On the sidelines of the Asia Tech 2026 Conference held in Singapore, a high-level bilateral discussion was successfully conducted on 20 May 2026 with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at accelerating and enhancing Sri Lanka’s digital transformation agenda. The Sri Lankan delegation was led by Hon. Eranga Weeraratne, Deputy Minister of Digital Economy. Sri Lanka was commended during the discussions as a country firmly committed to an inclusive and practical digital transformation across the region.

The primary focus of the meeting was to explore technical and advisory collaboration in support of Sri Lanka’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy and its “AI for Public Good” agenda. It was agreed that Sri Lanka’s draft national AI policy framework would be reviewed by the Gates Foundation, and that structured technical dialogues would be initiated between both sides to strengthen Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and data-driven governance approaches.

Furthermore, in response to a request from the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, it was agreed to advance the next phase of the “Inclusive Digital Agriculture Transformation (IDAT 2)” initiative with a stronger farmer-centric approach. Special emphasis was placed on improving agricultural productivity and market access, enhancing climate resilience, and delivering AI-powered digital advisory services to farmers.

Discussions also highlighted the importance of leveraging regional technology ecosystems to accelerate Sri Lanka’s digital journey. In this context, collaboration was explored with Singapore’s “AI Singapore” initiative to strengthen public sector AI adoption and capacity building, as well as with India’s “EkStep” platform to develop Digital Public Goods for citizen services and multilingual AI infrastructure. Additionally, arrangements were discussed for the Chief Executive Officer of GovTech Sri Lanka to undertake a knowledge exchange visit to Bangalore to learn from global best practices in Digital ID systems.

The Sri Lankan delegation included Hon. Eranga Weeraratne, Deputy Minister of Digital Economy, and Mr. Sanjaya Karunasena, Acting Chief Executive Officer of GovTech Sri Lanka. The Gates Foundation delegation was led by senior representative Mr. Hari Menon, who also participated in the bilateral engagement.