Sri Lanka has a huge opportunity to harness the talent of its people and create a great technology export industry, said Co-founder, Different, Australia, Ruwin Perera, a Sri Lankan Australian who was in Sri Lanka recently to finalise arrangements to hire top notch Sri Lankan software engineers for his Sri Lankan operation .
He said there is unlimited global demand for Sri Lankan software engineers earning USD$1500 a month, living and working in Colombo. Different is living proof that Sri Lankan talent can compete with the rest of the world, and all we need to do is give our people these opportunities; and Different, as an Australian/Sri Lankan company, is attempting to do just that. Different, founded by former global head of product for Uber, Mina Radhakrishnan, and her Sri Lankan born husband Ruwin Perera, an Australian who was a Softbank director and former global business strategy principal for Google, are the dynamic duo behind the app. “Different offers the entire gamut of property management services from listing, pricing / rent setting, viewing of properties, tenant selection, payments, landlord protection plans, maintenance, inspections, paying of rates and taxes, while your owner portal ensures that all your important documents are just one click away,” said Perera. Different also provides clear, up to date monthly statements that you can access any time through your owner portal. Different is a full service property management agency with a monthly fixed management fee per property. It has built in apps which give tenants a way to easily lodge problems in the property that need to be fixed, as well as pay rent. According to Perera, step 1 is to rebuild the property management industry, but on the way to building a broader consumer business.
The app lowers cost of ownership by reducing property management fees. “Property management isn’t the most transparent industry, especially compared to consumer financial institutions. You might have $10,000 in your bank account or $500 in your bank account, but you always know exactly what is happening with your bank account.
You can go online and see your balance, every transaction, every fee,” Perera said adding that he plans to create a great product company, and hire the very best engineers in this country and challenge them in ways that other companies are not able to do He said that Sri Lanka has 300,000 students sitting university exams every year and only 30,000 places. “We have a huge untapped opportunity in our educated, striving, young people. If I can come here and create a bunch of jobs, there are 1,000 people like me who can create 10, 20, 50 roles, and that’s without foreigners, that’s just in the diaspora.
That’s 10, 20 or 50,000 highly skilled, highly technical, well paying jobs. Let’s harness the ambitions of our young people and build a great technology industry here in Sri Lanka”.