Internet pioneer
Recognised among the founders of LEARN, Sri Lanka’s academic and research network, and involved in the country’s formative Internet community.
Internet · Language · Inclusion
Harsha
Wijayawardhana
A pioneer of the Internet and local-language computing in Sri Lanka—working to ensure that every language, script and community can participate fully online.
B.Sc. (Miami)CITP (UK)FBCS (UK)ICANN At-Large Individual Member
෦A connected Sri Lanka
Building access before access was ordinary.
Harsha’s work connects the early development of Sri Lanka’s Internet with a continuing effort to make the network genuinely multilingual—from infrastructure and telecentres to standards, fonts, keyboards, domain names and email.
Local-language computing
Long-standing contributor to Sinhala Unicode technology, the SLS 1134 standard, font guidance and practical adoption of Sinhala and Tamil computing.
Universal Acceptance
Advocating systems that accept all valid domain names and email addresses, including those written in the world’s diverse scripts.
Internet governance
Founding President of the Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter, ICANN participant, Sinhala Generation Panel Co-Chair and ICANN At-Large individual member.
Prof. V. K. Samaranayake
A formative professional association.
Harsha worked within initiatives led by the late Prof. V. K. Samaranayake across Internet infrastructure, Sinhala computing, election systems, rural connectivity and the institutional development of Sri Lanka’s ICT sector.
An Introduction to Unicode for Sinhala Characters
Co-authored with V. K. Samaranayake, S. T. Nandasara, J. B. Dissanayake and A. R. Weerasinghe.
Kothmale to Virtual Village
Prof. Samaranayake assigned Harsha to resolve Kothmale’s connectivity problem and later guided his association with Sarvodaya’s telecentre programme.
Kothmale Internet Program to Virtual Village
Harsha’s contribution to Prof. Samaranayake’s felicitation volume records nine years of ICT4D work in Sri Lanka. Read the publication record →
Selected milestones
Technology in public service.
Across standards, digital government, research networks and governance, the focus has remained practical: building technology that people and institutions can actually use.
LEARN & the early network
Recognised in 2019 as one of seven founders of LEARN at its thirtieth-anniversary celebration.
Sinhala for the digital age
Contributed to Sinhala Unicode research and the third revision of Sri Lanka Standard SLS 1134.
Sinhala on the Internet
Co-Chair of the Sinhala Generation Panel for Internationalized Domain Names and an advocate for multilingual Internet infrastructure.
A national Internet community
Founding President of the Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter and a continuing voice for an open, inclusive Internet.
Universal Acceptance
Resource person and organizer for national UA, IDN, EAI and DNS-security programmes; individual member of ICANN At-Large.
Recovering Sinhala numeration
Led research into historical Sinhala numeral systems and the evidence for a concept of zero extending back more than two millennia.
Internet Sampath Bhavithaya
Resource person from the programme’s inception, conducting Internet public education with Dr. S. T. Nandasara and other specialists for more than nineteen years.
Featured public lectures
Ideas presented in public.
Two important records connecting Harsha’s leadership of Sri Lanka’s Internet community with his research into the Sinhala concept of zero.
May 2011 · INET Colombo
Welcome speech as founding President of ISOC Sri Lanka
The original conference video is now playable directly from the homepage.
Speech, context and contemporary press coverage →22 April 2023 · Sinhala online lecture
සිංහල අංකනය හා ගණිතය
Harsha’s lecture in the Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Studies series, associated with Professor Nalin de Silva’s related discussion of zero, infinity and the Pujavaliya.
Lecture details and intellectual context →Current research
Searching for zero.
From Brahmi inscriptions to linguistic evidence, Harsha’s research follows the evolution of numeral symbols and the human ideas behind them. These recent presentations extend the work published in Numeration in the Sinhala Language.
Journey through time: Searching for the Zero
A wide-ranging Sinhala presentation on the history, symbols and cultural journey of zero.
Linguistic Zero
How languages express absence—and how that idea develops into number.
