Vice President at Virtusa and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Consultant Chandita Samaranayake, who has 20 years of work experience with global tech product companies – such as Oracle, IBM and Microsoft. In this interview he outlines his experience and ambitions.
Excerpts
 Chandita Samaranayake
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Q: What was your last job?
A: In the past three years, I was focused on building strategic partnerships across the Asia Pacific region as Vice President for a Global Service Integrator (GSI). I got the opportunity to work closely with the likes of Google Cloud, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and many more. Some 20 years of working for global tech product companies – such as Oracle, IBM and Microsoft helped me understand and map both worlds (Product and GSI) effectively. I really enjoyed the task while learning a lot on the job. I strengthened and widened my network to the next level in the process.
Q: The pandemic and your experience?
A: Yes, it affected my family tremendously. Six months ago, my four-year-old daughter, my wife (who was pregnant with our younger daughter, at the time) and I suffered from Covid-19. The pandemic drastically changed our lifestyles. We had to temporarily relocate to Sri Lanka from Singapore to accommodate company priorities.
Personally, I loved the outcome of this relocation as it gave me an opportunity to be closer to our parents. I enjoy the work-from-home model. Despite all the negatives and setbacks of the pandemic, I adjusted and adapted to new ways of working to be more productive by readjusting a few priorities with family, friends and community while achieving my work KPIs. Not having to travel from one meeting to another or fly from one country to another has its own benefits.
Yes, I do miss traveling and doing face-to-face physical meetings, but the time and resources saved by not having to do that has its own positive impact on productivity and work-life balance, hence, no complaints from my end.
Q: What is your contribution as a CSR consultant?
A: My true passion is community welfare. I always strive to find ways to address social issues through technology.
In the past, I leveraged CSR programs such as IBM kids smart, Microsoft Unlimited Potential and Oracle Academy to bridge the digital divide. I am working closely with the Gates Foundation on Financial Services for the Poor to expand access to digital financial services to ensure that even the most poverty-stricken sector of our population can build security and prosperity for their families, communities, and themselves. On digital health, the goal is to reduce inequities in health and on Agriculture Development- the goal is to support farmers and governments seeking a sustainable, inclusive agricultural transformation. On nutrition, the goal is to ensure that all women and children have the nutrition they need to live a healthy and productive life. I am also working with Google Flood Forecast initiative alongside the Government to develop successful flood prediction systems to understand when and where flooding will occur and to keep people safe and informed. I am also involved in several other initiatives: Alongside ICTA and the Ministry of Technology, I am working to build ICT capacity via programs such as AWS educate, Oracle Academy, UiPath Academy, Huawei CSR programs, Zoom for education and Lenovo for education. I also support a non-profit organisation (Mithuru Mithuro Movement) dedicated to eradicating drug abuse.
I am working with Commonwealth Union, an innovative online media platform to explore ways to solve social issues common to 33 percent of the world’s population and helping the Government through the Ministry of Technology to bring in global CSR programs to support the digital Sri Lanka initiative.
Q: Can you outline your plan for startups?
A: I have come to a point in my life and career that I no longer want to work for anyone, but rather contribute towards the global startup ecosystem trying to solve problems for enterprise and government sectors.
My dream is to build a billion-dollar tech company leveraging the network I have built over the last 20 years. My network includes a few members from the billionaires’ club, global CEOs of tech giants, celebrities, and the VC community in the Bay Area. In a nutshell, what I want to do is to connect good ideas with the startup ecosystem.
I am currently reaching out to my network to assemble a unique and powerful startup task force. The idea will be to identify and map good tech ideas with the global startup ecosystem. I have shortlisted a few good ideas and started mapping them to the ecosystem to kick-start a few initiatives slowly.