Adoption of FOSS for eGovernment in Sri Lanka

Wasantha Deshapriya

Director

Re-engineering Government

ICTA

wasantha@icta.lk

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Agenda

eSri Lanka and ICTA Re­Engineering Goverenment (Re­Gov) ICTA's Policy stance in relation to FOSS Why FOSS Adopted Methodology to overcome barriers – 

SDSA Project implemented or in the pipeline Current Issues; Weaknesses and Strengths  ICTA FOSS Strategies 

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and

eSri Lanka is a multi­faceted, multi­donor, multi­stakeholder based development initiative

Attempts to every business, every village and transform the way govt works

Implemented by ICTAMain Donors• Government of Sri Lanka

• World Bank

• Korean Exim Bank

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Information and Commumication Technology Agency

Established by ICT Act  No 27 of 2003 of the Government of Sri Lanka and strengthened by subsequent amendment Act No.33 of 2008

Functions under the Presidential SecretariatEstablished in 2003 but financially enabled in 

2005

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Re-engineering GovernmentProgramme

Blue print study was carried out in 2004 Initial Action Plan and Road Map were 

finalized in 2005

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Re-Gov Principles

Re­Gov believes eGovernment as a way of Administrative Reforms

Works under the directions of National Administrative Reforms Council

Re­engineering the processes and simplification of forms are identified as key steps

ICT is used as a tool for Re­Engineering Government

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Country Portal Country PortalSSTTAAKKEEHHOOLLDDEERR

TTRRAANNSSIITTIIOONN

FFRRAAMMEEWWOORRKK

I N F R A S T R U C T U R E A R C H I T E C T U R E I N F R A S T R U C T U R E A R C H I T E C T U R E

Security Education Health Taxation

People Hub People Hub

Establishment EstablishmentHubHub

A P P L I C A T I O N A R C H I T E C T U R E A P P L I C A T I O N A R C H I T E C T U R E

Information Information BankBank

E N T E R P R I S E I T A R C H I T E C T U E N T E R P R I S E I T A R C H I T E C T U R E R EEE

--GGOOVVEERRNNAANNCCEE

FFRRAAMMEEWWOORRKK

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Information Management Information Management

Nation- Wide ICT Infrastructure Nation- Wide ICT Infrastructure

E-Government Supporting Infrastructure E-Government Supporting Infrastructure

Government Internal Applications Government Internal Applications

Cross-Agencies Applications Cross-Agencies Applications

A g e n c y S p e c i f i c A p p l i c a t i o n s A g e n c y S p e c i f i c A p p l i c a t i o n s

Internet Government to Business Intranet Government to Government

Business Intelligence Business Intelligence Customer Relationship Customer Relationship

I N F O R M A T I O N A R C H I T E C T I N F O R M A T I O N A R C H I T E C T U R E U R E

MetaData Management MetaData Management

People Hub People Hub

EstablishmentEstablishmentHubHub

LandLandHubHub

Internal Solutions Internal Solutions|| One stop Services One stop Services

Regional Telecom Network Regional Telecom Network

G2BG2B G2CG2C G2GG2G

Lanka Government Network Lanka Government Network

e-Motoring

e-Motoring

Solution

Solution

e-ForeignEmployment

e-ForeignEmployment

Solution

Solution

e-Pension

e-Pension

Solution

Solution

E-HRM

E-HRM

Solution

Solution

e-PeopleRegistry

e-PeopleRegistry

Solution

Solution

e-TaxFiling

e-TaxFiling

Solution

Solution

eLocalGovernment

eLocalGovernment

e-Procurement

e-Procurement

Solution

Solution

eSamurdhi

eSamurdhi

Solution

Solution

e-Bill

e-Bill

Solution

Solution

Policy, Policy, standards standards

HR policy HR policy and HRD and HRD

Outsourcing Solutions Outsourcing Solutions

Service Mgt Service Mgt

Customer’s Customer’sLocationLocation

RoutersRouters

Alert Triggered Alert Triggered Centralised Centralised Monitoring Server Monitoring Server

Monitoring Server Monitoring Server

ServersServersDatabasesDatabasesApplicationsApplications

NCS Command NCS CommandCentreCentre

Mainframe

HelpdeskHelpdesk

Lanka Gate Lanka Gate Mobile Payment Mobile Payment

GatewayGateway Credit Card Credit Card Payment Gateway Payment GatewayLIXLIX..