Indian Brahmi Numerals
Reading the historical record of South Asian numeral forms.
Books & project publications
Research preserved in print.
Books authored or edited by Harsha Wijayawardhana, together with a major Sarvodaya/Fusion publication arising from the Virtual Village research programme.
Numerations in the Sinhala Language
ICTA publication documenting Sinhala numeral systems, inscriptions and the historical concept of zero.
Guide to Creating Sinhala and Tamil Unicode Fonts
Practical guidance for creating standards-based Sinhala and Tamil Unicode fonts.
Noise at the Last Mile
A socio-anthropological and technological study of Sri Lanka’s Virtual Villages. Harsha contributed technical research and represented the University of Colombo partner team.
Partners in Progress
Includes Harsha’s article “Kothmale Internet Program to Virtual Village: Recollection of nine years of ICT4D in Sri Lanka,” beginning on page 204. Publication record →
Writing & public work
A growing digital archive.
Selected articles, talks, workshops and resources published by or documenting Harsha’s work through the Local Language Technical Help Centre and associated public platforms.
→
INET Colombo 2011 welcome speech
Watch Harsha’s address as founding President of the Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter.
→“President caused best benefits of ICT reach all”
Locally preserved publication record and historical context for the Daily FT report on INET Colombo.
→Internet Sampath Bhavithaya
Harsha’s nineteen-year contribution to the pioneering CINTEC, UCSC and SLBC Internet radio programme.
→Partners in Progress contribution
Harsha’s article, “Kothmale Internet Program to Virtual Village: Recollection of nine years of ICT4D in Sri Lanka.”
→Recent issues in Sinhala Unicode keyboard inputs
Current technical observations on Sinhala text input and interoperability.
→Sinhala Numeration & the Pujavaliya
A self-contained archive of Sinhala zero, Illakkam, Brahmi numerals, large numbers beyond a googol and related media.
→Linguistic Zero
Part of the continuing journey through the language and concept of zero.
→Recent work on IDNs in South and East Asian scripts
A focus on Internationalized Domain Names and the Sinhala script.
→Presentation on Indian Brahmi numerals
Tracing numeral forms through inscriptional and historical evidence.
→Brahmi and Pocket Watch explanation
A short visual explanation from the Searching for Zero series.
→Journey through time: Searching for the Zero
The principal video presentation on the historical and linguistic search.
→Sri Lanka celebrates Universal Acceptance Day
National collaboration for a multilingual and inclusive Internet.
→Universal Acceptance Day 2024 in Sri Lanka
A national gathering advancing domain-name and email interoperability.
→Curriculum development for Universal Acceptance
Bringing UA concepts into Sri Lanka’s higher-education curriculum.
→UASG Local Initiative workshops in Sri Lanka
Harsha served as a principal resource person for the two-day programme.
→Introduction to Sinhala Unicode
A practical guide to entering, storing and using Sinhala text correctly.
→Harsha Wijayawardhana article archive
Browse independently hosted copies of Harsha’s articles, presentations, workshops and public work, with original dates retained.
Professional service
Leadership across institutions.
Harsha combines technical practice, standards work, organizational leadership, research and public-interest governance.
ICT Consultant · CINEC Campus
Serving as ICT Consultant to CINEC Campus since mid-March 2026.
ICT Consultant · Office Network (Pvt) Ltd
Advising ONL during 2026 on enterprise systems, HRIS assessment, ICT and information-security policy, solution evaluation and project governance.
COO / CTO · Theekshana R&D
Leading research, engineering and national-scale digital initiatives from the University of Colombo technology ecosystem.
International ICT convenor
Brought eAsia 2009 and the September 2014 ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 meeting to Sri Lanka.
Sinhala romanization
Contributed technical and language-technology expertise to Sri Lanka’s work on romanizing Sinhala geographical names for the Survey Department and engagement with the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems.
Standards & governance contributor
Work spanning Unicode, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2, SLSI, ICANN, ISOC, Universal Acceptance and the LK Domain Registry.