s eVillage concept is now being replicated islandwide and we will talk about that in the next edition of this online magazine.

Links:

• Link to the original story

Pictures:

• Kids learning computers (JPG)

Concept of the eVillage was born in the village of Mahavilachchiya in 2004. Having served the village with ICT and English education since 1998 through Horizon Lanka www.horizonlanka.org, we were looking for innovative ways of expanding our services in a way the ICTs can be used in a wider spectrum, not just focusing the children alone.

We had already taken steps to get the parents of the children involved in ad-hoc computer lessons, field trips, IT exhibitions in Colombo, etc. but we needed a formal and an organized program to get the villagers of all walks actively involved in the ICTs. Endless discussions were done with the staff, Diaspora and local ICT experts to plan out a practical program. It was when we were searching for an attractive name for the planned project, Dr Bandu Ranasinghe visited us and having learnt about the planned work, suggested the name “Model eVillage” for the project which aptly suited to describe the whole concept. Mahavilachchiya, the Model eVillage of Sri Lanka project www.mahavilachchiya.net was launched officially in January 2005 by the Horizon Lanka Foundation.


Purpose of initiating the Model eVillage Project.

The concept behind the e-Village project was to bring about a positive change in the community of Mahavilachchiya, by introducing people to the advantages of ICT usage in seeking developmental solutions. By giving the community access to information like agricultural information, weather forecasts and market information, the villagers can use this to make decisions on harvesting and selling their produce and on job opportunities for example. The access to information from all over the world can be used as an inspiration to the children and youth of the village to help broaden their horizons. We mustn’t forget that ICT will also bring better communication links between the people in the village and those across the country, whether they be friends, relatives or business links. Ultimately, access to the internet, an understanding of ICT and training in these areas will improve the quality of life of the community. The project will focus on enhancing the community by ICT education, providing them an access point to Internet from their homes and ICT centre and other related services.


The Master Plan

There were six main steps for making Mahavilachchiya a Model e-Village.

1. Relationship Building

Before we can begin creating our e-Village, Horizon Lanka Foundation must begin forming relationships with local organizations and people. Having the support of local schools, temples, police authorities, government officials and the local community will be success of this project. Without them, the project cannot succeed.

2. Installation of Equipment

The ICTA provided a grant close to 10,000 US$ that included 5 PCs for our lab along with the licensed Windows OS and Microsoft Office suit. The ICTA also agreed to pay the monthly internet bill and they still continue to do so. The ICTA also funded a study tour to Chennai, India for two of the staff members of Horizon Lanka.

3. Training and Workshops

In order to educate the community, we need to ensure our staff understands what needs to be taught. With the help of IDM, 4 members of the Horizon Lanka team were given “Training the Trainer” courses in order that they will be able to disseminate the ICT message correctly.

Many students already attending Horizon Lanka Academy have been given training through workshops in software packages such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver. They will be able to pass their knowledge on to those who take an interest in graphic and web design and even with the basics of computer usage.

4. Implementation of ICT Educational Plan

Currently Horizon Lanka Academy already has an ICT Educational Plan for its students. They have weekly lessons in all aspects of ICT. For the community, the Educational Plan began with a series of training sessions and workshops aimed at introducing the community to the concept of an e-Village and familiarizing them with ICT usage and its benefits. It is hoped that the community will begin taking a more active interest and at this point, Horizon Lanka hopes to offer them more advanced tutoring and even organize standard training courses for them through some of the institutes with whom they have firm relationships. The ICT Educational Plan will also aim to give individuals specific information relating to their profession, e.g., farming, co-operatives, which may be of benefit to them.

5. Other Services to the Community

i. Multimedia Library

The project provided the community with a multimedia library containing books, newspapers, periodicals, VCD, audio CD, DVD, audio cassettes, downloaded data CDs and other relevant reference materials. The center also provides a service which involves the team conducting information searches upon request. Using both the internet and international resources Horizon Lanka provides this service for members of the community and local businesses. We also invite scholars, researchers, educationists, professionals and donors to contribute to our library by sending any valuable resources that may benefit our research facilities.

ii. Communication

Basic communication services will also be provided. Almost all the fixed and mobile telephone networks operate in Mahavilachchiya now. Horizon Lanka was involved in getting the first mobile phone network to cover the village in 2006. Horizon Lanka provides Internet facility to the village through the main computer lab and through the mesh network. The existing problems in the mesh network will be sorted out shortly.

iii. Digital Photography

Digital photography, graphic designing and digital arts is another service currently provided by the e-Village group. By sourcing contracts from local and international businesses the team aims to enhance the skills base of the youth and provide further diversification of income within the village.

iv. Videoing and video editing

Horizon Lanka has acquired the necessary equipment to do videoing and video editing education within the community.

v. Secretarial services

By providing MS Office facilities, Horizon Lanka e-Village has created several presentations. By using MS PowerPoint and Macromedia Flash clients can be provided with effective presentations to use for their respective businesses. This can be broadened to including typesetting for letters and documents.

vi. Webpage and Graphic Design

Web design is a positive initiative that has already commenced within the village. By taking up offshore web designing contracts, a promising ground for new career opportunities within the village has been created. By gaining new contracts, Horizon Lanka aims to nurture this talent in the community further, bringing further economic growth into the district.

vii. Consulting services

The Foundation is able to share its experiences in taking ICT to rural communities of Sri Lanka. The Foundation can provide consulting services with respect to launching and setting up rural level ICT centers throughout the country in villages that may also benefit from this form of education.

6. Implementation of mesh Technology

Mahavilachchiya became the first rural village to benefit from mesh technology thanks to the Asia Pacific Development Information Programme and Enterprise Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Mesh technology has the whole community access to the internet from their homes. ICTA acted as a facilitator of this initiative.


Horizon Lanka has now helped to furnish over 50 homes with used desktop computers and it still searching for more donors to help families who have saved their half of the cost under Digital Butterflies project. http://digitalbutterflies.wordpress.com Mesh technology enables homes with a PC to enjoy the benefits of wireless internet connection. It utilizes the internet connection already put in place by Horizon Lanka. For details of the pilot program, please go to http://www.apdip.net/projects/ictrnd/2004/L43-lk/proposal. Mesh technology has no doubt become the back bone of our e-village status and will help enhance the educational plan in place by providing families with access, not just one person. Since this was a pilot project there were some technical and other disturbances few months after the commission of the network. We have submitted a new a new funding proposal which has been shortlisted for funding and now the proposal is being discussed to rectify the existing problems of the network. Once the new project comes into play it will not only solve the problems in the network but also extend the mesh internet network to 30 other houses in the village.

Links:

• Link to original story

Pictures:

• Village (JPG)
• Cycling to Horizon Lanka (JPG)

Lanka Communication Services Pvt. Ltd. has been helping Horizon Lanka since 2004 in various ways. When none of the other ISPs could provide internet to Mahavilachchiya with the then existing technology in 2004 – there was no telephone access to Mahavilachchiya till 2007 – LankaCom provided internet access to Horizon Lanka through Wireless Broadband (RLL) technology for a subsidized monthly fee.

LankaCom helped Horizon Lanka by sponsoring a hoarding for a year in 2007 too. The company also extended its help by providing a free internet connection to the Founder of Horizon Lanka, Mr Wanninayaka to continue his services in the same year.

When Horizon Lanka started its BPO, OnTime Technologies in 2007, LankaCom provided a secured free link to OnTime to continue activities.

Thus LankaCom has been contributing to Horizon Lanka to keep up its activities. We thank LankaCom for its continuous support to Horizon Lanka.

Links:

• LANKACOM'S CONTRIBUTION TO HORIZON LANKA

Pictures:

• Students using Internet at Horizon Lanka (JPG)

Avian Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Colombo donated 5 licensed copies of antivirus software, Kaspersky to Horizon Lanka Foundation. Avian Technologies Pvt. Ltd is the official distributor of Kaspersky virus guard in Sri Lanka. We thank Avian for displaying its generosity.

Links:

• AVIAN DONATES ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE TO HORIZON LANKA

Anusha Madhubhashini anusha@horizonlanka.org

If I tell something about Mahavilachchiya, it is not reasonable not to mention about Horizon Lanka Foundation. Mahavilachchiya got more things from there. Especially in my life I got more help, advice and experiences in there. In the beginning of Horizon Lanka I never thought it could become what it is today. All of us thought Mr. Wanninayaka who is our teacher was telling us a fairy story. Really he has always very optimistic ideas. When I was in grade 8 he told you can go to university, so try to study more and more. Actually we got a big push from Horizon Lanka. I want to tell you how I built up my life with Horizon Lanka. I could get a C pass for English, it is very simple for you today, but at that time it was a very big achievement in my village. There was a prize giving at Horizon Lanka after my O/L. I took a big present for my achievements from Mr. and Mrs. Gaminitillake. It was a nice pair of earrings and some books. Then I got monetary assistance from Mr. Thushara Wijerathna and Dr. Nimal Perera who were living in the USA. It was so useful to my life. I put the money in a bank account and used them for my tuition classes and for my needs in university. The financial donation made me stronger and I had the peace of mind to concentrate on my education. Even to my parents it was great assistance. Since I had learnt computers at Horizon Lanka, even when I was in the first year I had the capability to find new information from web sites. I never felt, I'm a rural villager's daughter. I could study same as other students. If I hadn't that experience at Horizon Lanka, I'm sure I would have been stuck in competitive university life.

LTTE abducted my father last year. On that unfortunate occasion Horizon Lanka did help their best. They made blogs, and sent news to some people and encouraged us. At that time my sister was to sit for Advanced Level and I was facing my final year exam. At that time Horizon Lanka gave confidence to us, both of us faced exam. I want to tell about Mrs. Chithranganie Mubarak, who came to Horizon Lanka from ICTA. There are no words to explain her kind assistance for me.

