Q: How have industries harnessed the potential of new technologies such as AI/ML and IoT?
A: Industries that are mature in their digital transformation journeys have adopted new technologies to analyse large amounts of data in real time. Rapid technology adoption has also taken place in bigger economies such as the US, China and Europe where affordability and business ease have become contributing factors. However, to harness the full potential of these techno-logies, we need to use them to solve real world problems.

Q: Are these new technologies the solution to overcoming the prevailing macroeconomic challenges in Sri Lanka and around the world?
A: The bigger economies of the world have all adopted Industry 4.0 technologies faster than others, and their top companies are in tech. Significant investments in new techno-logies have enabled these organisation to digitally drive their economies.

Sri Lanka needs to increase its fiscal and export revenue to solve the current economic issues. Simply increasing taxes isn’t going to help unless we have a better mechanism to track income and payments. We need to accelerate our digital transformation to empower a completely cashless society, which will give full visibility of digital money. Thereafter, we can come up with a robust system to tax the right people in the appropriate manner.

The coming generations won’t patronise banks or use hard cash, and will instead use cryptocurrencies and spend time in virtual worlds such as the metaverse. As a country, we should take a futuristic approach and develop a new generation of leaders who understand the opportunities and challen-ges around these digital evolutions. They will then be able to take Sri Lanka forward and enable it to thrive in the global digital economy.

Q: Are organisations addressing grow–ing cybersecurity concerns, and if so, how?
A: There are constant and growing risks in the cyber threat landscape. At present, only a few businesses have taken this seriously and invested in this area. As more enterprises go digital, the likelihood of threats is higher.

We have seen some of our clients being targe-ted and their digital assets held to ransom. By helping them recover from these inci-dents, we learned the importance of adopting a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.

Q: What are the latest trends/innovations in your industry?
A: Our company has operations in the areas of telecom, banking and manufacturing.

In telecom, 5G is transforming every aspect of life by creating endless possibili-ties. Super fast connectivity and hypers-calers will fuel another wave of disruptive innova-tions with Web3 technologies such as metaverse and blockchain.

In the financial sector, Banking 4.0 is driving technology adoption to make banking a seamless lifestyle activity that can be done from anywhere. Digital banking will also be a thing of the past. The next genera-tion will go to the metaverse and do their banking via a virtual experience.

In manufacturing, we see Industry 4.0 taking shape with technologies such as industrial internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML); next level process automation to improve efficiency and 3D printing to drive product innovation.

We have fortunately been able to drive some of these innovations in Asia with the next generation smart factory solution that we built, scaled and sold a few years back.

Q: What are your organisation’s expansion plans going forward?
A: Sri Lanka urgently needs foreign exchange income. So we have to nurture the strengths of our people, and focus our market and business development efforts overseas.

The company currently earns more than 50 percent of its revenue in US dollars and hopes to increase this to 80 percent. We have already ramped up our overseas expansions in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific with a keen eye on the US and the UK.

NCINGA wishes to become a global IT services company that offers its top talent signi-ficant international exposure, and the ability to earn good money to build a secure future while still being connected to Sri Lanka.

Given our lean and agile approach to ope-rations and mission to engineer for humanity, we are working towards a future where daily human interactions can be simplified with technology, to have a positive and long-lasting impact on the environment, and communities around us.

Q: What role does sustainability play in a digitally driven future?
A: Since the world is becoming more fast-paced and digital, it’s important to have a sustainable approach to business. NCINGA’s community driven approach to techno-logical innovation and an entrepreneu-rial mindset led us to establish nVentures, which is our investment arm with a founder–friendly approach.

Through nVentures, we identify and train the next generation of entrepreneurs to find sustaina-ble technology solutions, and solve complex business problems in fintech and ‘cleantech.’

At the end of the day, we all want to live a happy, healthy and peaceful life. And for us to have that, we need clean air, clean water, healthy organic food and so on. So as a responsible corporate citizen, we believe in taking care of our people and the planet. Then profits will follow and we can leave behind something that’s worthwhile for our future generations.

Telephone 2307559  |  Email info@ncinga.net  |  Website www.ncinga.net

Imal Kalutotage

Founder

“Through nVentures, we identify and train the next generation of entrepreneurs to find sus-tainable technology solutions, and solve complex business problems in fintech and ‘cleantech’”