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Students from Sri Lanka crowned runners-up at the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship

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Team Nana Shilpa—among the top three in the world—competed with tens of thousands of teams from over 160 countries at the 20th edition of Microsoft Imagine Cup

Meet Team Nana Shilpa—the runners-up of Imagine Cup 2022 World Championship at the Microsoft Campus Redmond USA!

Seattle, USA: Microsoft recently announced that Team Nana Shilpa emerged as the runner-up following an intense finale against Team V Bionic and Team Melodic at the 2022 Imagine Cup World Championship in Seattle, Washington. The team from Sri Lanka won a cash prize of USD 10,000, and with this win Sri Lankan technology got recognized as one of the top three novel solutions at the global competition.

Microsoft Imagine Cup is designed to inspire students to use their imagination and passion for technology to create innovative solutions that tackle some of the world’s biggest social, environmental, and health challenges.

“Our Imagine Cup competition is a great example of the possibilities,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “For 20 years, students have shown us what’s possible when they come together to apply technology to help solve the world’s challenges.”

Team Nana Shilpa emerged as one of the top three to advance to the World Championship out of the tens of thousands of students from over 160 countries who registered for the 2022 Imagine Cup. Last week, the team had the opportunity to showcase their original tech innovation to judges through a 3-minute pitch and a question-and-answer session. The team flew out to Seattle from Colombo for the last leg of the competition.

The team—comprising Kalpani Abeysinghe, Chamil Diluksha, Maheshani Makalanda, and Prabath Shalitha from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) in Malabe—came up with Nana Shilpa, an application that screens and provides guidance for addressing reading, writing, and math learning disabilities in the Sinhala language. The team announced that the app would support different languages and cultures in a bid to help young children across the world.

Many children with learning disorders struggle in school long before being diagnosed. A learning disorder is an information-processing problem that prevents a person from learning a skill and using it effectively. As a result, the disorder appears as a gap between expected skills, based on age and intelligence, and academic performance.

“We live in a world where technology can address various problems. Nana Shilpa helps to eliminate the delay in learning disability discovery using localized languages. It captures input from a mobile device and processes it using advanced machine learning and computer vision algorithms. If a child is diagnosed positive for a learning disability, the app then provides curated activities to mitigate the condition,” Kalpani discloses.

Team Nana Shilpa presenting to the judges during the 2022 Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship in Seattle on May 24, 2022.

“The screening AI models are trained using thousands of data points collected from children with learning disabilities,” says Kalpani. “The professional screening process to identify learning disabilities can cost between 400 and 2,000 dollars. With Nana Shilpa, we can cut that to just 60 dollars. We are on a mission to help every kid in the world to read and write.”

Technical architecture of the Nana Shilpa mobile app

This year’s championship was won by the Team V Bionic from Saudi Arabia and Germany. The team developed a modular exoskeletal hand rehabilitation device called ExoHeal that utilizes neuroplasticity and Azure technology to provide adaptive and gamified rehabilitation exercises to people with hand paralysis.

“Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition not only challenges students to utilize technology creatively to make a difference in the world, but also provides the opportunity to connect, engage, and learn from a community of like-minded young innovators,” said Harsha Randeny, Country Manager, Microsoft Sri Lanka and Maldives. “We’re glad to see students from Sri Lanka showcase their unique solutions that have the potential to create lasting impact. Congratulations, Nana Shilpa.”

Watch the highlights of the 2022 Imagine Cup World Championship here. For more information about Imagine Cup, please visit https://www.imaginecup.com/.



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FRELLA launches world class wellness products locally with Baurs & Co.

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FRELLA partners with the French perfumer Véronique Gabai

FRELLA, Sri Lankan-born and internationally-respected natural beauty and wellness brand, is setting the stage to expand operations by entering the Sri Lankan retail market. As the country’s only dedicated wellness company operating at an international scale, this move marks a new chapter for a brand with a growing global presence that has already earned the trust of luxury hotels and international customers.

For over seven years, FRELLA has emerged as Sri Lanka’s leading wellness brand, serving clients and partners across more than 15 international markets. The brand’s entry into the Sri Lankan retail market marks a significant milestone, allowing local consumers to access globally respected wellness products developed from the island’s own healing traditions. This retail expansion is supported through a strategic partnership with Baurs, a trusted 170-year-old Swedish multinational company, ensuring sophisticated distribution and access aligned with international retail standards.

FRELLA is rooted in Sri Lanka’s ancient healing traditions and inspired by centuries-old Ayurvedic wisdom. All FRELLA products are specially designed as holistic wellness solutions for the body, skin, hair, and soul, and focuses on providing nourishment, balance, and healthy aging through refined, modern wellness systems.