I finished my university exam last February. I could get a job in Marga Institute in Colombo last February with the assistance of Mrs. Mubarak. Now I'm working with Marga projects in Ampara. Twice a month I go to Ampara, I get a chance to work with Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil people. All of them give kind assistance for me. I really enjoy this work and get a lot of experiences. I had studied sociology and about conflicts, ethnic problems and peace programs in my university. Now I'm getting practical knowledge about them. I have seen there are no differences among human feelings according to ethnicity. I want to see a day that all people living peacefully in Sri Lanka. I have very awful experience with war. I hate war, but I do not hate other ethnicities. Even during my childhood, I was on that position. I think I learnt these habits from Mr. Wanninayaka.

Links:

• Anusha's Website

Pictures:

• Anusha Madhubhashani (JPG)

Horizon Lanka Foundation sought assistance of Global Giving few years back to raise funds to Horizon Lanka’s academic activities. Donors can donate online 10 US$ upwards to Horizon Lanka. Global Giving transfers funds to Horizon Lanka periodically. Last month there was a donation of over 5,000 US$. This was so far the biggest donation we had. We thank all the donors for this timely donation. With this money we could pay the teacher salaries of Horizon Lanka Academy which was delayed by almost two years due to lack of funding. We paid almost all the delayed teacher salaries and can now continue the academic activities uninterrupted. We thank all the donors for donating Horizon Lanka Foundation and hope they would keep contributing.

With your future donations we can do the other activities mentioned in the project page such as paying students’ tuition fees, buying students’ academic reading material, purchasing PCs and laptops, building a new computer centers, etc.

Horizon Lanka Academy has been able to produce the best results for Ordinary Level English exam from Mahavilachchiya last December too. The results were out this month and you can see the results sheet below

Hanshi Sumedha A
Chamara Pradeep A
Dhananjaya Wijewikrama A
Gayani Sandamali A
Tharanga Sampath A
Damith Jayawardana C
Vishwa Sampath C
Anushka Udeshini S
Randika Sudath S

Credits for good OL results at Horizon Lanka should go to its English teachers, foreign volunteers, e-mentors and those who communicated with students in English electronically. We wish more volunteers to teach English (both local and foreign) could join Horizon Lanka Academy.

To strengthen English education further at Horizon Lanka Academy, the Academy tied up with prestigious European College, Colombo with the support of Accelerated Skills Acquisition Project (ASAP)- USAID. The new courses will start shortly. This will enable the students and youth in Mahavilachchiya to learn English faster and be prepared for the job market within a very short time at an affordable price.

Pictures:

• Students who got good results for English (JPG)
• Students who got good results for English (JPG)
• Students who got good results for English (JPG)

There is a lot of talk of taking ICT to the village level. Luckily, there are quite a few initiatives to do this. Many try to do this through telecenter model initiatives. But in eVillage – Sri Lanka project, our approach is quite different.
First we studied the Horizon Lanka’s success model in Mahavilachchiya, our own initiative. Though Horizon Lanka had its own ups and downs, it has been able to sustain itself for the last 10 years or so. The main reason for the sustainability of the project is that its practical approach to the ICT usage in rural areas. Rather than becoming a mere telecenter where internet hours are sold and services like copying CDs, providing telephone calls are offered, Horizon Lanka Academy had long term goals of creating ICT culture in the village and gain a brand name to the whole village, not limiting to the institute itself.
From the very outset I understood that creating ICT culture in a remote village was a too big a task if the children and youth are not given a decent English education. The planning and subsequent execution of the planning paid off well. Today one can find in Mahavilachchiya that the students get A passes for their OL English whereas they get lesser distinctions for their mother tongue. What we did was to integrate technology into English teaching. Internet, email, IM chats, watching DVD movies, doing presentations in conferences, doing live commentaries while sports meets and other events were taken place etc. were warmly welcomed by the students. They found these methods more exciting than the traditional ways of learning a language in public schools. The end result was that English was no more a foreign language to them.
More or less similar strategy was used for ICT education where students could actively participate in real projects rather than learning concepts in theory alone. As a result, today one can find a pool of web designers, graphic designers, multimedia animators, etc. in Mahavilachchiya. Some students entered universities to further their education while some youth directly joined companies in Colombo after Advanced Level to do IT related jobs. Those who wish to remain in the village could join the BPO arm of Horizon Lanka. Growing ICT related infrastructure and increasing number of telephone networks working in Mahavilachchiya were only by products. We did not forget the elderly population as well. Once can find illiterate parents who start learning how to write with MS Paint to the parents who read online local language newspapers before going to ricefields. So there is nothing wrong in calling Mahavilachchiya an ‘eVillage’ now.
We could do all these because we set our goals beyond a telecenter right from the beginning. If we limit ourselves to a mere telecenter, we wouldn’t have achieved this much.
Mahavilachchiya eVillage model is very simple and easy to replicate. This is why the Ministry of Education is replicating the same model with our expertise right now. Visit http://evillage.wordpress.com. There are some other privately owned or community owned small projects in different parts of the country that take Mahavilachchiya as an example.
Through an eVillage, we expect to provide decent English language proficiency, ICT literacy, job opportunities to the community. Though difficult, we try our best to retain the accepted cultural values of the villages while introducing new technology to them.

Links:

• Mahavilachchiya - Model eVillage Website
• Horizon Lanka Website
• eVillage - Sri Lanka blog

Pictures:

• A group of students using computers at Horizon Lanka (JPG)
• A group of studnets who got good English results for OL English (JPG)
• A lady uses a mobile phone in the village (JPG)

OnTime Technologies, Mahavilachchiya launched its website, http://www.ontimetechnologies.net/ on March 15, 2008.

Mr. Kapila Gunawardena from FARO (Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunities) visited Mahavilachchiya several years ago and observed that students having completed education from Horizon Lanka Academy, need help for their future carrier development.

FARO’s idea was setup a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) company in Mahavilachchiya. Nirosh Ranathunga and Isuru Seneviratha were selected from the village to communicate with Mr. Gunawardena regarding his new BPO concept. He was very happy about Nirosh and Isuru, and he arranged a meeting for these two youths with Mr. Michael Chertok from Digital Divide Data a BPO company based on Laos, Mr. Chandima Gunawardana and Mr. Sumana Liyanage of FARO. After the meeting FARO decided to send Nirosh and Isuru for BPO training at Digital Divide Date in Vientiane, Laos and Datamation Group in Delhi, India.

Finding funds for the training was difficult for FARO at that time. ICT Agency of Sri Lanka came forward to sponsor for the lodging and traveling costs of Nirosh and Isuru. DDD( Digital Divide Data) BPO company sponsored to cover the whole training costs. Thanks for FARO, ICTA and DDD, Nirosh and Isuru completed a successful training for three months and returned to Sri Lanka with the knowledge they gained to start a BPO company.

FARO continued to form the BPO Company. Attorneys, FJ&G De Sarams helped for doing all of the legal work to incorporate OnTime and advising on its structure. Nirosh and Isuru composed a business plan with the guidance of FARO and a name for the company called “OnTime”. The company registered as OnTime Technologies (Pvt) Ltd. on 20th Of March in 2007 at Corporate Service Limited, 216, De Saram Place, Colombo 10.

Horizon Lanka Foundation agreed to provide computers, their broad band connectivity and office space on monthly rental basis for OnTime. LankaCom ISPs granted virtual private network connection for OnTime Technologies free of charge.

OnTime started operations on 10th of May in 2007 with two operators for their first client, John Keells Holdings. Dialog Telekom also outsourced their back office work for OnTime. It was very helpfully to increase the revenue of OnTime.

FARO always is advising for development of company, and also OnTime thanks again for ICT Agency of Sri Lanka for helping since at the beginning.

OnTime has become to the first BPO Company formed in a rural village in Sri Lanka. Within only about four months, OnTime reached the breakeven of the company. It will open more and more opportunities in the future for the youths in this rural village, Mahavilachchiya.

Links:

• OnTime Website

Pictures:

• Website Screenshot (JPG)
• Team (JPG)
• Nirosh and Isuru (JPG)

I had been involved in uplifting the lives of the children and youth in Mahavilachchiya for the last 10 years. Though we were able to produce significant positive results by producing scores of ICT skilled and English language competent children and youth only few wanted to replicate the Horizon Lanka model in other villages. Instead of following a living example within Sri Lanka, many were keen on finding role models from other countries while some other counties adapted Horizon Lanka model with our support.

It was at this juncture Mr Lalith Weeratunga, the Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka, visited Mahavilachchiya in November 2006. Having seen the children’s talents and how ICT related infrastructure was booming in Mahavilachchiya he was interested in replicating the Horizon Lanka model around Sri Lanka.
Mr Weeratunga was able to get the Mahavilachchiya eVillage replication project implemented through the Secondary Education Modernization Project (SEMP) of the Ministry of Education with the auspices of the President’s Office. However, going through the Ministry of Education became a hidden blessing as we could directly address the young minds of the school. The younger ones learn fast and they are ready to change fast as well. The project became a success and within the six-month long pilot project with 5 rural villages in 5 provinces and the project was able to achieve a lot. This clearly shows that if the basic infrastructure and the guidance are provided any rural community in the island can perform similar to urban areas or even better. Now we are in the process of expanding the project to 25 more villages.

EWIS’s support in providing fully pledged computer labs to all 5 eVillages will further enhance the potential of ICT related job opportunities for the village youth as it happens in Mahavilachchiya right now. The communities in the villages will be benefited immensely as well. We thank EWIS for being a partner of this nationally important project and invite other corporate sector organizations to follow suit by giving a helping hand to expand the eVillage - Sri Lanka project.

Links:

• Original Story
• eVillage Blog
• A news article in Daily News, Sri Lanka

Pictures:

• Wanni with the villagers of Nikawewa eVillage (JPG)
• Wanni with the students of Damahana eVillage (JPG)
• Wanni with the students and villagers of Nihiluwa eVillage (JPG)

I am Radhika Nilupulee Rajapaksha, who studied at the Horizon Lanka Foundation, Mahavilachchiya, in the first batch until I reached senior student level. I was just 9 years old when I first attended Horizon Lanka. Now, at 19 years of age, I am employed at Microimage (Pvt) Ltd., a Colombo based organization, as a trainee Web Designer.
I felt I had to write the story of how I got such an opportunity at this rather young age.

