8 August 2016 12:00 am
Lakmini Ramani Helena Wijesundera, the CEO of Iron One Technologies was crowned as the ‘Woman Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 awards ceremony, which took place last Friday, graced by President Maithripala Sirisena.
Speaking about her accolade, Lakmini said that IronOne Technologies, an IT company started exactly 10 years ago in her parent’s garage with a handful of engineers and today she has a team of over 120 professionals which includes foreign nationals and they successfully cover 15 countries with Iron One offices internationally.
She said she and her team believe in Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs statement, which is ‘The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who can do it’.
She also won awards for the ‘Woman Exporter of the Year’, and the gold award in the large category.
Meanwhile, the Most Promising Young Entrepreneur of the year was clinched by Charitha Abeyratne of Saraii (Pvt.) Ltd, and the Best Start Up Enterprise award was won by Erangi Loshani Pathiraja of Era De Moh (Pvt.) Ltd.
It also included several other awards in micro, small and medium categories as Mohamed Shareef Vijitha, M.T.C Ralini Fernando, Nelum Himali
won the gold awards in each category respectively.
Women Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) Chairperson Rifa Musthapha said that being the ninth biennial awards, their aim is to ignite women to reach towards the impossible, influence others towards excellence and be the catalyst for change in thought, word and deed.
She said that these awards adding trusses to the next phase of national development, by recognising each of these women entrepreneurs and the role they play not only in uplifting their economy but also on uniting entire communities through, out of the box thinking, innovative thought processes and income generation.
She added that based on the president’s decision of incorporating a minimum 25 percent female representation in local government bodies, they are surely looking forward to the transformations where they will tangibly see in the way the country moves forward. (ZZ)