SL ready to stir up a thriving digital economy
The Kottu roti analogy was illustrated by drawing parallels on Sri Lanka’s digital economy’s agility and inclusivity, allowing for the introduction of new components at any time, demonstrating the dynamic and adaptable nature of the digital landscape in Sri Lanka, akin to the local dish.
Dr. Hans Wijesuriya. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
Referring to the Kottu roti analogy, Chief Advisor to the President on Digital Economy, Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, said the digital economy in the country is compatible with this truly Sri Lankan delicacy, because it is made with various ingredients, international and predominantly local. “It’s agile that new ingredients can be introduced anytime. It is the most inclusive cuisine in the country. Similarly, the digital economy also draws on various ingredients, and it is an open architecture,” he said, addressing a panel discussion at the Sri Lanka Fintech Summit 2025 on Wednesday in Colombo.
In terms of forming the blueprint, the Digital Economy Ministry looked at different markets and cherry-picked the success stories from them, he said. “Our predecessors also built part of this architecture, such as the National Data Exchange, which was formally known as the National Interoperability Platform. That is good work done in the past.”
Explaining further, he noted that India is where the Sri Lanka got the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) story from, as it has the most successful DPI. The front-end architecture originated in Singapore, as it has the most citizen experience, citizen access, and single points of interaction, among other benefits. For the institutional framework, Sri Lanka had looked at the UK, Australia and also Singapore. Estonia was eyed for cybersecurity for some of the most fundamental elements of interlinkages and interoperability. “So, it’s a mix of drawing from different places, so we can plug and play with the different models and components.” He also noted that many of these countries had a 10 to 15-year execution timeline, such as India and Singapore. “Sri Lanka has only five years. On the flip side, we are at an inflexion point in technology due to the power of AI. So, we have the opportunity to go first. As we go on, we will be opening up the capabilities of these opportunities through sandboxing on a continued basis. As each DPI matures, it will come into the sandbox.” He said that in this effort, there is a lot of parallelism in execution, which is a challenge.
“This is because we can’t wait for one piece to build the next. We need to build all in parallel.”
Damith Pallewatte, Managing Director and CEO of HNB, noted that in the past decade, banks have invested in infrastructure to support the enabling environment of the digital economy. “We have managed to securely pass through to the end consumer as a loop touching the customer, the regulatory, cybersecurity and data protection frameworks.”
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