Disrupt Asia begins today at Hilton Colombo

Disrupt Asia 2017, Sri Lanka’s premier startup conference and exhibition will be held today, at Hilton Colombo.

One of the most interesting discoveries post Disrupt Asia 2016 was the opportunities it afforded to the local start up community, industry veterans and aspiring entrepreneurs.

As an IT industry veteran who runs a successful startup that has roots in Silicon Valley, Mangala Karunaratne, Founder and CEO of Calcey Technologies, explains how Disrupt Asia (DA16) contributed to the country’s startup ecosystem. He says, “DA brings everyone involved in the startup ecosystem together under one roof and provides a venue for knowledge and experience sharing.”According to Karunaratne on a practical level the event is one of the flagship events of the local startup ecosystem and an ideal platform for investors and potential customers of startup products to look for new opportunities. The atmosphere is friendly and enthusiastic. The event brings together a high quality network, especially for startups that show up with a focused game plan - they can get a lot of value from this event.

A classic example how DA16 energised participants to become innovative change makers and create a working foundation for a viable company could be seen in Michael Moonesinghe’s initiative to start ‘Entrepreneur Hubs’, a national network of co-worker small business centres. As CEO of Glover Daniels International, Moonesinghe attended Disrupt Asia conference last year. He says, “I attended the conference last year as an investor as I planned to become an Angel investor.”