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REVITALIZATION OF YOUTH COMPETENCY THROUGH DIGITAL APPROACH

Conference Paper · July 2020

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Sampath Kokila Lakshika Swarnamali

Geological Survey and Mines Bureau University of Moratuwa
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Sumith Gamage
Aasa IT Solutions
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2nd World Conference on Children and Youth 2020

D1 [15]

REVITALIZATION OF YOUTH COMPETENCY THROUGH DIGITAL

APPROACH

W.G.S. Bandula1, W.G.S. Kokila2 and A.L. Swarnamali3

1
Aasa IT Solutions, Sri Lanka
2
Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, Sri Lanka
3
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

The world's youth population is expected to rise to 2 billion by 2050. Entrepreneurship will offer
important skills; strategic thinking, teamwork, and creativity to youth, contributing to sustainable
development. Yet, their ignorance about digital literacy, has been an obstacle to achieve that
objective. In 2017 Welithota application was launched at Yaan Oya, Sri Lanka, with the growing need
for a digital solution for remote monitoring and on-site operation management at industrial sand
mining sites. The use of a digital solution was aimed at the underprivileged community. People,
particularly the youth in the sand mining industry, do not have the required knowledge to use
smartphones and Bluetooth printers. Encouraging the workforce without adequate digital knowledge
was a huge challenge. Therefore, an enhanced cloud-based Mining & Mineral Production (mmPro)
monitoring solution was introduced at the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) level to
regulate sand mining and transport in Sri Lanka in January 2020. To improve digital awareness,
workshops were held for field staff demonstrating functionalities which boosted youth digital literacy.
The solution was deployed as a pilot operation on 19th February 2020 at Manampitiya, Sri Lanka's
largest sand mining site and all dispatch loads of 12755.50 cubes using 968 individual lorries had
been reported on the network in real time by 13th March 2020. There were 406 lorries dispatched on a
peak day. This has been a great platform for enhancing digital awareness to empower the youth in the
very niche community of rural sand mining.

Keywords: Digital literacy, Challenge, Youth empowerment

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