Mobile

SecuritySecurity

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eGovernment Blue Print study, Planning & Conceptualizing

eGovernment Policy, Technology Standards for government, Information Security

e­Population Register

Lanka Government Network

e­Local Government

Training – Senior Management, CIO, Middle Management & end Users

Disaster Management with Sahana

Land Register

2005 2006 2007 2009

CM and CDBM

2004

e­Pensions e­Divsional Secretariat

Vehicle Revenue License

e­Samurdhi

Government Information Centre + Web Development + Web Hosting

e­National ID Card

Laksala

Government Web Portal

e­Human Resource Management

Document Conversion (BMD)

EnablersEnablers G2CG2C     G2GG2G 2008

Reengineering Government Road map

Lanka Gate` Study Period

    G2BG2B

Study Period Study Period

Study Period

Study Period

Study Period

Study Period

2010 2011 20122011

e­Foreign Employment Study Period

E­Local Government Study Period

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WHY FOSS???

Strategic Benefits• Developing local capacity/industry• Reducing imports/conserving foreign exchange• Enhancing national security• Accelerate adoption of Open Standards• Reducing copyright infringements• Enabling localization• Avoid Vendor locking

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WHY FOSS???

Economic Benefits Increasing competition Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Enhancing security Achieving vendor independence

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Why FOSS???

Social Benefits Increasing access to information

Enabling local communities to build their own content and replicate it without any restrictions

ICTA considers Strategic, Economic and social benefits to the country

Role of ICTA; not only strategic policy maker (or influencer which ever is right)

but also as an executers

Roles and Responsibilities of the ICTA:

● Provide  guidance  and  consultation  to  the 

government  organizations  on  Open  Standards 

compliance  and  Free  and  Open  Source 

Software use.

● To actively  engaged  in  activities  for  “leveling 

the playing field”

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ICTA's Policy stance in relation to FOSS

Preferable

Open Standard

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

Software procured from outside vendors

MandatoryPro­choice/Best value/free­to­choose/value­for­money

Software developed internally by the ICTA 

Mandatory

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Methodology

Public Procurement• For replication the solution should have a zero license cost• Custom code developed for a particular solution is

owned by ICTA, while ICTA should have access to any other source code for modification, enhancement and bug fixes

• If the vendor wants to share the IP right of the custom code, that has to be negotiated (preferably

a reduction in pricing)

In­house development • Work with University interns• Have a small but highly capable team of SW architects, SW 

engineers who have mastered FOSS technology

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Methodology..

Supervisory vendor development – Sw Development Services Approach – SDSA•Having conducted a high level system study (essential to use 

RUP), the internal architects designs the high level architecture• R&D to find out the best product (Preferably FOSS) 

considering social and economic factors (which promote FOSS) and TCO•Highly modualrized solution is developed in modular 

approach• ICTA procures SW development teams to develop such 

systems in 3­6 months periods

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Methodology.. SDSA...

SW development life cycle is closely supervised by SW expert Groups under the leadership of ICT• SW Architecture Expert Group

• SW Design Expert Group

• SW Testing Expert Group

• SW Code Review Expert Group

• SW QA Expert Group

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Project implemented or being implemented (1) Performance Monitoring System

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Projects implemented or being implemented (2)

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Project implemented or being implemented (3)

Crop price portal

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Project implemented or being implemented (4)

Lanka Gate – Middleware Infrastructure and Country Portal for Information and eServices • Has four core modules

• 1. Country Portal

• 2. Lanka Interoperability Exchange

• 3. Credit Card Payment Gateway

• 4. Mobile Payment Gateway

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Lanka Gate Initiative - OverallArchitecture

OpenStandards

SOAArchitecture

Enabling Web 2.0

Concepts

Ot h e r Ap p lic a t io n s

MobilePaymentGateway

Otherportlets

Lanka Interoperability Exchange  

Citizens Businesses Visitors Government

Multiple Access Channels(eg. Web, Mobile, Email, etc.)