I learned Web & Graphic design at Horizon Lanka. I learnt about web design when I was in Grade 4, and was very keen to learn more about this. When someone asked me, “Radhika, what would you like to do in the future? What is your ambition?” I would answer, “I want to be a Web Designer. This was one of my greatest dreams. Today my dream has come true. I am truly happy to have reached my goal!

It started first of all when I used to dream about having my own computer. But I got my first PC when I was in Grade 8 through Horizon Lanka. Mr. Harsha Purasingha, the CEO of Microimage where I now work helped me to buy my first PC. I designed my first website on this PC ~ it was a simple one. After visiting my website Mr. Purasingha was very pleased. I learnt many things from my computer and used to work until midnight because I love to work with computers. Mr. Purasingha visited Mahavilachchiya a long time ago as the Chief Guest at the Horizon Lanka’s Prize Giving. I was selected the Best Overall Performer and received my award from Mr. Purasingha.

Then I began to design websites for Horizon Lanka and for some other companies as well. I also designed a map for a local company. Having become aware of these things Mr. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, invited us ~ Ruvini, Iresha and myself ~ to make a presentation. Again I met Mr. Purasingha on the stage at the Intel event. I was very fortunate to receive a brand-new laptop from the Chairman of Intel on this occasion.
Then in order to further increase my knowledge, having sat for my A/L examination, I attended a training program at the Eurocenter DDC in Colombo with the kind assistance of Mr. Mano Sekaram, the CEO. There I learnt about lots of web design tools and obtained a good knowledge of web designing. Having completed the training I re-designed my personal website with what I had learned at Eurocenter. Then I hosted it with the help of my friend and it can be viewed at: http://www.radhikanilupulee.com

Having visited my personal website Mr. Purasingha asked me to present myself at an interview for a Web/Graphic Designer and I was delighted to have been selected! I have been working at Microimage for two weeks now, and am learning new things as well. I never imagined I would one day be working for Mr. Purasingha, when I first met him as a youngster many years ago!

I would like to say ‘Thank you’ to everyone who helped me make my dream come true!

Links:

• Radhika Nilupulee Rajapaksha's Personal Website
• MicroImage Website
• Expereinces at EuroCenter, Colombo

Pictures:

• Radhika Nilupulee Rajapaksha (JPG)
• Radhika Nilupulee Rajapaksha (JPG)
• Radhika Nilupulee Rajapaksha (JPG)

Source http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/03/15/news22.asp

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

The Secondary Education Modernisation Project (SEMP) of the Ministry of Education along with the President’s Office jointly implemented the e-village programme in five provinces aiming at empowering rural communities by improving ‘Information Technology’ literacy rate, information sharing and creating employment opportunities.

The e-village programme was initiated under the Mahinda Chinthana concept of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and developing e-villages was another fulfillment of the 2008 budget proposals.

The first phase of the project was implemented in the Central, Sabaragamuwa, Western, Uva and Southern Province. Under the second stage of the programme, community computer centres are scheduled to be constructed in addition to schools computer learning centres.

Prompted by the success of the programme in Mahavilachchiya, the President has advised the Ministry of Education to initiate the e-village concept in selected rural communities. Accordingly, the SEMP of the Ministry of Education has so far established five projects in five villages.

“On successful completion of these projects, the programme will be further extended within its long-term scope,” Education Ministry sources said.

“The country can easily be developed by educating people regarding modern technology such as information technology related fields which help the development of any country. Apart from that our human resources can be enriched with modern technology which can cater to the demand of employment opportunities,” Secretary to the Ministry of Education Nimal Bandara said.

Links:

• Original Link to the Newspaper
• eVillage - Sri Lanka - Press Conference - BLOG

Pictures:

• Nandasiri Wanninayaka and Anura Dissanayaka (JPG)
• eVillage Champions from 5 provinces (JPG)
• All guests (JPG)

Aruni Pradeepika Karunarathna and Duleeka Dilhani Edirisingha of Horizon Lanka successfully completed a three-month long training in the Human Resources Department of Slimline Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of MAS Holdings. The two girls were given exposure on corporate culture as well. They were extremely happy about the training they got and they have been changed from shy village girls to confident career women. Horizon Lanka thanks Mr Dian Gomes, the CEO of MAS Intimates and the staff of Slimline for giving this valuable opportunity for the two girls.
Both girls left Slimline and reached Mahavilachchiya today and both of them are confident in pursuing their higher studies while working for Horizon Lanka’s success from Mahavilachchiya.

Links:

• Original Story in the Web
• Dian Gomes, CEO of MAS Intimates
• MAS Holdings

Pictures:

• Aruni Pradeepika (JPG)
• Duleeka Dilhani (JPG)

This article appeared in The Sunday Leader on March 02, 2008 http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20080302/BUSINESS.HTM

A village based business process outsourcing (BPO) service that handles part of the backoffice operations of Sri Lanka's largest diversified company, has also been contracted by the country's biggest telecoms operator, whilst having talks to provide similar services to Sri Lanka's largest white goods supplier.

This BPO operation located at Mahawillachchiya, Anuradhapura, that processes data of suppliers' to John Keells supermarket chain (a process that began some months ago) has now been employed by Dialog Telekom to process some of their market research data, Dilip Jayawickrama, Projects Director, Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunity in Sri Lanka (FARO), an NGO, told The Sunday Leader.

FARO, which was among seven NGOs to receive World Bank grants of Rs. five million each through the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) on Wednesday to develop ICT opportunities to the rural and disadvantaged people, provides support to this BPO operation in Mahavillachchiya.

The village youth involved in this project, some eight of them, had their basics right, that is having a working knowledge of English and in the use of computers, due to the work of another NGO, Horizon, said Jayaweera.

"This made it possible for our entry, such a foundation has to be first laid before we can move in," he added. Jayaweera said that outsourcing of this work by Keells has helped them to cut costs, with eight of their staff who were involved in this work earlier, being relocated to other departments.

He alleged that Dialog which hit the top in a short span of under 15 years, with most, if not all of their work done inhouse, were somewhat cautious in outsourcing their work, though a start has been made, with some of their market research data being now handled at Mahavillachchiya.

In the case of Singer, talks have been initiated, with no business deals having been yet procured, he said. Jayaweera further said that he wants to start a similar BPO unit in Seenigama, a village which was devastated in the recent tsunami.

Links:

• Link to the original story on the web

Pictures:

• Girls working for the BPO (JPG)

Horizon Lanka Academy of Mahavilachchiya joined hands with MMBL CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd., the Sri Lankan and the Maldivian franchisee of NIIT, India on February 03, 2008. This new partnership will enable the students and the youth in and around Mahavilachchiya to study ICT (and English) from the nursery level up to the Bachelors and Masters Degree from Mahavilachchiya. The youth from Mahavilachchiya will have the opportunity of studying at NIIT-affiliated 12 leading universities in Australia, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand in time to come.

The launch of the new program took place at Horizon Lanka with a simple ceremony. Reverend Maraka Suseela Thero performed religious rites. Mr. J. W. S. Kithsiri, The Divisional Secretary of Mahavilachchiya DS Division, Mr Nandasiri Wanninayaka, the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation, Mr. Chamila Algewatta, the Manager, CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd, Anuradhapura, Mr. Chatura Thilanga Vijekoon, the Manager of CyberSkills – Horizon Lanka Campus, Mahavilachchiya, Mr. H. A. Wickramasinghe, the Principal, Ashoka Mala Public School, Kadurupitiya, Mr. H. Jayathunga, the Principal of Thakshila Public School, Mahavilachchiya graced the occasion. Miss Anusha Priyadarshani and Miss Krishanthi Priyadarshani compeered the event while Nipuna Roshan Wiskramasuriya delivered the vote of thanks.

Students and the parents were present at the event and 15 students and youth were registered for the new courses on the first day alone. Others can register themselves till the 15th of February for the first batch and the courses will be commenced on the 16th of February.

Links:

• Horizon Lanka Story
• CyberSkills Pvt Ltd
• NIIT India

Pictures:

• Part of the crowd (JPG)
• CyberSkills Manager (JPG)
• Wanni and the CyberSkills Team (JPG)

Horizon Lanka Academy in Mahavilachchiya will be tying up with a renowned ICT education institute - MMBL CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd. to enhance its ICT Educational Plan. According to the plan both Horizon Lanka and this new entity will be geared to train more students in the village and the suburbs. The courses will be offered on a reasonable fee and the students will be awarded internationally recognized NIIT certificates after completion of the courses.

CyberSkills Pvt. Ltd is a franchise of NIIT, India which was founded in 1981, with the mission of “Bringing People and Computers Together…Successfully.” NIIT, Asia’s No. 1 trainer and leading Global Talent Development Corporation, offers learning and knowledge solutions to 5 million students across 44 countries. The NIIT Group is also positioned strongly in the software and services space through NIIT Technologies.

The company has the Master Franchise in Sri Lanka and Maldives for the education & training business of NIIT Limited, India. Since the takeover of the NIIT franchise in June 2000, NIIT’s courses and training programs are now delivered through 11 branches in Sri Lanka including the North and East of the country. At present CyberSkills have over 1,600 students enrolled in various IT courses offered by NIIT, majority of them in the Diploma Programs.

The NIIT Academy and the Higher Education Wing of NIIT, have forged academic alliances with well-known global universities to provide access to university degrees through "admission with advance standing" for students of NIIT Career programs.

NIIT has affiliations with 12 leading universities in Australia, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand. NIIT students can use this opportunity to follow Bachelors and Masters Degree programs of Information Technology in reputed overseas universities. These universities offer exemptions ranging from 1 to 2 years of studies to students who have completed 2-years of studies at NIIT, making an overseas degree much more affordable.

The youth who graduate from Horizon Lanka Academy will be either taken into OnTime BPO or will be sent for ICT related jobs in other parts of the country. There is a huge demand for the youth from Mahavilachchiya and the rest of the country for ICT related jobs and we hope to make use of these opportunities for the betterment of those youth in and around Mahavilachchiya.

