A renowned scholar and a telecommunication and media professional Dr. Arosha Fernando has been appointed as the Working Director and a board member of Independent Television Network Ltd (ITN). His letter of appointment was handed over by Mass Media and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella at a ceremony held yesterday at the Mass Media and Information Ministry.

ITN is a state-governed television and radio broadcaster, which broadcasts content to a wide demographic within Sri Lanka in three languages covering 99 percent of the island as well as the expatriate community. Apart from the flagship television channel, ITN further operates Lakhanda and Vasantham FM radio stations.

It commenced operations on April 13, 1979, with the introduction of the ITN television channel, as the first television broadcasting service of Sri Lanka and South Asia. It is reported that ITN is earning the highest profits out of all the TV channels in the island and has been rated as the number one over a number of past years.

Dr. Arosha has a distinctive professional background covering 20 years in the senior management roles globally in the telecommunication and media sectors, including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines, and in the recent past in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Arosha is a renowned scholar holding five university degrees from Australia’s leading universities. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE) at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia and a Bachelor of Business (B.Bus.) degree, double major in Marketing and Human Resource Management from the Faculty of Business at the same university. Further, he has three Master’s Degrees from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia - Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Project Management (MPM) and Master of Engineering (M.Eng.).

Dr. Arosha has proactively worked with the telecom operators in Sri Lanka to expand their telecom networks, including in the newly-liberated Northern Province. Successful completion of the 3G expansion project in the Jaffna peninsula for Mobitel during the last leg of the war, providing total mobile coverage to the entire Jaffna peninsula, establishing the first office from the private sector in war-torn, ex-terrorist capital of Kilinochchi and in the last point of war, Mullaitivu in the Northern Province, successful construction of the Fibre Optical Cable line in the Northern Province along the re-constructed Northern railway line, are some of the key achievements of Dr. Arosha.

Further, Dr. Arosha spearheaded the successful implementation of the CDMA, 3G, 3.5G and 4G technologies first in Sri Lanka and successful implementation of over 1,000 Base Station telecommunication tower sites by a single institute in Sri Lanka.

During the past two years, Dr. Arosha has produced six movies, four teledramas and two stage dramas to his credit and is recognized as the producer who produced the highest number of creations in a shortest time frame in Sri Lanka. Further, he has been proactively working towards uplifting the local cinema industry and plans to establish 60 new movie theatres in 30 strategic locations in the island with a foreign direct investment (FDI). This includes a number of 3D film theatres as well.

Dr. Arosha has recognized the apparel industry in Sri Lanka as a main source of foreign exchange generator and an industry which creates a large number of employment opportunities in the rural sector. With his initiative, many apparel factories were reopened in the Uva and Wayamba Provinces during the past 12 months creating employment for over 1,200 people.