Sagarika Wickramasekera is currently working as an Assistant Network Manager at Sriplaee Campus, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Prior to this, she worked for the National Online Distance Education Service of the Ministry of Higher Education as Deputy Director - Systems where she actively participated in promoting distance education in Sri Lanka. Her previous professional experience includes Network Analyst at Open University of Sri Lanka and visiting academic for various other institutions including the Vocational Training University, the Sri Lanka Law College, and the Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka.
Sagarika is also involved in volunteer organizations like LKiNG (Lanka Internet Networking Group) which was the local body for APNG (Asia Pacific Networking Group) and the Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter (ISOC LK) which is dedicated to promoting the Internet and IT in Sri Lanka. She held various positions over the past decade and served as president of ISOC LK during 2016-2017. Currently she is an Advisory board member of ISOC LK.
She worked hard to implement many projects at ISOC LK such as ICT literacy training for disabled soldiers in the Sri Lanka Army, and the Beyond the reach project which caters to vision impaired communities in Sri Lanka. Apart from that, she is playing a key role in empowering women in IT in Sri Lanka. She is one of the key organizers of the first ever IGF in Sri Lanka. She conducted two women’s IGF programs, including the first ever women IGF in the region in 2017 and another in 2020. She served as a board member of the Diversity Collective Lanka group (DC LK) which is dedicated to increasing women’s participation in the IT and BPO sectors in Sri Lanka.
She is currently serving as secretary of APSIG (Asia Pacific School of Internet Governance) and she is an Executive Committee member of APNG (Asia Pacific Next Generation Group).
She has been involved in many international collaborative projects with many countries, including Japan, Thailand, China, Singapore, and Australia. Recently she participated in a world Telecommunication Standards Assembly as an observer in Tunisia. In addition, she is serving as a consultant for the Be Safe project, which is introducing a mobile app help line for differently abled women in Sri Lanka.
She completed her Commonwealth Executive MBA in the Open University in 2014, and holds professional qualifications, including CCNA, BCS and CWNA.
In her free time Sagarika helps the needy in her community, including animals.
Image credit: © Irene van Kessel