The Horizon Lanka Foundation was established in 1998 because of the determination of a group of children from the rural village of Mahavilachchiya. Their thirst for knowledge and educational advancement led them to the door of Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka (now CEO of HL Foundation), their former English teacher in the public school. Thus began an after school club providing children further education in English and computers. It has become a popular place for many children of the village. Since 1998, the Horizon Lanka Foundation has branched out. As well as providing an all round education to the village children at Horizon Lanka Academy , they have expanded into the Information Age and now service the entire community with their computer lab, which has 24h Internet access. In 2001, the website www.horizonlanka.org was launched by the children of Horizon Lanka Academy, opening a window to the world.

In year 2006 Horizon Lanka foundation was shifted to a new place in the village. The land and the building was donated by Mrs. Lovina Charles of the United Kingdom.

In November 2006, Horizon Lanka Foundation was able to secure a grant from UNDP to build Sri Lanka’s first mesh internet network connecting 28 students’ houses and 2 public schools with Internet. This project also enabled to create 7 Wi-Fi zones in Mahavilachchiya. With all these new technology coming to the village Horizon Lanka was also able to start its own Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) venture called OnTime Technologies in May 2007.

Links:

• Horizon Lanka Story
• CyberSkills Pvt Ltd
• NIIT India

Pictures:

• From CyberSkills Website (JPG)

Andytje Millimon, Lien and Lindy Deroo from Belgium visited Horizon Lanka in December 2005 and worked at Horizon for a month. See the tour report on their experiences while they were in Horizon Lanka.

Before I tell you about Horizon Lanka and our experiences as volunteers there, we want to introduce us.

We are Lindy, Andy and Lien, 3 young people from Belgium. We just finished with school. Lien and Andy are nurses and I am a social educator. Before we wanted to look for a job, we decided to travel for 4 months in the Asian countries of Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. But because we wanted to make a combination between holidays and pick up experiences, we choose to do volunteer work in some of the countries. In India we worked in the Mother Theresa temples, we helped the sisters to take care of the sick people and people with disabilities. With help of our travel agency we found the Horizon Lanka Academy.

Because it was very busy before we left, we had less information about the work that we have to do there. But we knew that we were to be welcomed there and that a family was waiting for us. So that was enough to get our backpack and go for the adventure.

After a long drive with the car, we arrived in a little village called Mahavilachchiya. We stopped in the school Horizon Lanka. Our first impression was: where are we now? We had the feeling that we were dropped in the middle of nowhere. We saw the little huts with tables and chairs. No classrooms? But when we walked into the little building, we were amazed. It was a room with computers with connection to the Internet. And the amazement didn’t stop. The next day they brought a TV with a DVD player donated by some sponsor. Everything that the school has is bought with money from donations. What a good initiative?

When we heard the working of the school, we were very surprised. Horizon Lanka is a private initiative that organizes lessons on Saturdays for children of the village. The children come on their own initiative to school. What a difference than Belgium? In Horizon Lanka, they teach several subjects for example: mathematics, sports, English, computers, etc. The other days the school is open for adult students who want to use the computers and the internet.

The first day we were confused about their work. But in the meanwhile we had the time to learn the habits of the family and the Sri Lankan people. We met the students. Day by day it was made clear what they expected about us; be yourself and use your talents for teaching the children.

In the beginning we were insecure because we were not teachers, but we noticed that it’s not necessary to have experience, to teach the children. Just speaking English and talking to them is teaching. They learn so much out of a conversation. The children really want to learn and take every chance they get.
So, during the week we talked and chatted with the students, we played cricket and badminton with them, help them with their homework.

On Saturday we helped the teachers conduct lessons. To the smallest children we taught how to say their names, ask others’ names and read the clock in English. We talk about sports with them. For teaching them you can use your creativity. An example we used: we drew something on the blackboard and the children had to guess what it was and write the correct name on the blackboard. So they played and learnt at the same time. And with the older students we talked about different countries and famous places in the world to teach them geography. We give a PowerPoint presentation to the students about the important places we visited in Nepal, India and Indonesia. So, the students learnt about the culture in other countries.

We had also a very good contact with the teachers. They were very interested in the education system in Belgium. And they explained us the system and the way of working in Sri Lanka. The teachers are very open minded and want to learn things from us. But we also learned a lot of them. If we had questions about teaching the students they helped us as much as possible.

It depends what your talents and interests are and you can choose which subject you teach. You’re never forced to do something you don’t want. The staff of Horizon Lanka also has a great philosophy about volunteer work. They want to make a combination between work and pleasure. So they organize trips to the city Anuradhapura to visit the famous places like Sri Maha Boddhi, Mihinthale, and Thantirimale. So, there is a good balance between work and pleasure.

From the first moment we were there, we had a nice time and a good feeling. The families were we stayed with were so friendly. They gave us a homely feeling. They made great food for us, taught lots of things to us. Now we can speak basic Sinhala, we learned the habits of their lives: For example, eating with our hands. In Belgium we eat with knife and fork. So, the first days we were very clumsy. But some days later we become very good at it. We went with them to the temple on a Poyaday; a very important Buddhist day. This gave us a chance to learn about their religion. We have the feeling like we have a second mom and dad and also lots of brothers and sisters.

Everybody was working so hard to give us a great time. It is certainly an experience we never forget. And if we have the chance we want to get this experience again. And as we already knew it was very difficult to say goodbye to our new family and friends. We hope that we can keep contact with the people here with email, because now we have lots of friends there.

Links:

• Volunteers in Horizon Lanka and in the village
• Volunteers in the village and at Vilpattu National Park
• Volunteers in the village and at Dambana, a village of adivasis

Pictures:

• Volunteers in Vilpattu National Park (JPG)
• Volunteers in Vilpattu National Park (JPG)
• Volunteers in Mahavilachchiya (JPG)

Horizon Lanka Foundation is happy to announce that it will tie up with a reputed ICT institute of Sri Lanka which is a franchise of an international institute from the academic year 2008. From February, the ICT academic activities will be taken over by this new entity and standard ICT courses will be offered to the students in Mahavilachchiya and the suburbs on an affordable fee. Those who find it difficult to pay the fees will be given scholarships through Global Giving scholarships program. You can help students in Mahavilachchiya to get a quality ICT education by contributing to this fund.

The proposed company offers many other areas of training such as BPO, English Language, Soft Skills, Business Administration etc. The company is also the licensee in Sri Lanka for Australasian Education & Training Services (AETS) and the Australian Center for Languages (ACL) through which a wide range of internationally accredited training products are offered.

Await more details on this new venture in our website soon. There is a big demand for the Mahavilachchiya youth in the job market since the students have shown outstanding talents in ICT, English and presentation skills so far. With the advent of the new partnership, the village students and youth will get a wide range of options to follow while in the village. We will start with a pilot in early February and then go for the expansions.
According to the agreement, the profits of the new venture will be shared on a 50-50 basis with the proposed company and Horizon Lanka Foundation so that both parties will benefit and Horizon Lanka Foundation will be able to gain self sustainability while producing more youth to the job market from Mahavilachchiya.

Links:

• Horizon Lanka Website

Pictures:

• Youth in Mahavilachchiya (JPG)
• Youth in Mahavilachchiya (JPG)
• Students in Mahavilachchiya (JPG)

Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold from Switzerland contacted Horizon Lanka Foundation through email last April and informed us that he is willing to provide a brand new laptop for one of our students. Horizon staff selected Tharanga Sampath, a brilliant student at Horizon Lanka Academy. We thank Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold a lot for this generous donation. Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold promised to send two more laptops for the next two best students at Horizon Lanka Academy.

Ranuka Udayanga was the second student to get a brand new laptop from Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold. Read the testimonial Mr Ranjith Pushpakumara, the Head Master of Horizon Lanka Academy wrote about Ranuka.

“Ranuka Udayanga has been known to me for three years by now and I can beyond doubt recommend that he is the most creative boy student I have found of the HLA. When ever I wanted something done I just wanted to give him the rough idea to get from him the exact output I always predicted. The flash presentations he created for the farewells of the GVI volunteers were clear testimonials for his talents. I sincerely believe that whatever resources spent on him will undoubtedly prove that a genius for the future is created. A teacher who happens to teach him and parents who happen to nurture a child like him will be extremely lucky.”

Ranjith Pushpakumara, Head Master, HLA

See Ranuka's excitement below after getting the laptop.....
“I was a Digital Butterfly before 13th of October and on the 13th October I became a Digital Ambassador. Do you know who a Digital Butterfly is? At Horizon Lanka we call DB to the students who get a desktop computer trough DB project. After getting laptop they become DA’s.

It was a very happy day for me. I was hoping for a laptop for so many years. Fortunately my hope became true. One of my favorite hobbies is blogging. I write stories about my studies, news, add articles about new discoveries, etc. to my blog. Many people are visiting it. I think my blog is interesting in the internet. Dr. Leuthold is a kind person who gives a helping hand to the people who need help. He donated a laptop to a clever student at HLF earlier. His help for me was a brand new Acer laptop computer. It was the happiest day of my life. It has 80 GB hard disk and 1 GB RAM. It is very useful for me to do my work. Now I’m developing a website for Laksaviya Foundation with the help of this laptop. I like to thank Dr. Leuthold for his kind help. I hope to do the maximum work with laptop.

Lak Saviya Foundation was involved in coordinating with the donor in Switzerland - Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold - and Horizon Lanka for the purchase and delivery of the laptop computers. Lak Saviya managed to liaise with the donor and the recipient (through Horizon Lanka) for selecting appropriate Acer laptops from Colombo that fits within the budget of the donor and suitable for the end users – two Digital Ambassadors in Mahavilachchiya village. We thank Lak Saviya for their generous assistance to us in this regard.

Links:

• Ranuka's Blog
• Ranuka's Website

Pictures:

• Ranuka Udayanga (JPG)

I was born in Mahavilachchiya, a remote village about 40 km away from Anuradhapura city, situated about 230 km of Colombo, Sri Lanka as the eldest daughter in farming family. I had most of my primary education at Saliya Mala Viduhala, and secondary education at Swarnapali Balika Viduhala, Anuradhapura. I finished my G. C. E. Ordinary Level Examination in 1999, I passed the Examination with one “D” pass and five “C” passes. After, I entered the Swarnapali Balika College to complete my Advanced Level Examination in 2000. I finished the examination in 2002, in commerce stream with two “C” passes and one “S” pass. After that, I got a chance to join Horizon Lanka Foundation in 2002. So, it was great opportunity to me, to carry on the ICT education and to improve my English knowledge well. During that time I could improve myself well. Of course I could get an “A” pass to English in 2004.