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Writer Business Services enters Sri Lanka to partner with institutions to provide information management and payments solutions

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Writer Corporation, one of India’s leading business groups, announced the launch of its subsidiary, Writer Business Services Pvt. Ltd., and the commencement of its operations in Sri Lanka. The expansion reflects Sri Lanka’s strategic importance in Writer’s regional growth plans and its role in supporting a highly regulated digital and financial services market which is currently undergoing digital transformation.

Sri Lanka’s continued focus on strengthening regulatory frameworks, digital platforms, and financial systems is shaping how institutions across banking, government, and enterprise sectors approach their business operations. There is a clear emphasis on secure, compliant, and resilient information and transaction environments that can scale with regulatory and business needs. Writer’s entry into Sri Lanka aligns with this direction, bringing global experience and a partnership-led approach to the market.

As part of its launch, Writer will establish a secure records and information storage facility in Seeduwa, Colombo. Designed to meet global standards for security, compliance, and disaster resilience, the facility will support banks, financial institutions, government bodies, and large enterprises in managing physical and digital information across its lifecycle.

Alongside information management, Writer brings established expertise in integrated payment services to support the modernization of transaction infrastructure across the banking and financial services sector. Its payments capabilities focus on strengthening availability, transaction continuity, and transparency across critical payment channels that underpin institutional reliability and customer confidence.

Writer’s digital payments offerings in Sri Lanka include end-to-end ATM and self-service terminal outsourcing, integrated channel ownership and managed services, field management applications, payment and reconciliation platforms, and remote monitoring with near real-time reporting. These solutions support financial institutions in improving uptime, strengthening governance, and enhancing operational efficiency across payment networks, in line with the continued evolution of electronic and automated payment systems.

Across information management and payments, Writer operates with an integrated portfolio spanning records and information management, business process outsourcing, cloud and digital services, data privacy, cybersecurity and enterprise payments infrastructure. These capabilities support institutions in addressing evolving regulatory requirements, digitization of legacy environments, and rising operational and cyber risks.

Writer’s local presence enables closer collaboration with clients and on-ground delivery, while supporting the development of Centres of Excellence across cybersecurity operations, SOC and NOC services, AI-led solutions, and payments operations and monitoring.

Writer’s Sri Lanka operations will be built, led, and run by Sri Lankan professionals, reflecting a long-term commitment to local talent growth and development.

Commenting on this development, Satyamohan Yanambaka, CEO, Writer Global Services Pvt. Ltd., assured Writer’s long-term commitment to the country’s digital ambitions. He said, “Writer’s entry into Sri Lanka reflects our belief that digital ambition in regulated environments must be supported by trust, sound governance, and strong execution. As institutions scale digital services, the reliability of information and payment systems, channel operations, and governance frameworks becomes increasingly important to public and institutional confidence. Our experience across information management, digital transformation, and enterprise payments enables us to support secure, large-scale financial ecosystems, with a clear commitment to building and leading these capabilities locally.”

Sri Lanka’s Digital Personal Data Protection framework raises expectations around how personal and sensitive information is secured and governed.

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Altair issues over 100+ title deeds post-ownership change

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Thilan Wijesinghe

Altair Residences have, over the past six months, seen more than 100 individual title deeds being executed by apartment owners, providing owners with a clear, registered, legal title to their apartments in accordance with Sri Lankan property law. This has been a key initiative by the new owners and management of Altair to improve governance and will continue in an orderly manner in the coming months.

With the transition of ownership to Blackstone India, Altair’s Management Council has also been formally constituted, enabling owners to play an active and proactive role in the management of the Altair building. In addition, the management council has appointed Realty Management Services (RMS), a subsidiary of Overseas Realty Ceylon PLC, as the new facility manager of Altair.

Commenting on these milestones, Thilan Wijesinghe, Chairman of TWC Holdings, who, together with a team from TWC, represents Blackstone’s interests in Sri Lanka, said, “The issuance of individual title deeds is a critical step in any professionally developed residential asset. Over the past six months, this process at Altair has moved forward in a structured and transparent manner, alongside the formal establishment of owner-led governance. This, combined with the appointment of experienced facility managers are fundamental building block for long-term value-creation for apartment owners and proper asset stewardship.”

With ongoing improvements to the building being undertaken by Indocean Developers Pvt Ltd (IDPL), the owning company of Altair, the issuance of deeds to owners is expected to accelerate over the coming months.

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