SLT the theme attraction sponsor for the EDEX 2008

Media release

SLT the theme attraction sponsor for the EDEX 2008

Sri Lanka Telecom, the nation's number one integrated communications service provider in Sri Lanka is proud to announce its commitment to uplift the country’s education by bridging industry leaders and students all over the country by becoming the theme attraction sponsor for EDEX 2008.

The EDEX 2008 exhibition will feature over 130 local educational institutions and has representation by over 350 foreign universities. Over 100,000 visitors are expected participate in this year’s exhibition. The EDEX exhibition will be held from January 18 – 20, 2008 at the BMICH.

SLT believes that EDEX will take the lead to fulfill the “Skills Gap” between the applicants and the industry’s requirements whilst SLT will fulfill the “Information Gap” through world class technologies. Being the theme attraction sponsor for EDEX 2008, SLT will bring technology alive allowing visitors to experience the digital lifestyle.

Mrs P N E Abayasekara, Chief Corporate Officer of SLT said, “SLT always values today’s youth which is an asset to our country. In fact, SLT takes education as one of the major aspects of our corporate social responsibility programmes. We are proud to be the theme attraction sponsor of this exhibition, which will provide school leavers, undergraduates and all other visitors a valuable insight into the latest technologies available in the market and provide them an opportunity to use these technologies themselves, giving them a competitive edge.

“In our endeavour to connect the Sri Lankan youth with choices, options and opportunities in post secondary education, skills development, vocational and technical training leading to gainful employment, through EDEX being the Single largest platform, the novel theme attraction showcasing the facets of emerging futuristic digitized lifestyle sponsored by SLT will be a boon to Sri Lankan youth enabling them to attune their mindsets to limitless new possibilities,” said Kamal Abeysinghe, Project Chairman, EDEX.

With a vision ‘To empower the Sri Lankan youth to be globally competitive’, EDEX for the past four years has worked towards providing a platform to bridge the gap between business organizations’ expectations and the availability of competent youth. EDEX is acclaimed to be the most comprehensive and the largest education & careers fair in the country. It has managed to create new standards in the exhibitions arena with its novelty/value addition programmes such as seminars & workshops, on site job interviews, scholarship offers, greater coverage of relevant sectors representing both local and overseas participants and other special features the pinnacle of which, are the twin EDEX exhibitions held in Colombo and Kandy in January each year.

Sri Lanka Telecom (www.slt.lk) is one of the country’s most valuable blue chip companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs 40 billion. Whilst NTT Communications Corporation of Japan owns a 35.2% stake in Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), 49.2% is owned by the Government of Sri Lanka and 15.3% is listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The company was also awarded an AAA (sri) rating by Fitch Ratings Lanka followed by a BB- international rating by Fitch International and Standard & Poor’s Rating Services.

SLT Group has a customer base of over two million including multinational corporations, large and small corporate, retail and domestic customers. Today with NTT Communications of Japan as a strategic partner, SLT provides facilities and services: voice, data, video and mobile to its customers, which are unmatched in scope. These services range from domestic and international voice, advance data transmission services which include internet services on leased lines, broadband [on ADSL] and dial up, data circuits, frame relay solutions to IP services such as IP-VPN based on IP-MPLS technology, total corporate solutions of multiple services, satellite uplink services and mobile telephony through the fully owned subsidiary Mobitel.

With a view to making Sri Lanka a broadband island, SLT is in the process of introducing the necessary infrastructure in the form of NGN [Next Generation Networks] using optical fibre backbone and broadband services such as IMS, IPTV etc. SLT also provides high speed global connectivity to countries in the South Asian region through its investments in international submarine cables such as SMW3, SMW4 and the Bharat Lanka submarine cable [between India and Sri Lanka] and Dhirragu-SLT submarine cable system between Maldives Islands and Sri Lanka. Newly incorporate SLT Hong Kong Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom, fully geared to provide services such as IP transit, IPVPN, IPLC and International voice traffic transit services to global telecom operators and corporates in Hong Kong.