The document discusses Sri Lanka's adoption of free and open source software (FOSS) for eGovernment applications. It outlines the roles of eSri Lanka and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) in promoting FOSS. ICTA's policy is to prefer FOSS for software procured or developed internally. The Supervisory Vendor Development Approach is used for projects like the Performance Monitoring System, Crop Price Portal, and Lanka Gate - a middleware platform and country portal. Current issues include a lack of FOSS awareness and technical skills within the government.

1. Adoption of FOSS for eGovernment
in Sri Lanka
Wasantha Deshapriya
Director
Re-engineering Government
ICTA
wasantha@icta.lk

2. Agenda
eSri Lanka and ICTA

 Re­Engineering Goverenment (Re­Gov)
 ICTA's Policy stance in relation to FOSS
 Why FOSS
 Adopted Methodology to overcome barriers –
SDSA
 Project implemented or in the pipeline
 Current Issues; Weaknesses and Strengths
 ICTA FOSS Strategies
2

3. and
 eSri Lanka is a multi­faceted, multi­donor,
multi­stakeholder based development initiative
 Attempts to every business, every village and
transform the way govt works
 Implemented by ICTA
 Main Donors
• Government of Sri Lanka
• World Bank
• Korean Exim Bank
3

4. Information and Commumication
Technology Agency
 Established by ICT Act No 27 of 2003 of the
Government of Sri Lanka and strengthened by
subsequent amendment Act No.33 of 2008
 Functions under the Presidential Secretariat
 Established in 2003 but financially enabled in
2005
4

5. 5

6. Re-engineering Government
Programme
 Blue print study was carried out in 2004
 Initial Action Plan and Road Map were
finalized in 2005
6

7. Re-Gov Principles
 Re­Gov believes eGovernment as a way of
Administrative Reforms
 Works under the directions of National
Administrative Reforms Council
 Re­engineering the processes and
simplification of forms are identified as key
steps
 ICT is used as a tool for Re­Engineering
Government 7

8. Internet Intranet
Government to Business Government to Government
Mobile
G2B Country Portal G2G
G2C
S
T
e-Foreign Employment
A
K
e-People Registry
eLocal Government
ENTERPRISE IT ARCHITECTU
E
e-Procurement
E RE
H Information
Filing
-
eSamurdhi
e-Motoring
e-Pension
O Bank
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
Solution
G
Policy, L APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE
e-Bill
O
E-HRM
D
standards V
MANAGEMENT
e-Tax
E Security Education Health Taxation
STANDARDS
E
R
R
Agency Specific Applicat ions
N
T
A
R
N
People Hub
A
Service Mgt C Cross-Agencies Applications
N
E People Hub
S
I Government Internal Applications
F
T
One stop Services
Internal Solutions|
R
I
A Customer Relationship Business Intelligence
O
M
N
E
Establishment
TECHNICAL
W
Security
INFRASTRUCTURE ARCHITECTURE
BUSINESS
F
Hub
O
R
R
HR policy E-Government Supporting Infrastructure
A
K
Lanka Gate
M
and HRD E Nation- Wide ICT Infrastructure
Mobile Payment Credit Card
W
LIX.
O LIX. Payment Gateway
Gateway Land
Establishment
R
INFORMATION ARCHITECT Hub
CentralisedAlert Triggered
K Monitoring Server
Hub
Monitoring Server NCS Command
URE
Applications CentreHelpdesk
Databases
Mainframe
Customer’s Routers
Servers
Location
Lanka Government Network
Information Management MetaData Management
Outsourcing Solutions
Regional Telecom Network
8

9. Study Period Laksala
Study Period e­Human Resource Management
Disaster Management with Sahana
Reengineering
Government Road map Study Period e­Samurdhi
e­National ID Card
Study Period
Document Conversion (BMD)
Vehicle Revenue License
Government Information Centre + Web Development + Web Hosting
Study Period e­Divsional Secretariat
Study Period e­Pensions
Study Period e­Foreign Employment
E­Local Government
e­Local
Study Period
Land Register
Government Web Portal
e­Population Register
Study Period
` Lanka Gate
Lanka Government Network CM and CDBM
Training – Senior Management, CIO, Middle Management & end Users
eGovernment Policy, Technology Standards for government, Information Security
eGovernment Blue Print study, Planning & Conceptualizing
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
G2G G2B
Enablers G2C
9