Credit CardPaymentGateway

CMSportlet

GICportlet

e­GovService 1

portlet

e­GovService m

portlet

Sri Lanka Country Portal

ServicesProviders

Service 1(eg. e­RL)

Service nServicesDirectory

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Lanka Gate Overview

Governme nt

Businesses Mobile

Users Employees

Visitors Worldover

Citizens

CountryPortal

Other Client

Applications

MobileApplicatio

ns

Lanka InteroperabilityExchange

Credit Card Payment

eServices

Mobile Payment

eServices

MessagingeServices

OthereServices

Governme nt

Banks

$

Credit Card Payment Services

Providers

OtherBusinesses

Mobile Payment Services

Providers

Sneak Preview of Lanka Gate

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Cutting Edge Technologies Used in Lanka Gate

LIX * SOA architecture and Web 

Services * Enterprise Service Bus (WSO2 

ESB) * Service Registry (Not old time 

UDDI, real web services registry ­ WSO2 registry)

* PBEL (Apache ODE) * Complete interoperability with 

many leading web services stacks (Microsoft, IBM, WSO2, etc)

Country Portal * Liferay enterprilse open source 

portal * JSR 168 portlets * Atom and RSS * Web Services * Apache Axis2 * Struts2 * FOSS SDK to simplify portlet 

development

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FOSS Projects in Pipe line

1) eRevenue License2) Common eHRM3) Common Fleet management4) Common Grievance Handling System5) Sahana Disaster Management System

Current Issues - Weakness

Lack of general awareness on FOSS Lack of FOSS technical capability Low FOSS/Linux penetration in government Vicious circle of "No FOSS solutions, No awareness and 

believing" Low support from local IT industry Inability to favour FOSS in procurement

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Positive notes – Strengths

Google Summer of Code 2008 ­ Top Universities (World)• University of Moratuwa

FSF Award for Social Benefit (Wikipedia) Apache: 100 of 1500 from SL (3rd US, EU) Growing FOSS IT Industry • WS02, Respere, Thinkcube, Virtusa, Eurocenter,

hSenid, CeylonLinux, FOSSmart

Sri Lankan built FOSS used globally• Sahana, Apache AXIS, Apache Synaps, KBFX, etc

Many Research publications, PhD students ICTA having a small team of very best FOSS technologists  Global trends; growing no of countries using/mandating FOSS

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ICTA Approach - Strategies

Increasing Awareness Focus on FOSS in Education Encouraging Usage  Enabling Innovation

Target Audiences• ICT industry

• Non-ICT industry

• Government agencies

• Teacher training institutes

• Universities & tertiary educational institutes

• Schools, Nenasalas and other tele-center models, General public

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Increasing Awareness

Targeted FOSS awareness campaigns FOSS conferences & events (2 per year in at least 5 

provinces) Sponsorship (advertising, transport, handouts) of  

FOSS awareness activities undertaken by the FOSS community in Sri Lanka

Workshops by international FOSS experts Translation, printing & large scale distribution of 

FOSS­related handbooks and leaflets in Sinhala and Tamil

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Focus on FOSS Education

Technical & financial assistance in ICT syllabus re­formulation• Ministry of Education (GIT syllabus) • Large­scale ICT training institutes such as Gateway, Informatics etc.

Teacher training workshops “FOSS­Ed on Wheels” (at least 2 initiatives based around Nenasalas 

along the route) Workshops & installation drives in institutions• Schools• Universities & other tertiary educational institutes• Teacher training institutes & other professional training institutes

Grants to setup FOSS­based software certification training programs Reimbursements for FOSS­based software certifications

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Encourage Usage

Setting up a FOSS help desk Setting up FOSS­only labs in schools, universities 

and educational institutes Setting up FOSS­based PCs in Nenasalas & 

Telecenters Setting up a FOSS knowledge base for SMEs and 

government organizations along with initial deployment assistance

Providing communications assistance for FOSS support companies

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Enabling Innovation

Setting up FOSS R&D Centers of Excellence Innovation grants for FOSS technology achievements Entrepreneur assistance grants for FOSS start­up 

companies in Sri Lanka Organizing FOSS­inclined Venture Capital Forums in 

Sri Lanka to enable venture capital funding of FOSS companies

Incubation assistance for FOSS start­up companies in Sri Lanka

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Q & A

Thank you!