Before the digital era, social listening meant physically meeting your customers and listening to what they had to say. Then it took the form of feedback forms. But today, more than 4.5 billion use the internet, with 3.8 billion of them on social media. Today knowing what your customers say about you on social media has become important as ever. ...
Over the past few months, many of us became familiar with PickMe. As businesses shuttered due to islandwide curfews aimed at mitigating the spread of the coronavirus, the ride-hailing service transformed into a vital lifeline. Starting off by delivering gas cylinders, the company swiftly transformed its operations to deliver groceries and other essential items. Now with several restrictions being eased, ...
With the aim of helping the efforts to fight COVID-19 in Sri Lanka, the IEEE Student Branch of the University of Peradeniya recently organized “versusCOVID”. This is a competition with a focus on all Sri Lankans and one that takes the form of a hackathon. versusCOVID aimed to be a platform to minimize the impact of this pandemic outbreak in ...
Among the many challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon us, the disruption to learning has been among the most pressing. We’ve previously covered how much of the education sector has moved its activities online at the tertiary and school levels. Technology has served as a means of continuity for educators. Yet, these solutions are not perfect. Recognizing the challenges ...
The internet has changed every aspect of our lives. Yes, that is a heavy understatement. But it’s a truth that nobody can deny. Each time telecom operators increased our speeds, as with the transition from 3G to 4G, this change was accelerated. As seen in the past decade with the rise of social media, ride-hailing, video streaming, and more, the ...
The coronavirus pandemic has identified the weakest link in our society – people. Governments and corporations are struggling to keep things going with social distancing and work-from-home programmes being enforced. Very few organizations are set up to operate remotely. Only a few types of organizations like technology companies have managed to maintain a modicum of operation during this unprecedented crisis. ...
It should come as no surprise that cybersecurity risks have surged during the past couple of months. Given that many continue to work from home, the internet has also witnessed a steep uptick in traffic in recent times. This in turn leaves many, if not all, at risk as our digital lives consume the bulk of our time. Even in ...
So what’s Redeem? Simply put it’s Sri Lanka’s premier deals and discounts platform catering to verticals such as restaurants, hotels, salons, spas, events, travel etc. Basically, “if there’s anything that you want to do, and you want to do it at a discount, just use Redeem,” says Vidusha De Silva, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Redeem. After all, who would want ...
Let’s get real about pitching. Investors will pay attention to your presentation only if they think that it will add value. In fact, you’ve only got the first 30 seconds to tempt them, and the first 15 minutes to prove it to them. This is why some great ideas never attract investors while some half-baked or even fake ones attract ...
Shifting away from traditional methods of learning in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) paired with a pandemic, is changing models of education utilized by Sri Lankan schools. Students across the island are experiencing learning in digital spaces – a world of education once unfamiliar to previous generations. Despite the unfamiliarity with the “new-age” technology unencountered by humankind ...
On Wednesday, May 13, Issuing a statement via The Presidential Office Media communique, Sri Lanka’s technocratic President Gotabaya Rajapaksa instructed officials to start work on a digital database of citizens. This database will have their bio-data and will link all activities connected to a person including income tax and voting. “Individual bio-data could be viewed physically as well as through ...
For the longest time, a big part of Sri Lankan tech culture were its many events. Across Colombo, whether it was at a coworking space, office, or hotel, there was always someone organizing a tech event. Then like everything else COVID-19 happened and froze everything. However, many of the events quickly shifted online taking the form of webinars by utilizing ...
COVID 19 has upended our world and the way we work. Using meeting technologies and collaboration tools was for most parts a way to support our main work tasks. But today and post-COVID 19, the same technology has become ‘the way we work’. With many countries locking down their cities and businesses, companies were forced to adopt work from home ...
In the wake of an unprecedented global pandemic, the world is in chaos, fear has taken over and people are disoriented. Society, however, is making an effort to stay afloat, learn new skills and stay connected. Digital platforms like Zoom, infrequently used previously, have emerged as strong facilitators of this. Even here in Sri Lanka, you’ll find signs of this ...
What does life after curfew have in store for us all? All of us are preparing for a long-awaited return to ‘normalcy’ or at least the expected ‘new normal’ to kickstart the economy. Yet, the unprecedented crisis at hand requires us to keep in mind safe hygiene practices and precautions when re-entering our work environments. In hopes of rebuilding a ...
Business owners have a duty of care to look after the health and safety of their employees and customers. Until a vaccine is created and distributed to everyone, which could be 18-24 months away, it is vital that we all take precautions to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Although working from home has become standard during the pandemic, it ...
In the realm of Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), hSenid Business Solutions is a local pioneer. At its inception, the company was among the 1st to introduce true HR systems to Sri Lanka. Today, the company has grown tremendously with offices in 6 countries. Likewise, its products have evolved greatly to empower several large organizations both locally and internationally. Recently, ...
The business world has changed a lot in the past few months and will no doubt continue to change rapidly in the coming months. It’s highly unlikely that things will ever get back to how things were before Covid-19. The challenge facing virtually every single business today is the burning question, “Can your business adapt fast enough to survive?” Survival ...
Sri Lanka as a country has been doing quite well in the telecom sector in the past few years. According to the International Telecommunications Union, Sri Lanka was the cheapest for mobile cellular services in the Asia Pacific region for 2016. In the same year, the island was also ranked at 35 for post-paid computer-based mobile broadband and 43 for ...
It has now been over a month since the islandwide curfew was declared. Like many other countries, Sri Lanka too followed the strategy of a strict lockdown to keep the coronavirus at bay. Almost overnight, it forced several businesses to adapt to their employees working from home. However, with each passing day, the challenges are multiplying. In turn, forcing entrepreneurs ...
