It is time Sri Lanka goes digital and the time is right now!

Hoping to digitally transform Ministry of Youth & Sports operations and Open to your suggestions.

We are now into our second year with the COVID-19 pandemic which still continues to wreck havoc, by forcing countries into lockdowns and bringing economies on standstills. Just when Sri Lanka was barely raising its head this year did the pandemic strike us again, this time with a new variant which is claiming lives at a faster pace and has now become airborne.

The world now has to accept to live with this new virus and adjust in a ‘new normal’ lifestyle. We now need to look at ways where we can continue our lives without being caught to the virus and continue our livelihoods. It will be tough but it is a challenge the world has to accept and a victory which we should work towards.

This is why, the time is now right for me to launch my latest project, and that is to make “Sri Lanka go digital”. At a time when almost everything seems to have gone virtual, my team and I have been working on digitalizing the Sports and Youth Ministry where several of its projects will be made available digitally so that we make the process more transparent, cut down on the red tape and have the public access it more easily.

Since I elected as the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs last year, my aim was to work towards digitalizing and digitally transform most of the manual practices. Digital transformation is a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.

Several developed countries have already gone digital but the time is now rife for Sri Lanka to adapt to this same policy as well.

Some of the proposals we have received through #DYSL, that is Digitalize Youth Sri Lanka, is to automate job applications, projects done by the youth ministry, having information available digitally on the government’s village program — the task force which I am heading — and also connecting it all to the AG’s divisions and Pradeshiya offices through a digital platform. The aim of doing this is to have more youth participation in all levels in order to gain more ideas to strengthen our projects as well as make the processes more transparent and user-friendly for all so that corruption can end and equal opportunities would be available for all.

We are looking at a modern Sri Lanka so we believe the youth ministry is the ideal stepping stone for this because at the moment we have more than 350,000 youth involved directly with the youth council. And we are looking at reducing the unemployment rate at least to a single digit. Through the digital platform we are also looking at creating more entrepreneurs, strengthen the farming, fisheries, fertilizer sectors where orders can be placed directly through the digital platform which can cut down on corruption and benefit the producers directly.

In the coming weeks, I am also looking at digitalizing the sports ministry, where all sports acts, and future events will go digital where there will be public participation in all what we decide and launch.

Also not mere systems, special component of digitization as a country is digital currency.The USD to Bitcoin exchange rate has exceeded the price of gold. The bitcoin craze is unprecedented, and many people and countries are trying to capitalize on it. Including India, acknowledge the new world that is being brought about by the digital currency. The emerging markets are making sure that they include bitcoin in their National strategic plans. Thus we as a country need to look at ways and plans to establish Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in to the mainstream financial system.

I firmly believe that the way forward under a digital Sri Lanka is to have as much public participation as possible which will help us strengthen our future ventures as well as make the entire process transparent.

I invite you all to please give us your ideas on how we can strengthen this process and how each one of you can contribute towards digitalizing the nation. You all can reach out through the Ministry of Youth affairs or its social media handles as well as my social media handles.

It is time Sri Lanka goes digital and the time is right now. Stay safe.