Guru.lk – Digital Educational Platform – learn anywhere anytime

Guru will revolutionize the distance education in Sri Lanka

Guru.lk - learn anywhere anytime

Children go online for various reasons, but most of the time those reasons do not add any value for those who go online. But they can’t be blamed for just wasting time, money and international bandwidth as they are digital consumers with very little choice.  

Guru.lk has been launched as a solution to the dearth of enriching educational online content here in Sri Lanka. System is open for anyone who wants to learn and users can pay for the services they consume through Dialog “Add to Bill”, eZ Cash or Credit Cards.

Current focus is on Ordinary Level (O/L) examination and students can register for following courses by just visiting www.guru.lk or sending a SMS with course code to 445.

Code	Subject	Medium Conducted	Daily Rental	Monthly Rental
33000	Spin Bowling by Rangana Herath	Sinhala/English	LKR 04.00	LKR 240.00
11001	O/L Science Revision	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11002	O/L Maths Revision	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11003	O/L English Revision	English	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11004	O/L Art	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11005	O/L Sinhala	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11006	O/L History	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11007	O/L Tamil	Tamil	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11008	O/L Business & Accounting Studies Revision	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11009	O/L History Revision	Sinhala	LKR 03.00	LKR 100.00
11010	O/L IT Fitness Test	English	One-time LKR 50.00

-Sameera.

Nenasa TV Launches Two New Educational Channels

Nenasa TV, the satellite based television channel developed to bridge the education gap between urban and rural Sri Lanka took a bold new leap today with the launch of two channels covering Grade 10 and Grade 11 curriculum respectively in the presence of Hon. President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Tangalle Ruhunu Wijayaba National School. Based upon the content developed by the National Institute of Education (NIE) under the direction of the  Ministry of Education (MoE) which has so far connected over 2000 schools, “Nenasa” will provide these new channels initially to 1000 “Mahindodaya” schools.

The Nenasa programme was developed under the Mahinda Chinthanaya education plan to address the disparity of access to knowledge between urban and rural Sri Lanka through ICT (Information Communication Technology). Dialog Television, a satellite-based broadcaster, is a subsidiary of Dialog Axiata.  A satellite based system has almost no geographical limitations to deliver crystal clear content from the heavens, making it an ideal medium to deliver distance learning across the island.

Launched in 2009, the programme has so far gone on to connect over 2000 schools and future plans will encompass many more schools.

The state of the art satellite based distance education programme is operated by the Ministry of Education, while a high quality telecast edition of the national education curriculum for Ordinary Level students is developed by the National Institute of Education (NIE). The content is currently developed in Sinhala medium. The developed curriculum is transmitted to the rural school network via Dialog Television.

Dialog 5 Star Partner - Mobile for Development (m4D)

5 Star Partner Hoarding in Ampara Town (Eastern Sri Lanka)

Dialog Axiata’s “5 Star Partner” programme extends the company’s reach to customers in rural areas by way of “Infomediaries” – Information Intermediaries. This exclusive corps of highly trained and carefully selected independent rural entrepreneurs enables Dialog to improve customers’ lives by reducing costs and delays in accessing services, as well as by opening up access to life-enhancing mobile services many currently do not fully utilize.

Dialog Infomediary Initiative (DII) – under the theme of Inclusive Business (IB), Dialog Axiata PLC has developed a robust business case to empower communities at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) and is desirous of establishing a Social Enterprise Retail Network through an initiative known as “Dialog 5 Star Partner” to bridge the last-mile in its downstream value chain. The envisaged 5 Star Network is to build an innovative and non-traditional ‘Infomediary Network’ that relies on social entrepreneurs (information intermediaries) to reach consumers at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).

5 Star Partners receive significant investment and support from Dialog to position them as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) or to be specific, Mobile for Development (m4D) ambassadors in their villages. Dialog is working towards placing 1000 "5 Star Partners" across rural Sri Lanka within 2012 with the support of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and GSM Association (GSMA). A third of all 5 Star Partners are located in the North and East of the country which were worst-affected by civil conflict, and where Dialog was the first MNO to re-establish coverage.