10. WHY FOSS???
 Strategic Benefits
• Developing local capacity/industry
• Reducing imports/conserving foreign exchange
• Enhancing national security
• Accelerate adoption of Open Standards
• Reducing copyright infringements
• Enabling localization
• Avoid Vendor locking
10

11. WHY FOSS???
Economic Benefits
Increasing competition

 Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
 Enhancing security
 Achieving vendor independence
11

12. Why FOSS???
Social Benefits
Increasing access to information

Enabling local communities to build their own content and

replicate it without any restrictions
ICTA considers Strategic, Economic and

social benefits to the country
Role of ICTA; not only strategic policy

maker (or influencer which ever is right)
but also as an executers 12

13. Roles and Responsibilities of the ICTA:
Provide guidance and consultation to the
●
government organizations on Open Standards
compliance and Free and Open Source
Software use.
To actively engaged in activities for “leveling
●
the playing field”

14. ICTA's Policy stance in relation
to FOSS
Free and Open
Open Source Software
Standard (FOSS)
Pro­choice/Best
Software procured Mandatory value/free­to­choose/
from outside vendors value­for­money
Software developed Mandatory Preferable
internally by the ICTA
14

15. Methodology
 Public Procurement
• For replication the solution should have a zero license cost
• Custom code developed for a particular solution is
owned by ICTA, while ICTA should have access to
any other source code for modification, enhancement
and bug fixes
• If the vendor wants to share the IP right of the
custom code, that has to be negotiated (preferably
a reduction in pricing)
In­house development

• Work with University interns
• Have a small but highly capable team of SW architects, SW 15
engineers who have mastered FOSS technology

16. Methodology..
Supervisory vendor development – Sw Development

Services Approach – SDSA
• Having conducted a high level system study (essential to use
RUP), the internal architects designs the high level
architecture
• R&D to find out the best product (Preferably FOSS)
considering social and economic factors (which promote
FOSS) and TCO
• Highly modualrized solution is developed in modular
approach
• ICTA procures SW development teams to develop such
systems in 3­6 months periods
16

17. Methodology.. SDSA...
 SW development life cycle is closely
supervised by SW expert Groups under
the leadership of ICT
• SW Architecture Expert Group
• SW Design Expert Group
• SW Testing Expert Group
• SW Code Review Expert Group
• SW QA Expert Group
17

18. Project implemented or being implemented (1)
Performance Monitoring System
18

19. Projects implemented or being
implemented (2)
19

20. Project implemented or being
implemented (3)
 Crop price portal
20

21. Project implemented or being
implemented (4)
 Lanka Gate – Middleware Infrastructure
and Country Portal for Information and
eServices
• Has four core modules
• 1. Country Portal
• 2. Lanka Interoperability Exchange
• 3. Credit Card Payment Gateway
• 4. Mobile Payment Gateway
21

22. Lanka Gate Initiative - Overall
Architecture
Visitors
Citizens Businesses Government
Open
Standards
Multiple Access Channels
(eg. Web, Mobile, Email, etc.)
Ot h e r Ap p lic a t io n s
Sri Lanka Country Portal
e­Gov
e­Gov
SOA Other
CMS GIC
Service 1 Service m
portlets
portlet portlet
Architecture portlet portlet
Enabling
Web 2.0
Concepts
Lanka Interoperability Exchange
Mobile
Credit Card
Services Service 1
Payment Service n
Payment (eg. e­RL)
Directory
Gateway Gateway
Services
22
Providers

23. Lanka Gate Overview
Mobile
Businesses
Citizens
Governme Visitors World
Users
nt over
Employees
Mobile Country Other
Applicatio Client
Portal
ns Applicatio
Lanka Interoperability ns
Exchange
Credit Card
Mobile Messaging Other
Payment
Payment eServices eServices
eServices
eServices
$
Credit Card Mobile
Governme Banks Other
23
Payment Payment
nt Businesses
Services Services
Providers Providers

