0:02 Even youngsters if they can start
0:03 building on their own I think they can
0:06 do even bigger things instead of the the
0:08 old playbooks of trying to find a job
0:11 where you can fit in as an intern or a
0:13 junior might not exist it it might
0:15 change but like if you want to build
0:18 something there is a entire world in
0:19 front of you where you can try and even
0:21 if you fail people are going to happy to
0:23 take you in because you come with a
0:38 [music]
0:40 >> Sand welcome to the show.
0:42 >> Hi Shafra. Glad to be here. Thank you
0:44 for having me.
0:46 >> If you can tell a little bit about
0:48 yourself, how you got started, where did
0:51 you study and then also how was your
0:55 corporate life was like? I was uh born
0:58 in Japna but I studied in Candi and then
1:01 I I ended up at uh uh in the corporate
1:05 world in Colbo. Um so if you really look
1:08 at um sort of my journey with respect to
1:11 education I specialized in computer
1:16 science and also in parallel I uh did my
1:20 CMA as well but I never practiced but
1:22 although I have that knowledge and then
1:24 I got into the corporate world I think
1:27 that's where we met long time back soon
1:31 after I finished my A levels I was
1:33 playing around with uh we had a lot of
1:35 time left on our hands. So I was playing
1:39 around with software and uh and then I
1:41 thought it was easy to start building
1:44 software and and I I started building
1:48 stuff without any knowledge. Uh and that
1:50 was almost like love at first sight with
1:52 software. I thought like okay this is
1:53 amazing that I could sort of start
1:56 building things and since then I've
1:58 continued to sort of try to build
2:02 software on one hand and then later on I
2:05 think I also stumbled upon
2:08 in a professional context and also in a
2:11 not for profofit context into uh into
2:15 into community building. So uh I've been
2:17 very fortunate that I've been able to
2:19 experience building products on one hand
2:22 and also building communities. Um so
2:24 these are two things that I've enjoyed
2:25 doing a lot.
2:28 >> Son you did CIMA while you were studying
2:31 uh computer science. So it seems very
2:33 interesting and different sort of two
2:36 different angles in education. So tell
2:38 us a little bit about what made you get
2:41 into like CMA and then any stories
2:44 behind it. uh it it was a trend at that
2:46 point of time. Everybody asked me CMA.
2:50 So I I thought like why not and uh so so
2:52 my mother asked me whether if I want to
2:54 do CMA and then I said uh yeah why not
2:56 and and then uh we had a small
2:58 disagreement because her expectation
3:00 about how to study that and how I want
3:02 to study that was very different uh
3:05 because uh for her it was uh important
3:07 that I went to classes and studied
3:09 whereas for me I assumed that she was
3:11 okay with me doing it as a self-study.
3:14 So we had a disagreement on that and and
3:17 then we agreed that I I went and said in
3:20 case if I fail the exams then you don't
3:22 have to sort of pay for it. So she gave
3:24 me that chance where okay you study and
3:25 if you get through then I'll pay for the
3:28 next stage. So it was all fun it was
3:32 going well and it came to the
3:34 I think till strategic level I don't
3:36 recall failing any of the exams and then
3:38 we have a the final exam is a case study
3:41 that we'll have to do. Uh so it's funny
3:43 that I actually failed the case study thrice.
3:45 thrice.
3:48 It's not just once. I failed it thrice
3:50 and then for the life of me I couldn't
3:52 understand it. I failed it with 50 was
3:56 the pass mark and I failed it like 46 47
3:58 45 or something like that like it's all
4:00 in the 40s like upper end of the 40s and
4:02 for the life of me I couldn't figure out
4:04 why I was failing and then somehow
4:07 there's this uh session that happened in
4:10 Colbo where C had this uh session in
4:12 Colbo where the examiner from the UK was
4:15 here and there was a half a day workshop
4:18 so I attended that workshop and there
4:20 was this aha moment in the workshop
4:23 where he said something which is
4:25 profound and which has actually helped
4:29 me in my career a lot. He said
4:33 in business it's not about making sure
4:36 you get to the best decision but within
4:38 the time limit you need to make a
4:43 decision and get it executed.