As well as I commenced Diploma in Computer Studies course at IDM Academy totally free of charge with the courtesy of IDM’s chairman Dr. Bandu Ranasinghe. I went to India to participate the ICT training in IIT Madras in South India. As well as, I would like to thank Horizon Lanka Foundation and to ICTA of Sri Lanka for that.

While studying there, I could get an opportunity to study three languages in Rural Educational Development Academy. I learnt English, Japanese and Tamil. There we had three years’ training on those languages and after we had to teach in public schools. At the moment I am working after school in Siddhartha Maha viddhyalaya and working as a volunteer IT teacher in Saliya Mala Vidyalaya. So I decided to register in University of sri Jayawardanapura to do an English degree also. Now I’m going to classes and I want to be a good teacher and communicate in various languages. (Updated: January 10, 2008)

eMAIL chamila@horizonlanka.org

WEB .......... ............................................. BLOG http://chamilaedirisinghe.wordpress.com/

Links:

• Trip to India
• Chamila's Blog

Pictures:

• Chamila Edirisinghe (JPG)

Last two months were very busy for me because 22nd of October three of us (Radhika, Iresha and me) got a chance for training in a software company called Eurocenter DDC in Colombo and it ended from last 22ndof December. I got A lot of experience during the training. At EC we learnt lot of things. Mainly our training was focused on web designing. Additionally we leant how to handle a project, how a company runs, team work, etc. too.

Our main project was to design a website for sports committee at EC. We did it well with the support of EC web designers. Those experiences will help us for our future work. Now we hope to continue our work with Horizon Lanka projects.

I hope to handle Digital Ambassadors project. While doing these projects I hope to improve my web designing knowledge by designing more websites. I can take up commercial websites now. Please contact me through info@horizonlanka.org if you want to get your site designed by me.

You can visit my newly designed personal website at http://www.horizonlanka.org/ruvini/index.html

Ruvini Senevirathna

Links:

• My Personal Website
• “Digital Ambassadors”
• EuroCenter DDC website

Pictures:

• Ruvini Senevirathna (JPG)
• Ruvini Senevirathna (JPG)
• Ruvini Senevirathna (JPG)

I am Majith Rakshitha Perera from Mahavilachchiya. I have long history with Horizon Lanka Foundation. I joined Horizon when I was studying in grade seven. Now I am 20 years old. I got good experiences from the Horizon Lanka. I haven’t got paper qualifications (certificates) for my computer knowledge. But I have knowledge than people with certificates. I know basic computer networking and computer hardware. I can learn any software very fast.

I am repairing computers in the village. This small business provides me pocket money. I got a good chance to work with Enterprise Technology (PVT) Ltd. It was the mesh Internet project of Mahavilachchiya. I work with them for six months. I got from them a good knowledge about networking. I got 15,000 LKR per month as a salary during those six months.

I learnt internet browsing at Horizon Lanka. We have unlimited internet. So it is a big chance for us. We can download the things we need immediately as we have unlimited internet access. I also have some experiences in teaching. I was a computer instructor to junior students at Horizon Lanka.

Now I am doing a job as a graphic designer in Colombo. I got all these opportunities due to the experiences I got at Horizon Lanka.

I was lucky to get a chance to work as a trainee at EucoCenter DDC in Colombo. I went to EC on 22nd of October and stayed there 2 months till 22nd of December with two of my friends Iresha and Ruvini. First I would like to thank Mr. Mano Sekaram and Mr. Johann De Cruz for giving this opportunity to us.

Once I went to the EC I was bit scared to work because we didn’t know them and didn’t know much about Colombo. But they were very good and helped us every time. They were very friendly and we could work easily with them.

During those two months I learned a lot of things there. I saw how a company is running. I didn’t know how a company works. And I saw how people work together and teamwork. I got a chance to work with a team. We have many responsibilities when we are working with a team. There is a sport club at EC. At EC we designed their sports club website. We got helps from the EC employees too. Actually that was our main project at EC. We didn’t know how to handle project in correct way. We got lots of experiences doing this project. There is a method to do a project. First we should have a "kick-off meeting" and then we have to gather requirements. Then we have to draw Story Boards. After that we should design the main templates and develop the site. We followed this method and we succeeded.

We learned lots of software when we were doing the EC sports club website. We learned Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks, Macromedia Dreamweaver, CSS, Java Script, Macromedia Flash etc. And also we learned about Web servers, Internet and CMS.


I got a chance to participate in two special occasions. They were Christmas Party and year End Party. I didn’t have participated in a Christmas party before. I got a gift from Santa too and got lots of experiences. I was really happy to participate in Year End party too. And also I participated in a Table Tennis tournament too. I got a chance to play as well.

As I mentioned at EC we learned lots of things. Actually the employs are very good and very helpful. I should thank all of them for their kindness. Every time when we were at EC they were with us to take care and help.

And also I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Charles who gave us accommodations and foods. We stayed their house in Rajagiriya and we were very comfortable there. And also I should thank Mrs. Muththamma and her family for taking care of us and treating us well.

I forgot something to write in my story. I learned Table Tennis as well at EC. I was very keen to learn Table Tennis when they were playing. Ruvini, Iresha and me learned Table Tennis we used to play Table Tennis during our lunch time.

I got lots of experiences working at Eurocenter. And also I got lots of nice friends, helps for Eurocenter to learn things. I would like to thank again all of EC people for helping us and being nice friends. Thank you!

Pictures:

• Radhika Doing a Presentation (JPG)
• With the staff (JPG)

By Hemal Silva

Mahavilachchiya village is located 40 Km’s away from the city of Anuradhapura surrounded on three sides by the Vilpattu national park. Bus is the only public transport service available for the people of Mahavilachchiya. A very few individuals have their own modes transport like vans, threewheelers and motor bikes. Mahavilachchiya will become the first rural village to benefit from mesh technology. Mesh technology will at last give the whole community access to the internet from their homes.

Horizon Lanka Foundation has been actively working at a grassroots level, laying the groundwork for making this village a model E-Village. They began closing the information gap for this community by introducing the computer and giving basic computer lessons. over the years, one computer grew to a few more and more students took interest in this new technology. Horizon Lanka has already helped to furnish over 30 homes with used desktop computers and it still searching for 10 more donors to help families who have saved their half of the cost. By helping local families purchase computers through one of its most successful projects, more of the community began to familiarize itself with the concept of ICT, especially the children. The content of the computer training
provided by Horizon lanka began to become more expert and the children have been quick to grasp web-designing and graphic designing and now design and produce all Horizon Lanka Foundation related web sites. internet access for these rural villages will help to reduce isolation, provide education and economic opportunities and ultimately improve the quality of life.

Attachments:

• PDF version of the document (PDF)
  

I am Kamal Deshapriya Dissanayaka. I am 20 years old. I studied at St/ Joseph’s college Anuradhapura. I sat for the AL examination in 2006. I am a commerce student. While I am doing the AL, I had joined with Horizon Lanka. Through Horizon Lanka I could improve my English and computer knowledge well. First of all, I must thank Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka. Always he gave valuable advices to me. Actually, I can never forget that. Because of Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka I could get an opportunity to work in Microimage.

We had an interview on 22nd May 2007 at Microimage. For this interview seven members came from Horizon Lanka. After the interview, I was selected. I was very happy about that. That is a very special moment in my life. Because of Horizon Lanka now I am working in Microimage. Because of Horizon Lanka a lot of youth in Mahavilachchiya get good computer and English knowledge. I think Horizon Lanka is a real bonus for Mahavilachchiya people. Now everyone knows about importance of Horizon Lanka. Now many Sri Lankans and the world know about this Mahavilachchiya. Actually, I am proud of that.

Kamal Deshapriya Dissanayaka
(A Former Student of Horizon Lanka)

Links:

• HOW I GOT A JOB IN MICROIMAGE
• MicroImage

Original Link by a blogger at http://lankarising.blogspot.com/2007/11/tragedy-at-mahawilachchiya-e-village.html

Mahavilachchiya is a village in Anuradhapura, 245 km from Colombo which is surrounded by Vilpattu National Park from three sides and the children of Mahavilachchiya with Founder Mr Nandasiri Wanninayaka CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) are trying their best to make Mahavilachchiya a Model eVillage.

The village of Mahavilachchiya got Internet connections before the village got telephone connections thanks to Mesh technology, a project, donated by UNDP. Mahavilachchiya was selected as the testing ground for Mesh technology as it was the village with the highest density of computers.

Here farmers read online newspapers at home after a hard day’s work with the help of donated computers and Wifi-zones; children study English and IT after school and soon become computer geeks having their own blogs which has helped them, win laptops from donors.

Kumar is a Tamil living in Mahavilachchiya. He was born and bred, and had his primary education in Kalatththewa, Anuradhapura. Guided probably by fate Kumar happened to come to Mahavilachchiya to work at a shop, there he met Mangalika, a beautiful Sinhala village girl, and it was love at first sight. He settled down at Mahavilachchiya with Mangalika and continued to support his brothers and sisters from there.

Kumar missed his family, his childhood friends and many other things from his former life. But he could not leave his wife Mangalika, whom he loved dearly. So, for the last 30 odd years Kumar has been living in Mahavilachchiya.
Kumar liked reading a lot and he used to read all the Tamil newspapers he could get hold of before coming to Mahavilachchiya. But now it was very difficult to find a Tamil newspaper in Mahavilachchiya. One has to go to Anuradhapura for that. Kumar could not afford to make this trip very often. So even very reluctantly, he had to say goodbye to his favorite pastime, reading newspapers.

