The competition themed “The Success Story” was the highlight of this event. HIDA/ AOTS , Japan has trained over 170,000 overseas delegates from Latin America , Africa , Eastern Europe , South Asia & South East Asia, in multiple disciplines such as manufacturing, quality assurance, management , production techniques, human resource management, financial services & entrepreneurship through carefully designed residential programs in Japan over the past several decades.

Kularatna was one of the 10 successful candidates who was selected and invited by the government of Japan to present his success story at this global event. An international panel of judges headed by the First Lady of Japan conducted the rigorous selection process where over 300 applications were scrutinized from 40 countries.

Kularatna who was chosen as the first presenter to deliver the speech at this event of global success stories articulated his presentation under the topic “Unleashing the entrepreneur within - the AOTS experience”. The packed audience of over 500 international delegates at the prestigious Iino Hall in Japan were treated to a passionate narration of how a young corporate executive was transformed to become a promising entrepreneur subsequent to a 3 weeks entrepreneur development program in Japan in 2003.

Premium International which was incorporated in 2003, now has achieved leadership status in the healthcare industry, as the only integrated turn-key healthcare infrastructure developer in the country. Premium’s portfolio of services include consultancy & project management in Healthcare, contract administration , integrated technology supply & technical maintenance .

The company is credited with many accolades. The most noteworthy is their initiative to set up the first ever Research & Development Laboratory for Bio Medical Technologies in Sri Lanka as a Private Public Partnership with University of Moratuwa with an investment of over Rs. 50 million to develop medical equipment manufacturing capacity in Sri Lanka harnessing the engineering expertise of fellow Sri Lankans.

This professional approach to business & the commercial success of Premium International under the leadership of Prasantha Kularatna has been formally recognized in many a forums both in the local and international arena for entrepreneurship. Premium International has achieved the highest ever local accolade for corporate recognition, winning Gold at the National Business Excellence award in 2012.

The outstanding presentation made by CEO of Premium , was well received by the audience that the First Lady Madam Abe personally congratulated him for a memorable narration. Delegates from over 70 alumni societies representing as many as 55 countries participated in this event which was represented by many Japanese government agencies as well as corporate sector & diplomatic missions. Some of the global names were JICA, METI, JETRO, JBIC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujifilm, Sakura, Toray etc.Committee members from JASTECA, the Sri Lankan body through which HIDA programs are facilitated were also represented at this global event.