DEVELOPMENT: India has made tremendous stride in ICT and they have been able to achieve a considerable degree of economic development as the result of development of ICT, said Minister of Science & Technology Professor Tissa Vitharana at the convocation ceremony of Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) at its auditorium in Malabe.

"I was really made aware of the magnitude of this development when I was in Bangalore, a few months ago.

It was an industrial town, not highly polluting type, but rotating around information communication technology industry. It was a lively throbbing town with enthusiastic young people bursting with energy," he said.

Professor Vitarana said that at one of their ICT exhibitions there was a part of small companies which have been developed by ICT people where a lot of innovative work was being done.

"There were also foreign investors to find out what new innovative developments were there. Many of those small companies had already sold many of the patent rights for some of their products to firms like Microsoft. Some of the products that are put out now into the world as products of Microsoft, really originated in Bangalore, in these small companies.

It was really dynamic," he said. The Minister was of the opinion that many of the graduates would be going into already established companies like Virtusa, Millennium. But that some of them should venture out to develop their own companies.

This would be more rewarding and challenging, he further said.

"One of the weaknesses of our education system comes out the lack of encouragement of innovativeness of fresh thinking, rather than just imbibing knowledge," The Minister said.