The Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM) and Sri Lanka Unites (SLU) entered into a partnership to work together towards fostering reconciliation and unity amongst diverse communities in Sri Lanka. The agreement entails SLASSCOMS’s involvement in engaging member organizations to assist SLU to set up ten reconciliation centers nationwide through the SLASSCOM Unity Labs Project. In addition, SLASSCOM plans to promote SLU’s events on unity and inclusiveness amongst its member organizations and secure volunteers to mentor regional students and monitor hate speech.

“Technology connects people more than ever. However, cyberspace reflects real-world problems and sometimes intensifies those through fast-tracking communication and expanding reach. Fortunately, with clear intention and insights, we can band together to make cyberspace more unifying and inclusive. The core values and vision of SLU resonate with our own values of working towards creating a united, prosperous, and progressive nation. Hence, this partnership is timely and fitting and clearly something we want to support”, commented Ranil Rajapakse, Chairman SLASSCOM.

SLU facilitates meaningful dialogue and interaction between different ethnoreligious communities in Sri Lanka with a particular focus on youth leadership. SLU’s various projects revolve around empowering youth to learn, empower themselves, understand, and respect differences to shift the current divisive status quo of the country towards unity, understanding, and inclusiveness.

Prashan De Visser, Founder of Sri Lanka Unites stated, “We have profound respect for the work that SLASSCOM has done and continues to do to develop Sri Lanka’s Knowledge and Innovation industry. This partnership allows us to expand our mission and find timely solutions to both offline and online challenges that we face in bridging communities together. We believe that civil society and corporates have a crucial role to play in creating an inclusive Sri Lankan identity along with a just and thriving society. We are extremely thankful to SLASSCOM for leading the way and modeling how corporate Sri Lanka can and should respond to the current challenges of our nation”.

Mr. De Visser added, “We’re grateful for the support already extended to us by SLASSCOM members. Third Space Global had their entire staff work with our counter hate speech team on social media monitoring. Pearson Lanka has connected its staff to work on our counter hate speech operations while Stax contributed computers for our reconciliation center in Negombo and is looking to adopt this center. RRD and Dialog Axiata have already pledged computers towards other regional centers. MOQ Digital is in conversation with us to collaborate across multiple initiatives. These partnerships have increased our capacity, reach and the quality of our work as a movement. We believe such partnerships and long-term efforts are the key to a transformed reality in our nation”.

SLASSCOM acts as the catalyst for growth of the Sri Lankan Knowledge and Innovation industry by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation, and by supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework for the knowledge solutions industry. Furthermore, SLASSCOM continuously engages with its future workforce via its outreach activities in schools and universities across Sri Lanka.