I am privileged to have served as the President of the Hardware Chapter of FITIS during 2020 –2021, when FITIS had an excellent year. Unfortunately, The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health. Due to this unavoidable situation, we have been postponed lot of our member driven activities during the FY 20-21.

Even though COVID 19 pandemic situation has stopped our physical meetings, we have been able to reach out to our members using various technologies to support and enhance their businesses during difficult period.

I am also proud that we have added 12 new FITIS Hardware Chapter members during the last few months.

We also conducted the annual ICT Open Forum 2021 as a hybrid event. This year we had invited eight government regulatory bodies and Ministries (Ministry of Finance, Sri Lanka Customs. Inland Revenue, Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Finance. Central Bank, Information and Communication Technology Agency and Ministry of Defense. We invited all IT Hardware Principals for this forum as well.

In addition to this, the FITIS Hardware Chapter managed to organize a webinar series which saw a large participation from the industry. Our Chapter participated enthusiastically and contributed significantly in the initiatives of FITIS to forge strategic alliances with Ministry of Telecommunication & Digital Infrastructure and other stakeholders.

We have taken another significant initiative as the FITIS Hardware Chapter to organize a Dealer Forum 2021 and the flagship event of FITIS, INFOTEL 2021.

Many organizations were gracious enough to be sponsors of the above events. I have no doubt that their financial sponsorship has contributed greatly to making the above events successful. I should thank the board members of the Hardware Chapter for giving me their fullest support during my period. I am fortunate to have a good team of members who shouldered most of the above responsibilities and it is due to their untiring efforts that we have managed to achieve a successful year.

I sincerely thank all the executive committee members of FITIS, ExCo & members of the Hardware Chapter, the Secretariat team and other stake holders for their support.

Let me take this opportunity and wish FITIS all the success in future!

Prabath Wickramarachchi
President – FITIS Hardware Chapter