Internet Sampath Bhavithaya Radio Programme

19+ years

A sustained public-service broadcasting contribution to Internet awareness in Sri Lanka.

In 1997, the Council for Information Technology (CINTEC) began the SLBC radio programme Internet Sampath Bhavithaya—“Use of Internet Resources.” Harsha Wijayawardhana served as an ICT resource person from its inception. Prof. Kamal Waleboda was the programme’s compere, and Harsha worked with him on the radio broadcasts for almost nineteen years.

Making the Internet understandable

The programme explained Internet resources and practical computing to the public in Sinhala at a time when household Internet access was uncommon. It extended the pioneering idea that radio could act as an intermediary between online knowledge and listeners who faced barriers of access or English-language proficiency.

Nineteen years of broadcasting

UCSC sponsored the programme from 2004. It continued for more than nineteen years, with the final programme broadcast in 2017. The long-running partnership combined Prof. Waleboda’s broadcasting and development-communication experience with Harsha’s ICT expertise. Harsha’s contribution also connects this national broadcasting work with his involvement in the Kothmale Internet Community Radio Project, Sinhala computing, Internet development and later local-language programmes.

Harsha Wijayawardhana with Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe, Mr. Atthanayake and colleagues during an Internet Sampath Bhavithaya production meeting — The clearer second photograph from a later production meeting. Harsha is in the foreground; Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe and Mr. Atthanayake are also among the programme team shown.

Harsha Wijayawardhana participating in an Internet Sampath Bhavithaya production meeting — Harsha participating in a later programme meeting with the production team.

Harsha Wijayawardhana and Professor Kamal Waleboda presenting Internet Sampath Bhavithaya in the old ICT auditorium — Harsha with Prof. Kamal Waleboda during the programme in the old ICT auditorium. The hall was later named the Prof. V. K. Samaranayake Auditorium and was subsequently demolished.

The programme’s early website and a recovered image

A surviving photograph of the old ICT auditorium shows the programme’s original “Radio Program” website projected on the screen. Within that web page is an older studio photograph of Harsha and Dr. S. T. Nandasara conducting the radio programme. The projected page also preserves the website’s navigation—Home, Schedule, Gallery, FAQs, About Us and Contact—even though the original live website has disappeared.

The original Internet Sampath Bhavithaya Radio Program website projected in the old ICT auditorium — The surviving auditorium photograph of the original programme website. Harsha and Dr. S. T. Nandasara appear together in the studio photograph displayed at its centre.

Recovered detail showing Harsha Wijayawardhana and Dr S T Nandasara conducting Internet Sampath Bhavithaya — A recovered detail from the projected website: Harsha and Dr. S. T. Nandasara conducting the programme in its earlier years. The image is retained with its archival projection quality rather than artificially reconstructed.

No independently accessible Wayback Machine copy of this exact page has yet been located. Because the address bar is unreadable in the surviving photograph, the projected page and the extracted studio-image detail are preserved here as primary visual evidence while the search for the original website files continues.

Independent archival confirmation

A commemorative publication prepared for Sri Lanka’s twentieth anniversary of commercial Internet in 2015 includes Harsha’s photograph and a biographical panel. It records that one of his earliest projects was providing Internet connectivity to Internet Sampath Bhavithaya. This is valuable contemporary corroboration of his technical role, distinct from his later, long-running participation as an ICT resource person.

UCSC’s official undergraduate handbooks for 2014 and 2015 independently describe the programme as a weekly Wednesday broadcast produced by the University’s Computer Science Society in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, intended to improve public understanding of the Internet and computing. Public UCSC Media albums also preserve photographs from later Internet Sampath Bhavithaya outreach workshops, including Siddhartha College and Anuradhapura.

The fifty-year computing record

The University of Colombo’s Computer Museum confirms that computing education at the University began in 1967 with Prof. V. K. Samaranayake’s FORTRAN teaching and presents this as more than fifty years of computing history. The University repository also catalogues a 2017 item titled 50 years of Computing at the University of Colombo, a congratulatory message by Professor Sir Tony Hoare. The currently accessible official catalogue does not establish that this item was a coffee-table book, nor has an accessible fifty-year book page containing an Internet Sampath Bhavithaya photograph been located.

Collaboration beyond radio

Harsha and Prof. Waleboda also collaborated on the UCSC Digital Thorana. Prof. Waleboda composed the viridu narration for the Chulla Setti Jathakaya, while Harsha conceptualized and managed the project. See the official project record and image →

Continuing through Smart World

In 2019, the Local Language Technical Help Centre began Smart World through the Commercial Service of SLBC to promote Sinhala Unicode and local-language technology. Theekshana conducted the broadcasts with sponsorship from the LK Domain Registry, continuing the public-education tradition established by Internet Sampath Bhavithaya.

Sources: University of Colombo Computer Museum; University of Colombo repository — “50 years of Computing” record; UCSC Undergraduate Handbook 2015; Sri Lanka’s 20th Internet anniversary commemorative publication, page 25 of the PDF; and Pahasara — UCSC Media, Internet Sampath Bhawithaya workshop album.