Dialog acknowledges that communities that are segmented at varying levels of e-readiness require creative business models to reach each segment effectively. Low income communities that are geographically isolated display lowest levels of e-readiness and are at the receiving end of the Digital Divide continuum. To date Dialog has made significant progress in fulfilling the various components of the "5 Star" ecosystem and is currently poised to roll out a trial "5 Star Partner Initiative" encompassing 1000 tier three retailers equally distributed across Sri Lanka. Dialog has invested resources in building complementary services such as Rural Value Added Services (VAS) and charging mechanisms to serve the needs of the poor through the 5 Star Partner network.

Dialog 5 Star Partner Network in Sri Lanka

-Sameera.

Dialog tradenet won WSA Mobile Gold Award in the m-Inclusion Category

Buying awards, stealing awards, organizers giving awards to themselves is common all around the world today. Some awards are given for some reason to product or service which has no use/users.

Anyway, Dialog tradenet won WSA Mobile Gold award under the m-Inclusion category. Is tradenet really inclusive service?

Yes, it is an inclusive trade information exchange which has converged multiple access technologies such as USSD, SMS, WAP, Voice (IVR/Call Centre) and Web (www.tradenet.lk), to reach all the socio-economic segments in Sri Lanka.

The World Summit Award Mobile is a global initiative within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIDO and the United National Global Alliance for ICT and Development (ICT4D).

Commenting on Sri Lanka’s success at the WSA, Secretary to H. E. the President, and Chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation and of the UN-ESCAP Committee of ICT Experts for Asia & Pacific, Lalith Weeratunga, said;

“The World Summit Award for Dialog Tradenet is a testimony to the significant changes taking place in our country. The empowerment, Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) deliver to people, changes their lives and presents unprecedented opportunity for growth. This is why ICT and Access to Information are key pillars of the rapid development and expansion roadmap laid out by the government in the Mahinda Chinthana. As a government, we are thoroughly committed to making ICT an important part of our development story, and we will relentlessly support its growth and exploitation”.

-Sameera.

New Businesses for the Sustainability of Telecentres

“My farther reads the news paper online, now he does not want to buy the papers” – some anecdotes tries to prove that Telecentres are fully integrated with rural societies and they depend on the Telecentres for various services.

In fact, if a person in rural Sri Lanka tries to read a news paper on line, he has to pay at least $ 0.5 whereas he can buy the new paper for around $ 0.25. It may be worth for a busy executive to read the online version of a news paper but may not be for rural folks.

Telecentres made the technology available for rural communities. So what?

The real issue was we didn’t have applicable content and services to deliver through Telecentres. So services such as Dialog tradenet (www.tradenet.lk) can make a real difference in terms of providing relevant services to the community while sustaining Telecentres with incremental revenue.

Three potential roles

1. Finding products or services at cheaper rates for the community in the area (used products, etc.). That could be even finding the raw materials for SME businesses.

2. Help entrepreneurs to find the market. Exploit the free advertising opportunity in tradenet. There is a potential of reaching a huge market of nearly seven million people (customer base of Dialog).

3. Playing the role of an intermediary/Broker. Most of the rural products and service sellers find it difficult to interact with modern markets. So telecentre operator can play the role of intermediary to bridge the gap.

-Sameera.

Dialog tradenet is a Truly Inclusive System

Dialog tradenet is fully mobile integrated Buy and Sell portal in Sri Lanka. The automated SMS matching alerts to connect buyers and sellers is a unique feature which is available only in tradenet. That also provides agricultural commodity prices to farmers and others.

Dialog tradenet covers all the strata of the socio-economic pyramid. It has some means of access for every Sri Lankan, making it a truly inclusive system.

E - English S - Sinhalese T - Tamil

Web: http://www.tradenet.lk

WAP: http://tradenetwap.dialog.lk/

USSD: #977# (From a Dialog Mobile)

SMS: In all three languages

Voice: 977 (From a Dialog Mobile)

-Sameera