• ICTA rolls out several apps and online tools

By Sarah Hannan Forty-five days into most of the country’s workforce functioning remotely, some of the operations came to a grinding halt as the work just could not be carried out remotely. This has been the reality for many of the state-owned institutions, and having to get through to the government officials too has proven to be a nightmare over the past few days. Prior to this situation, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had tasked the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) to roll out an initiative where all state-owned institutions were digitised and most of its functions computerised to speed up the workflow. Just after he resumed office, President Rajapaksa visited the Department of Motor Traffic (DMT) and the National Hospital of Sri Lanka to look at how the citizens’ requests were being attended to. In his visit, he suggested that a token system be in place to serve the citizens. “The President gave us a mandate to be responsible for all ICT projects that will have some impact on the citizens of Sri Lanka. ICTA was asked to manage and supervise all such projects. As a fast-moving industry, the professionals in our field should be able to fast-track these projects,” ICTA Chairman Jayantha De Silva noted. During the Coivd-19 outbreak, the Government had instructed ICTA to collaborate with many institutions to facilitate the Government to continue its operations effectively and citizens to continue their lives with minimal disruptions by introducing digital solutions and facilitating adoption across all segments. Just over the past two months, the below apps have been developed to be used by the public and government officials based on their requirements. Health sector For the use of the health sector, the “My Health Sri Lanka” app and “Contact Tracing (DHIS2)” app were created. My Health Sri Lanka was designed to inform, engage, and react to the deadly spread of Covid-19. The mobile application locally maps the trail of the mobile app user’s locations travelled so that in an unfortunate event of the app user being infected with the virus, they can disclose the stored location history information with the authorities to protect their family and friends who they have associated with in the last 14 days. All recorded location data is kept securely within the mobile and will not be transferred to any external systems without the consent of the mobile app user. If one has crossed paths with an infected individual, one has the option to self-register with the national disease surveillance system. Contact Tracing that’s built on top of the DHIS2 solution is able to visually depict the graph of people who they have associated with during an investigation by an authorised contact tracer from the Ministry of Health. Foreign relations The Ministry of Foreign Relations established a web portal for all Sri Lankans overseas to register at “Contact Sri Lanka” if they need any support from the Government of Sri Lanka or any of its missions overseas. Registering online in the web portal allows the Ministry to reach out and provide assistance during emergencies such as the current Covid-19 pandemic. This portal connects Sri Lankans overseas with stakeholders in Sri Lanka and the network of Sri Lankan missions abroad. The portal also offers emergency contact details of all Sri Lankan missions abroad. The data provided through this portal is protected to ensure privacy of the overseas Sri Lankans and will not be shared without the consent of the users. In the long term, it is expected to use the portal as an official source of information and will facilitate Sri Lankans overseas to obtain all services offered by the Government. Pre-arrival clearance application A pre-arrival clearance process for immigration at Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake. The airlines are instructed to provide further information about passengers in the manifest, in particular the origin of travel (the port first embarked, not just last port). This process identifies passengers with high risk before they land, so the authorities can be ready to take necessary measures on their arrival. This system integrates the pre-arrival clearance system with the Ministry of Health’s national disease surveillance system so that all flagged travellers are automatically registered in the disease system. Then, Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd. can meet flagged travellers at the gate directly and supply and install manual alert rings on the immigration counter to guide the cleared passengers to quarantine. meet.gov.lk video conferencing With the entire working population, except for few essential services, restricted to their places as a result of strict physical distancing enforced by the Government, the need for reliable, secure, and fast communication has risen as never before. In this unprecedented situation, ICTA has introduced https://meet.gov.lk as a free and easy-to-use video conferencing platform based on Jitsi (open-source project) for Sri Lanka’s state sector. It allows one to easily build and deploy secure video conferencing solutions. To host a meeting at meet.gov.lk, a user only has to click on the link to open the page on the web browser (Firefox and Chrome are the preferred browsers). After authenticated with a valid user name/password provided by ICTA to complete the hosting process, a user can share the room name (or complete URL) with the remote parties. While one is connected, a desktop window (presentation) can be obtained if necessary. If a user needs a password for a room, he/she can add it and share it with the remote parties. ICTA has facilitated continuously to increase the adoption through dedicated consultation and also produced user guides to use this platform. Collaboration tools and instant messaging across Govt. In a work from home situation, the government officers require a fast, reliable, and secure platform for collaboration and instant messaging across government authorities. ICTA has proposed Slack for this purpose, which has been successfully used at ICTA for some time for internal communication. Slack provides mobile apps for iOS and Android in addition to their web browser client and desktop clients for macOS, Windows, and Linux. To join this communication network, a user must have a valid and personal (non-shared) e-mail address. This may be the official address as some organisations still have local mail server-based addresses or any other email address which belongs to the respective official. There will be a central admin for the platform. Once a request is made (the user is responsible for making this request), he/she will be added to the system. The users shall be approved by the authorised person at the relevant organisations. Once in the system, users will have all the privileges to utilise the system. All government users, irrespective of the number, will be in a central channel for general communication. Depending upon their rights, individual users will be able to create their own user groups for individual ministries, departments, other agencies, or purely on the necessity. This procedure does not prevent anyone from using other channels, but all are encouraged to use it as it brings consistency and the highest reliability. In the first round, the system will register all heads of ministries and departments as “Super Users” (proposed secretaries, additional secretaries, and heads of departments). They are supposed to provide the list of all possible users within 24 hours by e-mail to the admin. Once the requests are received, the admin will add the users to the system. ICTA/LGII maintains a help desk for the users. There will be a document of detailed guidelines for all levels of users in Sinhala, Tamil, and English.