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Rohan Samarajiva, PhD
Founding Chair of LIRNEasia
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Rohan Samarajiva is founding Chair of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across emerging Asia and the Pacific. He was CEO from 2004 to 2012. His most recent book (2012) is in Sinhala and is entitled “Economic strategies appropriate for us.”
Samarajiva was Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology (2002-04) responsible for infrastructure reforms, including participation in the design of the USD 83 million e Sri Lanka Initiative. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka (1998-99), a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (2003-05), Honorary Professor at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka (2003-04), Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-03) and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000). Samarajiva was Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh (2006-09).
He serves as Senior Advisor to Sarvodaya (Sri Lanka’s largest community based organization) on ICT matters and on the Steering Committee on Infrastructure Development of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
Samarajiva is a Board Member of Communication Policy Research south, an initiative to identify and foster policy intellectuals in emerging Asia.
He is a member of the Board and former Chair of the Lanka Software Foundation and Board Member of Research ICT Africa. He serves on the editorial boards of five academic journals.
November 15, 2006 (LBO) – At a recent discussion on comparative rankings of economic performance, an esteemed economist decried the tendency of Sri …
October 23, 2006 (LBO) - Recently the government imposed tougher import conditions on non-essential items: …
October 16, 2006 (LBO) - "While the JVP supports a vibrant free market economy to generate growth, we are completely against an unbridled, uncontrolled open …
August 28, 2006 (LBO) – In a discussion of two pieces of trade-related legislation now before Parliament, a JVP MP stated that they served the interests of …
August 7, 2006 (LBO) – Generic is cheap and utilitarian. Brand is expensive and status conferring. That's the common wisdom. But those in the new, hot field …
July 25, 2006 (LBO) - The 2004 tsunami was a shock. One out of 500 Sri Lankans died in the short space of three and a half hours when walls of water hit them …
July 11, 2006 (LBO) - Do infrastructure reforms increase disparities between the wealthy areas around Colombo and the rest of the country? Do they yield kiri …
July 3, 2006 (LBO) - The Information and Communication Technology Act, No 27 of 2003, was a watershed for a number of reasons. It created a fully government …