Harsha Wijayawardhana worked closely with Dr. Basheerhamad Shadrach—known internationally as “Shaddy”—on the Telecentre.org Academy. Dr. Shadrach led Telecentre.org’s international academy work, while Harsha contributed from UCSC and Theekshana to its academic, technical and multilingual implementation.
Harsha’s contribution
Harsha was a founding member of the steering committee of Telecentre.org Academy Sri Lanka. He contributed to the drafting of curricula for the Global Telecentre.org Academy and advised the Academy on selecting an eLearning technology platform.
In 2010, Telecentre.org contracted Theekshana to host and maintain the Academy’s learning management system. Harsha served as project lead. The work included the LMS, a workflow-based student-management system, Sinhala interface localization and guidance for translating course content into other Asian languages. Harsha also helped author the initial twelve courses.
Regional training and knowledge exchange
Theekshana organized an international LMS workshop for participants from India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The archived photographs below were embedded in Harsha’s Telecentre Academy and Virtual Village project document preserved by the ICT History of Sri Lanka project.
Relationship to Sri Lanka’s Telecentre history
This collaboration continued Harsha’s earlier rural-access work: the Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project, Sarvodaya Telecentres, the IDRC-supported Virtual Village project and ICTA Nenasala training. It extended that experience from physical access and Wi-Fi connectivity into structured international capacity-building for Telecentre operators.
Sources: Theekshana–Telecentre.org agreement, 3 June 2010; ICT History of Sri Lanka profile and project archive; and Dr. Shadrach’s institutional biography.