"But Sri Lanka has been somewhat isolated , So I think Sri Lankans needs to travel more and build relationships with the rest of the world and understand the how to do business with them,"
Wang is a board member and chair of the MIT-Stanford Venture Lab and the Wireless Communications Alliance which are leading high tech forums in the Silicon Valley promoting entrepreneurship, along with technology and business innovation.
Wang said that Sri Lanka lacks the eco system to support start up businesses, young entrepreneurs and people who are in the business already.
"Sri Lanka needs to build up the eco system to supports start up IT businesses," Wang said.
"There is no eco system here like Silicon Valley where you get the investors, academia, government, corporations, experts and even lawyers working together to get young start ups successful,"
“All the different players, the government, universities and investors should work together to build the eco system where the startups can get the support, funding and business needed to succeed and also expand globally,”
"You will see these start ups become major players in the global market, especially in areas like mobile market, ICT software and hardware support areas.” Wang said.
Highlighting the importance of young entrepreneurship Wang said, modern and small businesses are playing a key role in creating innovative employment opportunities to help the growth of the industry in a rapid technological era."I think there is lot of opportunity for the growth for Sri Lankan ICT industry in the global level with the fact that Sri Lanka got well educated workforce, great customer service and hard working attitude,” Wang said.
The IT and BPO industry has generated an export revenue of 320 million dollars for the 2010- 2011 financial year.
The island is expecting to generate a billion dollar revenue by 2015.
Around 15,000 people are directly employed in the IT-BPO sector. The workforce is growing over 20 percent year-on-year.
Therefore the Govt should encourage entrepreneurs and investors and try to get the maximum results out of them. If you closely examine some our in-house policies towards entrepreneurs, those are designed only to yield financial benefits to the Gov but not to encourage the community.