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June 19, 2014 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's information technology sector is setting up an online portal to collaborate with universities, academics and students, an industry chamber said. SLASSCOM says the industry want to reach 5 billion US dollars in revenue and create 200,000 direct jobs and 1,000 start ups by 2022, for which active collaboration with the academia is needed.

Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM), an industry body said its 'Campus Direct Link' will allow universities and industry to collaborate on projects and for industry practitioners to mentor students.

The portal was developed by IFS R &D International (Pvt) Ltd, a member firm of the chamber.

"The portal has been designed based on state-of-the-art social computing concepts to keep everyone connected together¦" SLASSCOM said.

Companies, academics, undergraduate and post graduates students could be linked to the system.

Exports of IT and knowledge services had reached an estimated 720 million US dollars in 2013 and a billion dollars in revenue is expected by 2016.