4:45 Like the mistake I have been making in
4:47 all those papers was that I was making
4:48 sure that all the steps the calculations
4:51 are right the analysis are right and
4:53 every time I've been running out of time
4:54 to come up with the decision or the
4:59 proposal of my decision in the paper at practical
5:00 practical
5:02 purposes what you need to be doing is
5:04 making decisions within time
5:05 constraints. It's not going to be
5:07 perfect even with partial data you'll
5:10 have to make decisions in life in
5:11 corporate life in business and all of that.
5:12 that.
5:15 That was a profound sort of experience
5:18 and now looking back probably it was
5:20 worth failing it thrice because I
5:22 learned that and it has actually helped
5:25 me with my career progression due
5:26 because sometimes people are reluctant
5:28 to make decisions whereas because of
5:31 this uh experience that I've had of
5:35 failing the exam. uh I I understood the
5:37 importance of making decisions even if
5:39 it's right or wrong you need to make
5:42 decisions in a timely manner and then
5:43 face the consequences or or sort of live
5:47 with it or or adapt based on what's
5:49 happening. So when you look at the
5:50 corporate world and the businesses there
5:54 are a lot of ambiguity uh with less data
5:56 you have to make quicker decisions like
6:00 especially in a day and age like now um
6:03 where things are very can be very
6:06 uncertain and also not everyone knows
6:17 >> [music] >> load.
6:19 >> load.
6:21 >> You had a vision and the team had a
6:24 vision to make Japna the next Silicon
6:28 Valley. So that's sort of like a moto
6:31 that you have for Y hub. How this whole
6:35 concept of Y hub came about? Um what was
6:37 the sort of initial thought and then how
6:40 did you go about it?
6:43 So first of all I need to
6:46 be very clear that um no single
6:49 individual including myself gets should
6:51 get any credit for what has happened
6:54 with the idea with its magic at at play.
6:58 It is beyond any of us and and um and
7:01 also the reason why I don't think anyone
7:03 can take credit for it is because a lot
7:06 of people thousands of people volunteer
7:08 every year. um people are putting their
7:10 money into it in the form of
7:12 sponsorships and partnerships none of
7:14 them get anything in return to be honest
7:17 um people who who who are putting money
7:20 time and and it's it's actually a
7:22 community effort a collective effort in
7:27 heaven we we use this term which says
7:29 which basically means it's a chariot
7:31 being pulled by the community so that's
7:32 what's exactly happening and to give
7:35 some context for for everyone um
7:38 northern Sri Lanka was primarily the the
7:40 theater of the war. We had a 30 year
7:43 civil war and after the end of the war
7:45 after a couple of years of the end of
7:47 the war we started the all here. Uh the
7:49 reason we started was because we wanted
7:52 to create uh economic prosperity in the
7:55 region and and and opportunities for the
7:58 youth to sort of pursue and we felt that
8:00 technology, innovation and
8:03 entrepreneurship are the tools which can
8:06 transform the community and help in the
8:08 process of healing. Even today if you
8:12 look at uh the the the statistics the
8:15 north and the east uh eastern provinces
8:19 are the highest in terms of poverty uh
8:22 the worst in terms of GDP the worst in
8:26 terms of um um per capita income. uh so
8:28 this is the context in you operate and
8:32 and and having said all of that the most
8:34 encouraging sign that we see as part
8:38 of's work is that um there's clear
8:40 momentum where the children and the
8:43 youth are taking to technology
8:45 innovation and entrepreneurship. So 15
8:47 years ago when we started the idea we
8:49 launched a competition because we
8:51 understood that this is a lot of work
8:53 and generational work that need to
8:56 happen. So we we understood that we need
8:59 to seed this idea of all the children
9:02 and and start at that level. So when we
9:06 had the GC junior 14 years ago, we had
9:12 just 13 kids turning up for it. Uh and
9:17 and today like last year in 2025,
9:21 we had 2,500 plus children applying for
9:27 it. And uh now every year we see 30%
9:29 increase in participation.