24. Sneak Preview of Lanka Gate

25. 25

26. 26

27. 27

28. 28

29. Cutting Edge Technologies Used
in Lanka Gate
 LIX
 Country Portal
* SOA architecture and Web

* Liferay enterprilse open source

Services
portal
* Enterprise Service Bus (WSO2

* JSR 168 portlets

ESB)
* Atom and RSS

* Service Registry (Not old time

* Web Services
UDDI, real web services registry 
­ WSO2 registry) * Apache Axis2

* PBEL (Apache ODE) * Struts2
 
* Complete interoperability with * FOSS SDK to simplify portlet
 
many leading web services development
stacks (Microsoft, IBM, WSO2,
etc) 29

30. FOSS Projects in Pipe line
1) eRevenue License
2) Common eHRM
3) Common Fleet management
4) Common Grievance Handling System
5) Sahana Disaster Management System
30

31. Current Issues - Weakness
Lack of general awareness on FOSS

Lack of FOSS technical capability

Low FOSS/Linux penetration in government

Vicious circle of quot;No FOSS solutions, No awareness and

believingquot;
Low support from local IT industry

Inability to favour FOSS in procurement


32. Positive notes – Strengths
Google Summer of Code 2008 ­ Top Universities (World)

• University of Moratuwa
FSF Award for Social Benefit (Wikipedia)

Apache: 100 of 1500 from SL (3rd US, EU)

 Growing FOSS IT Industry
• WS02, Respere, Thinkcube, Virtusa, Eurocenter,
hSenid, CeylonLinux, FOSSmart
Sri Lankan built FOSS used globally

• Sahana, Apache AXIS, Apache Synaps, KBFX, etc
Many Research publications, PhD students

 ICTA having a small team of very best FOSS technologists
 Global trends; growing no of countries using/mandating FOSS
32

33. ICTA Approach - Strategies
Increasing Awareness

 Focus on FOSS in Education
 Encouraging Usage
 Enabling Innovation
Target Audiences

• ICT industry
• Non-ICT industry
• Government agencies
• Teacher training institutes
• Universities & tertiary educational institutes
• Schools, Nenasalas and other tele-center models,
General public 33

34. Increasing Awareness
Targeted FOSS awareness campaigns

 FOSS conferences & events (2 per year in at least 5
provinces)
 Sponsorship (advertising, transport, handouts) of
FOSS awareness activities undertaken by the FOSS
community in Sri Lanka
 Workshops by international FOSS experts
 Translation, printing & large scale distribution of
FOSS­related handbooks and leaflets in Sinhala and
Tamil
34

35. Focus on FOSS Education
Technical & financial assistance in ICT syllabus re­formulation

• Ministry of Education (GIT syllabus)
• Large­scale ICT training institutes such as Gateway, Informatics etc.
Teacher training workshops

“FOSS­Ed on Wheels” (at least 2 initiatives based around Nenasalas

along the route)
Workshops & installation drives in institutions

• Schools
• Universities & other tertiary educational institutes
• Teacher training institutes & other professional training institutes
Grants to setup FOSS­based software certification training programs

Reimbursements for FOSS­based software certifications

35

36. Encourage Usage
Setting up a FOSS help desk

Setting up FOSS­only labs in schools, universities

and educational institutes
Setting up FOSS­based PCs in Nenasalas &

Telecenters
Setting up a FOSS knowledge base for SMEs and

government organizations along with initial
deployment assistance
Providing communications assistance for FOSS

support companies
36

37. Enabling Innovation
Setting up FOSS R&D Centers of Excellence

Innovation grants for FOSS technology achievements

Entrepreneur assistance grants for FOSS start­up

companies in Sri Lanka
Organizing FOSS­inclined Venture Capital Forums in

Sri Lanka to enable venture capital funding of FOSS
companies
Incubation assistance for FOSS start­up companies in

Sri Lanka
37

38. Q&A
Thank you!
38