Then he found the answer, or to be more accurate, the remedy, for his loneliness with the advent of the mesh. His children, all of whom are students of Horizon Lanka Academy, were very excited about this great event. He was idly sipping a cup of tea, sitting close to his third daughter Krishanthi, who was browsing the internet. Suddenly Kumar jumped up shouting, “Wait, hold it there!” He had seen a web page written in Tamil, his mother tongue…!
This simple incident brought about one of the biggest changes in Kumar’s life. “I had not known that you could read Tamil newspapers over the internet.” He explained to me. “I know that was really stupid of me, I mean, with my kids using internet almost everyday at the Horizon Lanka for the past two years… They never told me about it earlier, may be because I did not ask them…” He laughed. Yes, Kumar laughs very often now, a happy Mangalika told me.

(BPO) operation, which is totally handled by youngsters who are not only fluent in English and Computer knowledge but also play squash and rugger. Mahavilachchiya is the first village to have a Business Process OutsourcingDr. Ashok Junjunwala of IIT India during his visit had suggested that Anuradhapura be made a BPO district with Mahavilachchiya as the base.

The people of Mahavilachchiya, especially the young generation of the village, with generous support from organizations and volunteers from all around the world have been developing new E culture in Sri Lanka which is highly regarded to be a role model for any developing country. They were innocent people depend on agriculture and their kids striving to excel in new technologies without loosing their inherent good qualities being in the village.

I was initially apprehensive about living with a village family but the warm welcome I received and the hospitality that continued throughout my stay soon appeased these fears. I was treated as one of the family, had my own room and everyone, especially the mother of the house, were always keen to hear my opinions on everything from my impressions of Sri Lanka to life in my own home country and what my favourite foods were.
- Fionnuala Woods’ Report on Horizon Lanka

However in November 26, the people of Mahavilacchiya mourned. Four civilians including a woman were murdered by Tiger terrorists. They have been working in their fields and terrorists have brutally killed them opening fire at them. It was the day LTTE terrorist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was celebrating his 53rd birthday and these brutal killings are to celebrate his blood hungry terrorist mission. Defense sources viewed this as an LTTE genocide attempt to cause fear among the villagers forcing them to flee their traditional lands.

The innocent but determined people of Mahavilachchiya have been striving to excel their lives without being burden to the country that they born. They were lucky enough to get the supporting hand from all over the world. However, terrorism can easily destroy hard built new culture within short period. This is crucial time that we should support these people. This time it is by supporting to fight against these blood hungry terrorists.

The breeding ground for terrorism is the ignorance and stupidity and Mahavilachchiya was striving for information and knowledge. In this sense, the attack on Mahavilachchiya E village is a well thought out birthday gift by its carders to Prabakaran. If the terrorists win, the great E-culture that has been developed will be end and it will become another breeding ground for brain washed goons with cyanide capsules in their neck looking for blood. That is why the whole world must support for the fight against terrorism regardless of it being in east or west.

Ref:
- LTTE terrorists kill 04 villagers including a woman - Anuradhapura (defence.lk, 11/27/2007)
- http://www.horizonlanka.org/
- http://mahavilachchiya.wordpress.com
- A Lovely Indian girl, Miss. Alisha Bhagat, visited Horizon Lanka, Mahavilachchiya
- Fionnuala Woods’ Report on Horizon Lanka
- Lonely lives ‘meshed up’ in Mahavilachchiya. The Happiest Man in Mahavilachchiya…!

Links:

• Lonely lives ‘meshed up’ in Mahavilachchiya.
• A Lovely Indian girl, Miss. Alisha Bhagat, visited Horizon Lanka
• ionnuala Woods’ Report on Horizon Lanka

Pictures:

• Map of Mahavilachchiya (JPG)
• A village girl with an Indian girl (JPG)
• Village kids at Horizon Lanka (JPG)

Leapfrogging Out of Poverty on IT
By Feizal Samath

Credit:Feizal Samath/IPS

MAHAVILACHCHIYA, Oct 26 (IPS) - In a north-central village, deep inside Sri Lanka’s backwoods, a young man is glued to a computer screen, pushing a mouse and filling in figures.

Isuru Senevirathna is entering data at Sri Lanka’s first Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) company set up in a village, and probably among the first in the world that is surrounded by tall trees, bird calls, paddy fields and streams.

"It’s nice to be able to do a job like this," the 20-year-old youth, operations director of OnTime Pvt. Ltd, told IPS..

BPO is a growing IT business which Sri Lanka has taken to quite capably. Dozens of companies are now springing up in Colombo as the world’s best corporations look for cost-effective ways of handling their back-office operations in countries where labour and communications are cheaper than in the West.

But OnTime’s setting, next to a wildlife park, and subject to the occasional threat by Tamil Tiger guerrillas, makes it unique. Mahavilachchiya lies 250 km north of Colombo and the fact that it is close to the ancient town of Anuradhapura is an added feature.

OnTime owes its existence to the vision of Nandasiri Wanninayaka (better known as ‘Wanni’), an English teacher-turned village entrepreneur. Except for its sylvan location it is no different from the rest of the BPO industry. It boasts of such clients as John Keells, Sri Lanka’ biggest conglomerate, and once the blinds are drawn and with air-conditioners running, it could well be an office in downtown Colombo.

OnTime operators log into an accounting system through a secured link and enter data like prices and inventories. Some 150 documents are handled by one operator per day. New client negotiating with OnTime include Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile phone operator, and Singer, a multinational known for its sewing machines.

"The BPO entry came as we needed to create job opportunities for our youngsters to remain in the village after their initial training in English and IT," said Wanni.

OnTime is a part of the ‘Horizon Lanka’ initiative launched by Wanni, while still a schoolteacher, in 1998. Starting off as an English teaching exercise for the children of rice farmers, its scope widened dramatically following the gift of a personal computer by the United States embassy.

From there the village quickly progressed into a centre of IT learning where one in every eight families now has a computer (a ratio of 100 computers for 800 families). Impoverished farmers are now reading online newspapers in their ramshackle homes with the help of seven wifi nodes set up using ‘MESH’ technology. The villages have wireless Internet access at all times.

Wanni and his Horizon Lanka exploits are legendary and have been profiled in newspapers and other media across the world. The IT village’s big moment came when Wanni and his best students shared the stage with Intel chairman Craig Barrett in December 2005, during the latter’s visit to Sri Lanka.

Wanni said the idea of setting up a BPO emerged as he pondered over the next stage of development. "Having taught English and then IT, the next issue was where do they get jobs? How can we retain them in the village?"

Enter the Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunities in Sri Lanka (FAROLanka) to help Horizon set up its BPO and find its first client. FARO’s help however comes with conditions -- Wanni’s support and guidance to help other villages develop on similar lines.

Sponsored by John Keells, OnTime staff received BPO training in Laos and India. For other Mahavilachchiya youngsters, the choice of careers is limited to joining the armed forces (in the case of girls it’s garment factories) or remain in the village as a farmer.

OnTime’s CEO Nirosh Manjula Ranathunga, a 30-year-old university graduate who studied IT while doing his commerce degree, lives in Anuradhapura and visits Horizon only twice a week as he says he can handle operations from his hometown easily over Internet.

Ranathunga is interested in transferring his skills and learning to other villages. "I joined Horizon Lanka two years ago as a project manager and am very happy with this BPO initiative," he said. Some 50 youths are now being trained to take up BPO jobs in Mahavilachchiya.

In a reversal of sorts, boys and girls from the cities are now visiting Horizon Lanka. "They come here to learn from us," said Wanni.

Because of their English speaking and writing skills, youngsters here are beginning to write software programmes for overseas companies and individuals earning foreign exchange. They have a far better future -- compared to youths from other villages -- as computer programmers, software programmers and in related jobs.

"This (OnTime) has helped us to take on the world from this small hamlet," says 24-year-old Chamila Priyadharshini. Currently in a state-sponsored teachers training course for English, Tamil (language of the biggest minority group) and Japanese, Priyadharshini says she wants to be a trained teacher in three years and spends her spare time teaching IT and English at the Horizon centre.

Replete with a modern gym, video and audio equipment and other electronic modern gadgetry the centre prepares youth for a life in the city, should they choose move out.

Wanni’s current target? ‘’I want to send at least one youngster from here to the prestigious MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the United States.’’

Links:

• Original Story in IPS

Pictures:

• This BPO team deep in the backwoods of Sri Lanka competes with (JPG)

Source: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/071021/FinancialTimes/ft301.html

MAHAVILACHCHIYA, Anuradhapura - Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) is a growing business globally which Sri Lanka has now cottoned onto quite capably.

Dozens of BPO’s are springing up here as global companies look for cost effective ways of handling their back-office operations in countries where labour and communications are cheaper than the west.

Yet ever heard of a BPO company in a jungle setting, next to a wild life park and subject to the occasional threat by the LTTE? OnTime Pvt Ltd is part of rural Sri Lanka’s first IT village, Horizon Lanka in the backwoods of Mahavilachchiya (adjoining Wilpattu) off Anuradhapura, where a group of youth processes data for a fee.

There is nothing different in the BPO industry in processing information inside the office of the client or the service provider located elsewhere. For example, staff at Mahavilachchiya’s proud company, OnTime, processing marketing data for a John Keells Group subsidiary daily could – if we close the curtains in this nice office surrounded by shady trees and occasional bird calls – very well be inside a JKH office in Colombo. There’s nothing different.

OnTime operators log into a JKH SAP accounting system through a secured link and enter data like prices and quality of suppliers. Some 150 documents are handled by one operator per day. Dialog Telekom and Singer are expected to join OnTime as its next clients with negotiations going on with the two parties.

“The BPO entry came as we needed to create job opportunities for our youngsters to remain in the village after their initial learning in English and IT,” said Nandasiri Wanninayaka (better known as ‘Wanni”), the village boy-English teacher-turned village entrepreneur.

Horizon Lanka, Sri Lanka’s first IT village, is a revelation itself. Launched by Wanni, as a Mahavilachchiya school teacher, in 1998, the initiative began as an English teaching exercise for the children whose parents were mostly rice farmers. From there with one computer donated by the US embassy, impressed by an English journal that the students did, the village has progressed to a centre of IT learning where one in every eight families has a computer (a ratio of 100 computers for 800 families).

