Foundation Projects

In Sri Lanka, over 600,000 people are directly employed in fisheries and over 3 million people are dependent on this sector. Most citizens can use a mobile phone to access the Internet, but this huge potential remains untapped to provide requisite information services to fisher folk.

In this pilot project, a Mobile/Web-based Service Portal is being developed that could provide a wide spectrum of service enhancements to meet needs of the fishing community. It is made possible via two sub-systems:

1. An SMS/Web based Trading Portal that facilitates identifying a better market for harvested fish and completing marketing process yielding benefits to the fisher and the consumer.
2. An Info-Server Portal that could provide fishermen not only with market related information, but also with other important information such as weather conditions, locations of fish, etc.

Some of these information provisioning services require expensive and sophisticated equipment. However the operational platform that was deployed makes it possible to send this information to affordable mobile phones. Finally, the project proposes sustainability measures for the system, together with future directions for further development.