ICTA promotes quality software
14th October 2009
As part of this move ICTA will partner at national level with the National Best Quality Software Award (NBQSA) competition.
The National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) competition is an annual event organised by the British Computer Society Sri Lanka (BCSSL) Section.
ICTA, being the apex body mandated for making the benefits of ICT accrue to the people under the e-Sri Lanka initiative realises the role of quality software. In implementing 'e-Sri Lanka' as a national development initiative, ICTA tries to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to make people's lives more comfortable and quality software is pivotal in this endeavour.
The objective of the e-Sri Lanka initiative is to help people by developing the economy of Sri Lanka by the use of ICT. This leads to the reduction of poverty and improvement of the quality of people's lives. ICTA aims at carrying out its role in the 'e-Sri Lanka' development initiative by harnessing ICT as a lever for economic and social advancement and taking the dividends of ICT to every village, citizen and business and to re-engineer the way Government thinks and works.
The competition serves to showcase and benchmark Sri Lankan ICT products, which fulfils a much needed requirement of the software industry in this highly competitive globalist economic structure.
This year the National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) will be presented to the winners of the NBQSA 2009 competition at a ceremony at the Waters' Edge Hotel on October 16. The objectives of NBQSA competition come within the scope of the e-Sri Lanka initiative.
Source: ITPro
Recognizing exceptional local ICT talent since 1998
22nd July 2009
CEO Microimage (Pvt) Ltd. Harsha Purasinghe receiving the Overall Gold Award for NBQSA 2008 from Chief Guest John Orton, Membership Director, BCS - UK
BCS Sri Lanka section in association with British Computer Society (UK) proudly announces the 11th Anniversary of NBQSA competition, which is the only National competition of its type in Sri Lanka to recognize exceptional local ICT achievements and honor the significant technological advancements in the country.
Since 1998 NBQSA has afforded opportunities to individuals and organisations, having made outstanding contribution to the development of ICT Industry in Sri Lanka, to display and benchmark their products. Over the years the event itself has grown in recognition and prestige, both locally and internationally. Today, NBQSA “Seal of Excellence” is regarded as acknowledged symbol of achievement, and serves as a vessel to gain international recognition for locally developed ICT products, enabling them to successfully compete in the global market. Thus this year NBQSA serves to being a new boon for the software industry in Sri Lanka after the crucial impact caused by recession in the global economic structure.
The 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.
This year NBQSA 2009 competition will cover 16 categories of ICT products and projects ranging from Application & Infrastructure Tools to In House Applications. In addition to that BCS Sri Lanka section is proud to announce the addition of a new category this year in which the best application developed using Microsoft products and Open Source products would be awarded. The Tertiary category is open to students from Sri Lankan Tertiary Education Institutions. Gold, Silver and Bronze awards will be presented in these categories provided that there are winners in these categories.
The judging panel would comprise of industry experts who have been selected based on their ICT knowledge and experience from diverse disciplines such as IT, Engineering, Management, Accounting, Marketing etc. who come from both the Private sector and the Academia. The Judges are appointed adhering to strict criteria and conditions to ensure unbiased and objective evaluation as well as strict confidentiality.
The NBQSA Overall Gold winners for the past three years are Microimage Mobile Media (Private) Ltd for their “Microimage for vStation “ in 2008; Affno (Pvt) Ltd. for their “Expenditure Management System” in 2007; and Dialog Telekom Ltd., Microimage (Pvt) Ltd. and University of Moratuwa collectively for their “Disaster and Emergency Warning Network” in 2006.
NBQSA winners become automatically eligible for the Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), an International Awards Program initiated to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the Digital Divide. Sri Lanka won the first ever APICTA Gold in 2006 when Nuwan Senaratna from University of Colombo School of computing (UCSC) presented his project on Automatic Music Composition (AMC) beating 78 entries in the Tertiary category and in 2007 too Sri Lanka was able to sustain the Gold when students from SLIIT presented their Tripwire Project. In 2008 creating a milestone in Sri Lankan software industry Sri Lanka won two gold awards in APICTA and the first ever golden award for Sri Lanka in the Financial Category of the competition was won by Epic Lanka (PVT) Ltd exceeding nations such as Australia, China from East to Pakistan from West through South & South East Asian countries, and Ganindu Nanayakkara of Ananda College Colombo brought glamour by winning the Gold award for his Project “The Watch” . This year APCTA is sheduled to be held in Australia.
NBQSA Mini Events consist of NBQSA Launch and calling for Applications on 17th July 2009, Nominees’ Briefing on 04th August 2009, Judges’ Briefing on 06th August 2009 and the Gala Awards Ceremony on 16th October 2009.
The competition is open to organisations, groups and individuals in Sri Lanka for locally designed and developed ICT products. Applications can be obtained from Harsha, Coordinator, BCS Secretariat, No. 51, Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha, Colombo 7 (Tel: 0112665261/2), or downloaded from :
The application closing date has been extended to 31st July 2009
Source: Daily mirror
NBQSA Awards for Local ICT talent
06 July 2009
National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) 2009, the 11th Annual NBQSA competition was announced recently by the BCS Sri Lanka section, in association with the British Computer Society (UK). NBQSA is the only national competition in Sri Lanka recognising and honouring exceptional local ICT achievements and significant technological advancements in the country. Since 1998, the NBQSA has given opportunities to individuals and organisations that have made outstanding contributions to the development of the ICT Industry in Sri Lanka, to display and benchmark their products. Over the years, the event itself has grown in recognition both locally and internationally. Today, it serves as a vessel to gain international recognition for locally developed ICT products, enabling them to successfully compete in the global market.
'This year's NBQSA specially hopes to bring some relief to the software industry in Sri Lanka, which is still fighting to overcome the impact of the global economic crisis' said Vajeendra Samanpriya, Chairman of the NBQSA Organising Committee and Member of the BCS Sri Lanka Executive Committee. This year NBQSA 2009 competition will cover 16 categories of ICT products and projects ranging from Application and Infrastructure Tools to In House Applications, with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards being presented to winners in each category. In addition, the BCS Sri Lanka section is proud to announce the addition of a new award category this year, where the best application developed using Closed Source and Open Source products would be recognised. The Tertiary category is open to students from Sri Lankan Tertiary Education Institutions. Each year, the judging panel is selected based on their ICT knowledge and experience from diverse disciplines such as IT, Engineering, Management, Accounting and Marketing. It would include persons from both the private sector and the academia, selected to ensure unbiased and objective evaluation as well as confidentiality. Samanpriya invited local ICT innovators to take part and win opportunity for international recognition through Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), an International Awards Programme initiated to increase ICT awareness in the community and assist in bridging the Digital Divide. The NBQSA events schedule commences with the launch and call for applications on the 17th of July, with the nominees' and judges' briefings to be held on 4th and 6th of August respectively and concluding with the Gala Awards Ceremony on 16th of October 2009.