Unheard of before but in these backwoods poor farmers are reading online newspapers in the comfort of their makeshift homes with uptodate computers with the help – unbelievable again – of seven wifi zones under a new technology called MESH. Here a section of the village amidst paddy fields and streams has wireless Internet access at all times.

Wanni and his Horizon Lanka exploits are legendary and profiled in newspapers and TV stations across the world. The IT village’s biggest opportunity probably came when Wanni and his best students shared the stage with Intel Chairman Dr. Craig Barrett in December 2005, during the latter’s visit to Sri Lanka and presence at a major IT conference.

The idea of setting up a BPO emerged as Wanni pondered on the next level of development. “Having taught English and then IT, the next issue was where do they get jobs? How can we retain them in the village?” he asked.

Enter the Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunities in Sri Lanka (FAROLanka) to help Horizon set up its BPO and find its first client. FARO’s help however comes with some conditions – Wanni’s support and guidance to help other villages to develop on similar lines which the latter and his team are more than willing to do.

Isuru Senevirathna is OnTime’s Operations Director. He has received BPO training – along with another OnTime employee – in Laos and India sponsored by John Keells.

The 20-year old youth like any other Mahavilachchiya youngster would have had to either join the armed forces (in the case of girls it’s garment factories) or remain in the village as a farmer, until Wanni and his vision came along. Now Isuru is the proud owner of a motor cycle, happy and contended.

OnTime CEO is Nirosh Manjula Ranathunga, a 30 year-old graduate from Kelaniya University who studied IT while doing his B.Com degree. Ranathunga, who lives in Anuradhapura and visits Horizon twice a week saying he can handle operations from his home town easily through email/Internet, is also interested in transferring his skills and learning to other villages. He has his own company, Real Business Solutions, and runs a formerly-owned Horizon Lanka cyber café in Anuradhapura.

“I joined Horizon Lanka two years ago as a project manager and I’am very happy with this BPO initiative,” he said. Some 50 youths are being trained to take up BPO jobs in Mahavilachchiya which has a modern computer lab with 512 KBPS Internet connection. The Horizon Lanka website is www.horizonlanka.org

Links:

• Sunday Times - Financial Times - Sri Lanka

Pictures:

• OnTime operators (JPG)

by Surekha Galagoda - Visit http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2007/10/21/fin21.asp

Mahavilachchiya, a village 245 kms from colombo is well known among locals and the international community as the first evillage and the village with the highest density of computers compared to any other village in Sri Lanka. Most parts of the village have broadband internet connectivity thanks to the hard work of the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) T. B. Nandasiri Wanninayaka.

Today it is the first village to have a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operation, which is totally handled by youngsters who are not only fluent in English and Computer knowledge but also play squash and rugger.

Wanni as he is popularly known has brought a smile to the youth of the village due to years of hard work and not accepting “No” for an answer. The concept of carrying out work for Colombo based and international companies from Mahavilachchiya was contemplated by Wanni even before the term BPO was widely known. Kapila Gunawardena based in the USA visited the HLF and seeing the potential of the youth wanted us to start a BPO operation, said Wanni.

John Keells was introduced to HLF by the Foundation for Advancing Rural Poverty (FARO). This saw the birth of the first BPO operation from rural Mahavilachchiya. The company On-Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd., the BPO Company based in Mahavilachchiya rents the facility and the IT infrastructure of Horizon Lanka Academy.

Nirosh Ranatunga, a graduate from the University of Kelaniya functions as the CEO while Isuru Seneviratne is a director. John Keells selected one of its subsidiaries Infomate Ltd. to pioneer the outsourcing of transaction processing to On-Time Ltd. John Keells selected Infomate Ltd as they are in the business of providing outsourced accounting service owing to the availability of a high volume of data intensive transactions and the familiarity with the outsourcing model.
Tripartite agreement

The JK strategic group IT division facilitated the setting up of the remote connectivity to JKH systems from Mahavilachchiya and the high internet links of On-Time facilitate data access and transaction processing. Once the secure connectivity was set up a tripartite agreement was signed between John Keells, On-Time Ltd and FARO in May 2007 and there has been no turning back since then.

Infomate transfers digitised images electronically to On-Time and they carry out the processing of invoices and document indexing based on the images. The outsourcing work for Infomate (Pvt) Ltd. is done from Mahavilachchiya using advanced communication technology. At present the operation is handled by four youth of Horizon Lanka Foundation while two are undergoing training at Infomate Ltd.

The staffers of On-Time said that they could break even when the two students join them after the training. At present each operator processes 150 invoices per day.

Nirosh Ranatunga said that a separate data link provided free by LankaCom, is used to connect Mahavilachchiya and JKH avoiding internet for a secured connectivity. Security tokens are being used to make the connectivity more secure but it creates high overheads since we have to pay a monthly rental for each token.

We use two software systems for the BPO operation which is SAP and BPO Mate. SAP is a client server software of which the client is installed at our site and our operators give user names and passwords to connect to the server at JKH.

The BPO Mate a web based system that we access via a web browser giving its URL. Separate user names and passwords are given to our operators for BPO Mate. This is used to retrieve images. The Speed of the datalink is 128 kbps.
Customer data

Wanni said that they have also signed a contract with Dialog Telekom to process customer data while FARO is in discussion with Singer as well.

He said that since JKH was their first client it was easy to get recognition and secure a client as JKH is well recognised.

Wanni said that creating jobs in the village has opened many opportunities for the youngsters, which were hitherto shut. Without the support and help of JKH and FARO we would not have achieved so much in such a short period of time, said a grateful Wanni.

He said that they would showcase this village as a model for teaching English and IT using modern technology. He said that technology should be accessible to all children be they in the village or city as all children are talented.

He said prior to this project being introduced girls joined garment factories while the boys joined the Armed Forces after completing their education. English and IT has opened a host of opportunities to these youngsters and expanded their horizon as the name implies.

Dr. Ashok Junjunwala of IIT India during his visit had suggested that Anuradhapura be made a BPO district with Mahavilachchiya as the base.

We as Sri Lankans should hope and pray that this becomes a reality sooner than later where every citizen can be proud of the youth of this country. During the training period Infomate takes the trainees through an induction program as well as a structured program in the processing of accounting transactions.

The Social Responsibility Foundation of John Keells also provides the trainees with accommodation during the training period.

The horizon Lanka Academy trains the students in Computers and English and now most of them are so tech savvy that they even have their own blogs, which has helped them, win laptops from donors.

The first lucky blogger to receive a laptop from Dr Ing. E. Leuthold of Switzerland was Tharanga Sampath. Among the other lucky winners are Ranuka Udayanga an 18-year-old Advanced Level student while the other was Hansi Sumedha (16), an O/L student.
Internet connections

The village of Mahavilachchiya got Internet connections before the village got telephone connections thanks to Mesh technology, a project, donated by UNDP. Mahavilachchiya was selected as the testing ground for Mesh technology as it was the village with the highest density of computers.

Hansi Sumedha said that her ambition is to become a doctor. She said, “Before I joined HLF I didn’t have any knowledge of English or computers. Thanks to the teachers of HLF now I have my own blog to which I write often. Most importantly I perform better than my classmates in school. She said that she could use her laptop to do presentations.
Her parents are farmers and she has two sisters.

Isuru Seneviratna, now a director of On-Time studied up to the GCE (O/L) in Mahavilachchiya and has been groomed by Wanni from grade four. He sat for his A/L examination in the Science stream from Nivaththaka Chethiya Vidyalaya Anuradhapura. Speaking of Wanni’s teaching methods, he said that he used innovative methods, which made them like the subject.

He was a lucky recipient of a BPO training program, which he underwent in Laos and India for three months. We were fortunate to be trained by David Paulson in Laos. “I got a whole new experience and thanks to that I am very much changed. He also gave us a good training in management.

“I gained a lot of experience at JKH, Laos and India and I don’t know what I would have done if this project was not initiated by Wanninayaka Sir,” said Seneviratne who will be celebrating his 20th birthday this week. His future plans are developing the company and moving to the management side, as that is his pet area.

Nirosh Ranatunga sharing his experience about Laos and India said that Laos is not as developed as our country.

The English knowledge is somewhat good but they have excellent systems while some team members are good in IT. Therefore they follow the systems and do big projects for clients even in the USA.

Ranatunga, a commerce graduate from the University of Kelaniya has done some software projects even while a student and now owns his own software development facility in Anuradhapura. Among his future plans are developing On-Time technologies as well as his private business.

U. B. Seetha, a 54-year-old grandmother of one of the students of Horizon Lanka Academy said that prior to this project nobody knew about computers. Thanks to this project our grandchildren are very knowledgeable and my grandson can even speak in English said the proud grandmother. We even got an opportunity of looking at a computer thanks to HLF and the HLA.

Horizon Lanka Foundation

Horizon Lanka Foundation (HLF) is a non profit organisation registered under the Companies Act of Sri Lanka. It has been operating since 1998 in Mahavilachchiya. The Horizon Lanka Foundation was set up in 1998 due to the determination of a group of children from the rural village of Mahavilachchiya.

Their thirst for knowledge and educational advancement led them to the door of Nandasiri Wanninayaka (now CEO of HL Foundation), their former English teacher in the public school.

Thus began an after school club providing children further education in English and computers.

It has become a popular place for many children of the village. Since 1998, the Horizon Lanka Foundation has branched out. As well as providing an all-round education to the village children at Horizon Lanka Academy, they have expanded into the Information Age and now service the entire community with their computer lab, which has 24 Internet access.

In 2001, the website www.horizonlanka.org was launched by the children of Horizon Lanka Academy, opening a window to the world. Horizon Lanka Foundation is also responsible for beginning a project, which is bringing PCs to the homes of the villagers of Mahavilachchiya. So far more than 30 homes have been furnished with a computer and this is increasing monthly.

Micro Scholarships is a project of the Horizon Lanka Foundation that aims to help deserving students in their education. Many capable students in rural Sri Lanka are forced to interrupt their schooling because of financial difficulties.

