by Vajeendra S Kandegamage, Chairman-NBQSA 2008

The National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) competition is an annual event organized by the British Computer Society Sri Lanka (BCSSL) Section. The competition serves to showcase and benchmark Sri Lankan ICT products, which fulfills a much needed requirement of the software industry in this highly competitive globalised economic structure. The competition has been conducted by the BCS Sri Lanka Section since 1998 to recognize and honor significant technological developments in the software industry.
 
The avowed objectives of the NBQSA competition are threefold. To provide  recognition to outstanding achievements of individuals and organizations in Sri Lanka who/which have contributed to the development  of  ICT., to create  a window to gain international recognition for locally developed  ICT products and to improve standards and the quality of local ICT products and services to be able to compete in the international market place.
 
Since 2003 the NBQSA has been tied up with International Awards programmes such as the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), and the World Information Technology Summit (WITSA) Awards.
 
The NBQSA 2008 competition marks the 10th successive year of recognizing Sri Lankan ICT products. It will cover 15 categories of ICT products and projects. The competition for 14 commercial categories and the Tertiary Student Project category make up the category list. 40 Commercial category products and 70 tertiary Students projects were evaluated at tenth 2008 NBQSA.
 
The commercial category competition is open to any Sri Lankan organization, group or individual which/who has/have developed ICT products within Sri Lanka. The Tertiary category is open to students from Sri Lankan Tertiary Education Institutions.
 
The judges for the competition have been selected based on their knowledge of ICT and expertise in the fields they are judging. Each Award Category will be judged by a separate Panel of Judges. Gold, Silver and Bronze awards will be presented in each category if the entries meet required standards. Award winners will be eligible to participate at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) 2008 to be held in Jarkartha from 11h to 15th November 2008. The NBQSA 2008 culminates in a fabulous awards night/gala dinner on 17th October 2008 at Water’s Edge, Battaramulla, Sri Lanka.