SLASSCOM, which has been the leading catalyst for the nation’s IT/BPM industry, recently initiated a proactive move with the aim of positioning Sri Lanka as a key competency centre for the gaming and immersive industry by collaborating with the Indonesian Gaming Association (AGI). 

A forum was held for companies with a particular focus on technology areas such as gaming, XR/VR, metaverse and NFT, with the primary focus of the event being to explore the potential areas of collaboration and joint business development between Sri Lankan and Indonesian companies. Accordingly, seven companies from Sri Lanka and six companies from Indonesia participated in the discussion.

The event kicked off with the opening address by SLASSCOM Executive Director Chaminda De Silva outlining the association’s goal of educating the country’s future talent to be specialists of emerging technologies. This was followed by a vibrant panel of acclaimed speakers delivering their insights and thoughts on gaming and immersive industry, its future outlook and benefits and opportunities available. 

The speakers included SLASSCOM Forum Member Akhila De Costa, who spoke on the gaming and immersive technology industry in Sri Lanka and Ken N. Violeta of Universitas Multimedia Nusantara touched on the topic of the gaming and immersive technology industry in Indonesia.  

The other key topics covered comprised of the latest trends of these technologies, changing industry landscape and how these technologies will change the aspects of business and society. 

The speakers also examined how these technologies can be used to enhance education and learning, human productivity, skills development and training and more. Overall, the event awakened unique insights into developing a range of gaming and immersive development platforms, whilst immersing participants in the endless possibilities of emerging global trends.

SLASSCOM Director Boshan Dayaratne explained, “The mobile technology boom in recent years has revolutionised the industry along with virtual reality and artificial intelligence, the advances of which could signify an amazing new chapter for the gaming and immersive technology industry.  Today, the gaming and immersive industry is seen as an important pillar of the economy, where this upcoming sector could create many jobs in the country and generate the much-needed revenue. Given this context, partnerships between Sri Lanka and other nations that lead the gaming and immersive industry are important moves that will help to project our nation as a key competency centre in these technologies. As such, our collaborations with the AGI create potential business opportunities and long-term investments, benefiting both countries and at the same time, generate foreign currency reserves to mitigate the current US dollar crisis in Sri Lanka.”

SLASSCOM Forum Member Akhila De Costa added, “We hope to explore further partnerships to enable local companies to leverage technology, experience and resources of global companies while expanding access to the lucrative global gaming and immersive technology markets.”

With the goal of helping Sri Lanka gain benefits from this rapidly growing industry, SLASSCOM hopes to play a key role in harnessing the talents of youth by training them to be technologically savvy in gaming and immersive technologies, foster innovation and enable access to secure international collaborations and business opportunities and overall generate substantial economic value for the country through this industry.