Links:

• Sunday Observer - Sri Lanka

Pictures:

• Students at a session (JPG)

Visit this video clip on YouTube about how Horizon Lanka could connect 28 houses and 2 public schools with Internet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSNrD6lYfTI

Links:

• Video Clip - English
• Video Clip - Sinhala
• The day we 'Meshed up' Mahavilachchiya

Pictures:

• Mesh Antenna (JPG)
• A student using Internet from home (JPG)
• Mesh Internet tower (JPG)

Buddhika Prasanna Kumara, one of the youngest bloggers in Horizon Lanka Academy has reached 3000+ hits to his blog by today. This is the most number of hits any of the Horizon Lanka student or a staff member has got so far. Buddhika joined blogsphere only on 6th May, 2007. Others had started blogs few months earlier to Buddhika. He was not one of those kids who wrote essays a lot earlier and it was due to blogging he is improving his writing. He was not the brightest in his class either. He was one of the slowest and laziest for academic activities. But blogging has made him keener in academic affairs.

The first thing Buddhika does in a morning is checking the number of hits and moderating comments he has received. He keeps checking the number of hits and comments and writes more and more small essays. This clearly shows that blogging can improve language skills of the students in a dramatic way. We think other students in Sri Lanka also should start blogging and improve English. You can encourage these kids by visiting their blogs and sending comments.

Links:

• Blog Story
• Buddhika Prasanna's log

Pictures:

• buddhika.jpg (JPG)

“However, now I am 19 years old and I am confident that we can do something for our village from the knowledge we gained during a period of about nine years from Horizon Lanka.” An article written by Isuru Senevirathna, Horizon Lanka Foundation,

Sri Lanka isuru@horizonlanka.org - July 2007 | Vol. V No. 7 | www.i4donline.net

‘Horizon Lanka’, the model for taking ICT to the rural villages, is a famous word in Sri Lanka. It is also receiving international recognition. In fact, we never thought of creating a model to take ICT to the rural villages. First, we only wanted to develop our village. For this, we had a great hero to guide us. He is Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka, our English teacher since 1998. I was 11 years old then.

Mr. Nandasiri was teaching us English in a public school of my village. His teaching method was able to attract us to the subject, although English was a subject hated by most children. Before Mr. Nandasiri it was difficult to learn, as we did not have a teacher who could teach us in a better way. But, Mr. Nandasiri managed to turn the tables. While we were continuing studies, our elder brothers and sisters started a journal called ‘The Horizon’. We wrote stories to that journal and Mr. Nandasiri photocopied them from the nearest town, which is 40 kilometers away from my village. By a stroke of good luck, the US embassy found out about the journal through an article which was written by Mr. Gamini Akmeemana for a public English newspaper in Sri Lanka. The US embassy helped us with a 486 model computer and a dot-matrix printer, along with some computer books.

Mr. Nandasiri started teaching us about computers with the knowledge he gained from reading those books, as he himself did not have enough knowledge about computers. Each student got 5 minutes to operate the computer under Mr. Nandasiri’s guidance. This was a fantastic experience for us children of poor farmers.

With Nandasiri sir’s leaving public school, we were really sad since nobody could do Nandasiri sir’s job there. We did not give up our way. We got together as a team and talked him to arrange an English class for us. He accepted our request and started the class under a huge mango tree in his garden. And we did not forget to continue the journal too. A family called Gaminitillake donated a used computer to our English class and we stared a website with their help and uploaded it from the town. Through the website, we got a big publicity throughout the world. It was a big revolution of us. Lot of donors came to us and helped to improve our English and computer knowledge. Eventually we could build a small computer room with the support of donors and the capacity of our parents. This was our journey……

Today we have a modern computer Lab that was donated by Mr & Mrs. Charles. And we could build a tower to connect to the Internet from our village since we had to travel 80 kilometers up and down to access internet from the nearest city ‘Anuradhapura’.

However, now I am 19 years old and I am confident that we can do something for our village from the knowledge we gained during a period of about nine years from Horizon Lanka.

About ten months ago, I realised one of the dream, in my life. I could travel to two countries for a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) training. I never had been out from this small island. But I was lucky to travel to Laos and New Delhi in India with the sponsorship of ICT Agency of Sri Lanka. During that training, we could see practically their operations and the way a BPO company meets the clients’ demand, on time with good quality. Eventually we ended the training and returned to Sri Lanka with the mind of starting our BPO Company in Mahavilachchiya. After a training period of three months, we had an opportunity to start a BPO company in rural Mahavilachchiya village. A foundation called FARO (Foundation for Advancing Rural Opportunities) is helping us in the initial stage to run the company. Already we have started the company named OnTime Technologies (Pvt) Ltd. John Keells is a major client of us.

We also are discussing with Dialog Telekom Ltd. and Singer Sri Lanka to get some more work for our youth. Around 50 youths are being trained to take up BPO jobs from Mahavilachchiya. Mahavilachchiya has very good infrastructure like a modern computer lab with 512 KBPS internet connection, 50 computers in the village households - 30 of them are connected to Internet through mesh technology - and 7 Wi-Fi zones in the village where you can use your laptops. Through our company, we are offering job opportunities for the youths in the village. This is a big revolution in the village and we are happy to say. This is what we wanted to do. However, we could do it. Now we are using same Horizon Lanka building and Horizon Lanka equipments. In the future, we hope to develop our company as the largest BPO company in Sri Lanka and build a huge building and develop as an our owned company. Nirosh Manjula, who trained with me in Laos and India and I am running this company.

I take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped us to success this journey.

Horizon Lanka Foundation

The Horizon Lanka Foundation was established in 1998 because of the determination of a group of children from the rural village of Mahavilachchiya. Their thirst for knowledge and educational advancement led them to the door of Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka (now CEO of HL Foundation), their former English teacher in the public school. Thus began an after school club providing children further education in English and computers. It has become a popular place for many children of the village. Since 1998, the Horizon Lanka Foundation has branched out. As well as providing an all round education to the village children at Horizon Lanka Academy, they have expanded into the Information Age and now service the entire community with their computer lab, which has 24h Internet access. In 2001, the website www.horizonlanka.org was launched by the children of Horizon Lanka Academy, opening a window to the world.

HLF is also responsible for beginning a project, which is bringing PCs to the homes of the villagers of Mahavilachchiya. So far more than 30 homes have been furnished with a computer and this is increasing monthly. MicroScholarships is a project of the Horizon Lanka foundation that aims to help deserving students in their education. Many capable students in rural Sri Lanka are forced to interrupt their schooling because of financial difficulties. MicroScholarships ensure that every child covered under the scheme gets a quality education and a happy childhood. Under it, volunteers offer financial assistance that gives the child a small amount of money every month. The efforts, funded purely by kind donations and sponsorship, are now providing over 160 students of the village with computing skills, access to the Internet, PCs in their homes, an Academy to improve their education specializing in ICT and English and most importantly, giving the children and community fresh hope for their futures.

Links:

• OnTime BPO's Blog

Pictures:

• Young people being trained for BPO work (JPG)
• Youth working at the OnTime BPO (JPG)
• Young CEO of OnTime BPO (JPG)

Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold from Switzerland contacted Horizon Lanka Foundation through email last April and informed us that he is willing to provide a brand new laptop for one of our students. Horizon staff selected Tharanga Sampath, a brilliant student at Horizon Lanka Academy. Visit his blog http://tharangasampath.wordpress.com/ to know more about him. Now Tharanga proudly owns a Windows Vista installed brand new laptop.
We thank Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold a lot for this generous donation. Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold has already promised to send two more laptops for the next two best students at Horizon Lanka Academy.

Lak Saviya Foundation was involved in coordinating with the donor in Switzerland - Dr. Ing. E. Leuthold - and Horizon Lanka for the purchase and delivery of the laptop computer. Lak Saviya managed to liaise with the donor and the recipient (through Horizon Lanka) for selecting an appropriate Acer laptop from Sydney, Australia that fits within the budget of the donor and suitable for the end user – a digital butterfly in Mahavilachchiya village. Lak Saviya purchased the computer in Sydney and hand delivered it to Horizon Lanka. We thank Lak Saviya for their generous assistance to us in this regard.

Following are the testimonials from two staff members about Tharanga.

“Tharanga has been showing a keen interest in Horizon affairs for the past few months since he rejoined the HLF after his three month English course at Kekirawa. He also scored good results from the GCE (0/L) 2006. He has not only successfully designed and maintained the fist ever student blog at Horizon Lanka but also has taught it to most of his friends and junior students of Horizon Lanka Academy. I recently gave him the responsibility of handling ICT lessons for juniors and he has so far been doing it to my fullest satisfaction. Further he has the good quality of fulfilling whatever duty is assigned to him, with a great deal of preparation and devotion. He is at the moment in charge of the computer lab and most of the authorities say that he is clever and duty-conscious.”

Ranjith Pushpakumara - Head Master - Horizon Lanka Academy

“In 2002, when I was visiting Horizon first time, several small children could keep my attention to them. Tharanga Sampath is one of them and who has been attending to Horizon Lanka Academy yet to absorb any thing to be a genius.

In fact, Tharanga improved his knowledge because of his dedication and enthusiasm rather than his skills. It is a challenging task and he could win that in many times. He was not skillful person in mathematics. But he could pass it because of his dedication. Many times he was the only person who did home work on time.

Tharanga could become familiar with blog designing easily and he designed his personal blog before any other student in Horizon Lanka Academy. As I think it is not the most important evidence to prove his good qualities. He got together with others and helped them to make their own blog. He sacrificed his sleeping times for his friends.

As I feel Tharanga takes the top in respecting teachers and loyalty to the Academy. He doesn’t refuse any assignments given by teachers and tries to do it on his maximum. Horizon Lanka Academy does not belong to one person. It is a property of several people. Most of the shares belong to students. It is their property. Senior students should use their experience to guide junior students. Tharanga has understood it.

Tharanga’s parents are loyal to the Academy as well. His father participated for many Sramadana campaigns and almost all the parents’ meeting.

Tharanga can contribute his knowledge to give some credits to the foundation in the future.”

Buddhika Prasad Hettiarachchi, Director – Horizon Lanka Foundation

Pictures:

• Tharanga Sampath with the laptop (JPG)