A Sri Lankan born businessmen and investor in the Silicon Valley, Chamath Palihapitiya, has been appointed as the ICT Ambassador of Sri Lanka by President Maithripala Sirisena to promote Sri Lanka in the Silicon Valley as well as to provide support to bring the latest technology to Sri Lanka.
Palihapitiya first joined AOL and climbed the ladder to become the head of AOL’s instant messaging service. Later on, he joined a startup which was over a year old and this was none other than Facebook.
He moved on from Facebook to start his own venture capital firm, Social Capital in 2011. By the end of 2015, the firm had assets worth more than $1.1 billion.
In 2015, Palihapitiya met President Sirisena and expressed his willingness to support the digital economy efforts being undertaken by the Government. Following this, he played a pivotal role in getting the Google Loon project to Sri Lanka to provide universal connectivity to all Sri Lankans and help the digital transformation of Sri Lanka. The Government expects to bring down venture capital investments to the country with the support of Palihapitiya.