Nuwan Online - Nuwan Weerasinghe’s Web Log

These are tough days for everyone and Sri Lanka has started to feel the heat. We are hearing how a renowned group of Companies in Sri Lanka is struggling these days. People are increasingly skeptical on where to invest their retirement funds and EPF funds. Given the current volatility of the private sector, most people will feel safe with the Goverment owned banks and Financial institutions. This will be the trend for sometime to come. Most likely quite a few Leasing and Finance comapnies will go into bust. This would be the case when many people will default on their monthly Leasing or Finance payments. It will be interesting to see how banks face this situation as we have already seen that some were vulnerable and the government had to intervine.

How about investing on new Assets like houses or cars? Given normal circumstances these over time depriciate as assets. But Sri Lanka had a funny situation where a used car could be sold with a hefty profit. Same was for houses. This was not long ago. But things have changed since then.

Car sales have taken a nose dive. Real Estate prices remain Sky High with very few bothered to buy. Banks are reluctant to provide any loans for Cars or Houses. Therefore financing these purchases is extremely difficult for any average person. Im not quite sure for how long this global recession would prevail, but Sri lanka will feel the heat. Our exports to US and EU will be definitely reduced, specially in Garment Exports. Thousands will be layed of. Also the sudden drop in Crude oil prices must be causing a lot of concerns in the middle east. Lot of projects which got initiated when a barrel of oil was 150 US$ must be temporarily or permanently stopped. This means that thousands of migrant workers from our country will have to return to Sri Lanka from the middle east sooner or later or shift into low payed jobs. 

In my opinion the safest investment in this climate is in Skills. Spend what ever you can on learning and aquiring new skills. Do your degree, or MSc or MBA. Get qualified. America, Europe even Australia may be laying off now. But when the global economy revives back, we need to be ready with the necessary skills to meet the sudden huge demands from the global economy. Therefore i think the wise decesion is to look at this as an opportunity and get ready since thats all what we could do.

The latest version of Firefox 3.0 has a localized version of Sinhaleese. This is still in beta. Download from here.

Amidst all negative publicity about Sri lanka, I saw this bit of information which brought a smile to me. Sri lanka has great potential in IT and this just goes to prove it.
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. Google will be working with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period.

More information is here.

Recent surveys carried out by two separate entities has Ranked Sri Lanka 29th in a List of Top 50 IT BPO Destinations Globally. Please find more details here. 

Another report has selected Colombo as in the 7th position of a Top 50 Emerging Outsorcing citie

These are certainly very encouraging results for Sri Lanka, but we still have a long way to go and must move up the value chain in terms of services we offer so we play the quality game, not the quantity game.

If US Catches a ‘Cold’ it is definitely a ‘Pneumonia’ Situation for Sri Lanka. I’m talking economics now for a change. US is dependant on the outside world mainly for two things. First they are very dependant on Asia for Debt. US Citizens Save almost zero but are spending big time. This is how the US consumer is seen as a Economic Growth engine for Asian economies due to the buying capacity. They finance this larger than life spending by being in debt, everything from Real Estate to Cars, to 50Inch LCD TVs. How long they can afford to do this, no one knows. Japan and China holds large stakes of US treasury bonds (closer or more than a Trillion $s.). China wants US consumers to consume and US wants Chineese money to consume. The System is something like this.

Then, US wants oil, and they wants lots of that. US military is all but a load of metal if not for fuel. US has to therefore ensure a smooth supply of oil to keep its economy running. This is what you call a US interest. Now Venizuela is not so friendly with US and Nigeria is slowly but surely is going into a turmoil with sporadic disrupts with its oil production. Iran looks like a Volcanoe.

If for some reason Chineese stops investing in US Treasury Bonds! Or the oil supplies to US is disrupted for sometime. US might even go into a recession. I think from these two scenarios the latter looks more and more probable. Read this for a better idea. Also take some time looking at these unfolding trends and these at Google news also.

