Zone24x7 emerged as the overall winner in the Research & Development (R&D) category at the recently concluded Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) 2015 awards held in Colombo.
Competing with 11 regional teams from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia and Pakistan, Zone24x7 was the only organisation from Sri Lanka to contest in R&D.
“This is a proud moment not just for Zone24x7 but for the entire technology and innovations sector in Sri-Lanka,” said Zone24x7 General Manager and Vice President Engineering Dr. Sankalpa Gamwarige.
“We competed with some of the leading companies, universities and research centres in the Asia Pacific region dedicated for technology-based research.
Only the best products from the 16 APICTA member countries are selected each year to compete in these awards and it gives us a great deal of satisfaction that a Sri Lankan product developed with the knowledge of Sri Lankan engineers surpassed all other products in clinching the Gold award.
These are positive signs for the entire Sri Lankan ICT sector, which is pursuing an ambitious US $ 5 billion revenue target by 2022 and R&D for new products and services would be the key for us to get there,” concluded Dr. Gamwarige.
The award-winning product is the Autonomous Inventory Robot (AZIRO) designed and developed in Sri Lanka by Zone24x7 for radio frequency identification (RFID)-based inventory taking and cycle counting. The product has already captured much attention in the United States where it is being already evaluated by two of the top three department store chains for tracking their RFID-tagged merchandize.
Zone24x7 has already secured a United States patent in addition to two provisional patents for the intellectual property of AZIRO. Very recently, AZIRO also emerged as the overall winner at National Best Quality ICT Awards (NBQSA) 2015.
Zone24x7 is no stranger to this as it became the first organisation from Sri Lanka to win a R&D award at APICTA when Braille to go (B2g) designed by Zone24x7 won a Merit award at APICTA 2013 in Hong Kong.
AZIRO is the brainchild of Zone24x7 CEO Llavan Fernando, who is widely regarded as a thought leader and a disruptor in the retail tech industry in the United States.
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