A record of Harsha Wijayawardhana’s writing and pioneering Internet work, together with awards earned by the teams of Theekshana R&D and the University of Colombo School of Computing’s Software Development Unit.
A 144-page study of Sinhala numerical notation, historical numeral systems and the cultural record of numbers, illustrated with about 80 photographs and drawings. Edited by Aruni Goonetilleke. ISBN 978-955-1199-05-0.
Explore the numeration archive →
A practical publication supporting standards-based Sinhala and Tamil font creation and the adoption of Unicode language technology.
A socio-anthropological and technological study synthesizing research from the Virtual Village communities. The publication is catalogued under Harsha Liyanage; Harsha Wijayawardhana contributed the project’s technical research and represented the University of Colombo partner team.
Prof. V. K. Samaranayake’s final felicitation volume includes Harsha Wijayawardhana’s article “Kothmale Internet Program to Virtual Village: Recollection of nine years of ICT4D in Sri Lanka,” beginning on page 204.
View Harsha’s contribution →This selected bibliography consolidates titles recorded in Harsha’s public professional profile and archived curriculum vitae.
Harsha Wijayawardhana headed the technical team for this pioneering convergence of community radio, the Internet and rural access. He designed and implemented the project’s WAN and LAN, established a 2 Mbps radio-frequency connection, introduced dynamic routing at the site and created its initial website.
The Kothmale model allowed broadcasters to search the Internet in response to listeners’ questions and explain relevant information over the radio—a practice widely described as “radio browsing.” The connected community facility also developed into an early multipurpose telecentre, giving rural users direct access to computers and online information.
Harsha documented the experience through papers and articles including Implementation of Internet Technologies for Rural Communities in the Third World: Kothmale Community Internet Radio Project and writing on inexpensive connectivity solutions for Sri Lankan rural communities.
Harsha Wijayawardhana and Dr. Harsha Liyanage developed the Virtual Village concept to investigate affordable last-mile connectivity for rural Sri Lankan communities. Harsha served as networking consultant and a member of the project steering committee, representing the University of Colombo School of Computing.
The project created large wireless hotspots in Gampaha and Hatton and connected rural telecentres using Wi-Fi. Its technical research examined signal behaviour across foliage and paddy fields under different weather conditions, ad-hoc networking, Linux-based routers, content-management systems and sustainable community access models. Partners included Sarvodaya, UCSC, CENWOR and the University of Peradeniya’s agriculture sector, with support from Canada’s International Development Research Centre.
Harsha authored the technical paper Virtual Village Project: Last-mile Connectivity Options for Rural Telecentres in Sri Lanka and compiled several articles documenting the project. Its wider findings also contributed to the Sarvodaya/Fusion publication Noise at the Last Mile: Sri Lanka Virtual Villages.
Harsha Wijayawardhana brought eAsia 2009 to Sri Lanka. He served on the conference Organizing Committee and Paper Committee and was Track Chair for the Telecentre track, helping position Sri Lanka as a regional meeting place for e-government, digital inclusion and ICT-for-development work.
Harsha brought the ISO working group responsible for ISO/IEC 10646—the Universal Coded Character Set—to Sri Lanka. Hosting WG 2 in September 2014 marked an important milestone in Sri Lanka’s participation in international character-encoding standards, following his representation of the country and advocacy concerning Sinhala numerals.
National recognition for the civil-registration system developed through the Software Development Unit / Theekshana ecosystem. The archived CV records the award in 2011; Theekshana’s historical award material also records recognition in 2010.
Recognised for an information system supporting animal-health administration and field operations.
Recognition for the Sri Lanka Police fingerprint identification platform, combining a national database with ten-print and latent-print matching tools.
Theekshana received special recognition at the Manthan Awards, reflecting the institution’s wider portfolio of public-interest digital systems.
Awards are credited to the institutional teams that delivered the systems. Harsha’s personal role is stated only where it is documented in his profile or CV.