Finally a US recession will be a depression for us. US Consumers would be hard hit. Considering the fact that  our exports would be hit. So, millions of Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, Bangladeshis, Chineese and of course lots of Indian Software Engineers will face extinction.

We better watch out, its not only LTTE planes comming our way…………………..

We are Global Citizens afterall…………

The whole country is so pleased to see our cricketers doing well in this world cup. All communities in Sri lanka love their National Side and our Tean is a collection of players from all Nationalities and Relegions. Besides all this, Amnesty International started asking our Country to Play By the Rules. With all these Pshychological hurdles, our team still was able to secure a place in the finals, and thats great.

Since 1992,a south Asian Country has been in a World Cup final in each occasion.

1992 - Pakistan

1996 - Sri-Lanka

1999 - Pakistan

2003 - India

2007 - Sri-Lanka

We should meet Australia In the finals as it would be the ideal final. Best of Luck for our Team!

As the whole country (at least a majority of Sri Lankans) gets ready to celebrate yet another New Year, please spare a moment for those who are fighting in the north and east in our Armed Forces. The greatest sons and daughters of Mother Lanka. You will miss yet another New year. Your Parents, Wives, Children, Firends will not have "Avurudu" in your absance.

But we do understand your Courage and Bravery and we do…………SALUTE YOU………..OUR GALLANT SOLDIERS OF SRI-LANKA ARMED FORCES!

One of the reasons why our whole nation is in this sad state of things is the lack of Accountability. Wikipedia says that Accountability is

"Assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences."

Sadly no one is responsible for anything here and a problem is nobody’s problem. From top to bottom, North to South, Among all ages, all communities this is the feeling. "Its Not my job".

No one is held accountable in a Military failure, Transport Chaos, Garbage Collecting. Even when an infant is given a wrong injection in a Govt hospital and the child dies…..still its nobody’s problem. This mentality has to change for good!!!!!!!!

Lets start from our children, and teach them from their very small ages that they are held responsible for what they do. Nevermind about our "Senior Citizens". Forget them………..Start with our future. This i think is the "Mother of All Current Problems" in Sri Lanka.

Lets be proactive…………………

As we all know English is what is spoken in United Kingdom………(Scottish, Irish and Welsh accents are there…….) Then the Americans as always go about doing thing in their own way, so Speak American English - (I prefer calling it Anglish).

Then comes our Indian cousins having this special preference for the letter ‘R’…………… I found it very funny to listen to some of their ‘Inglish’ speaking people.

Finnaly the great Sinhalese from the Emerald Isle of the Indian Ocean speaks ‘Singlish’. Want to know what this is……

Switch on to any Sinhala FM Radio (Kavi FM, Sindu FM, Baila FM,………..etc) and you get an instance crash course in ‘Singlish’.

I just ended a very hectic weekend and back to my normal work. I was totally occupied with the first ever CMMI workshop in Sri-Lanka. (The first one of its kind) I was very impressed with the positive sentiment from all those who were present at the occasion. I have all the good hopes that Software process improvement will ultimately get it’s due recognition in Sri Lanka. Even though CMMI is not the only Software Process Improvement strategy around, it is certainly the most rigourous SPI strategy I believe I have come across. Already IBM is providing support for CMMI through Rational Unified Process (RUP). This link would be a good starting point for reference.

             Also, Microsoft with it’s proprietory methodology (Microsoft Solutions Framework - MSF) has also provided support for CMMI. More details are here. CMMI should provide the local Software industry with the kind of competitive advantage they are looking at, something their Indian competitors are already enjoying. One CEO from a leading software company whom i had the opportunity to talk had to say this…….

" I want CMMI to improve and standardize the current processes at my company.I want my employees to come to office at 8.00 and leave at 5.30 PM. I want them to have a good work life balance. Long hours make them less productive in the long run. The CMMI certification is secondary to my company. Its the process improvement I’m looking at……………….."

I wish that I can live upto his expectations with CMMI………………………………