9:33 So for example when we ran YGC1 15 years
9:36 ago for pitch as a pitch competition uh
9:39 we had a handful of sort of teams coming
9:40 and participating none of them actually
9:43 became a startup immediately.
9:47 Whereas today fast forward uh there are
9:51 more than 100 companies run by alumni of YGC.
9:52 YGC.
9:56 They employ thousand plus people outside
9:59 of Colbo. uh Japna has the most number
10:03 of uh startups in technology
10:07 uh which is uh still early momentum but
10:09 there's a clear momentum on the ground
10:12 in terms of participation and talent
10:14 which is emerging which is very
10:17 encouraging to see youth sometimes if
10:19 you really look at the structure of
10:23 education here only about 18 to 20% will
10:24 get into universities or would have the
10:26 money to get into private universities
10:30 is so we designed this technology school
10:32 which is called we we designed this
10:35 technology school where we take them in
10:38 it's a 100% scholarship
10:40 they sort of uh learn to program they
10:42 have personal coaching they learn
10:44 English they learn the basics of
10:46 business and they build a piece of
10:50 software and during that uh the six
10:54 months they do it end to end and um and
10:56 then they they go in either as interns
10:58 into tech companies or they had become
11:00 founders. So there are actually 30
11:02 companies founded by people who had gone
11:03 through the six months program out of
11:06 our technology school. Um so so these
11:08 are programs that has been designed and
11:10 run and this is entirely by the
11:12 community. It's like volunteers coming
11:14 together partners putting money on it
11:16 and and making this happen. So that's
11:19 why I again want to reiterate that it
11:21 it's it's beyond any of our
11:23 imaginations. I have been to Yal Geek
11:27 Challenge um five times or four or five
11:29 times. Yalit hub and then Yal geek
11:33 challenge whenever that I attended I
11:35 returned back to Colbo with a lot of
11:37 inspiration. I I returned back with a
11:40 lot of stories to tell to rest of the
11:42 Colomb. So it was very interesting. Um
11:44 and at the same time you pointed out
11:47 like how small things started off. uh
11:50 you only had 13 kids uh from the school
11:53 level and then you only had very few
11:55 people who actually didn't line up. You
11:58 didn't didn't have a lineup of people
11:59 who jumped in and want to become
12:01 entrepreneurs, right? It's also a
12:04 mindset um that you when you want to
12:07 become a entrepreneur uh you should be
12:11 able to like take challenges. Um that's
12:14 not how being taught in Sri Lankan
12:17 culture, right? uh you study, go to
12:20 work, work under someone uh but I think
12:24 you have been changing mindset also um
12:28 over past few years when we look at YGC
12:30 uh like the latest season that you concluded
12:32 concluded
12:34 um I think some of the big names in tech
12:37 some of the big investors
12:42 um are attending uh YGC now and then a
12:44 lot of big companies in Sri Lanka
12:47 are also partnering up with this. What's
12:49 your secret sauce? How did you get them
12:51 to be a part of this program?
12:52 >> It's it's funny now we we have the
12:54 luxury of seeing all of this. But when
12:57 we started was just a handful of
12:59 companies who actually supported and we
13:00 thankful for them for doing that and
13:02 organizations who came on board, the
13:05 early supporters. We even at one time
13:07 went uh thought that we want to raise
13:08 funds and stuff like that. We want to go
13:11 and pitch and and then we we didn't get
13:13 good results. So [snorts]
13:16 uh what we did was we just went back and
13:19 did what we did properly and to be
13:21 honest like the platinum sponsors today
13:25 of it hub uh people like IT foundation
13:28 people like Cinnamon Global people like Musk
13:30 Musk
13:36 AI to Northern Uni even um Nebara all of
13:39 them actually found us the work that we
13:41 are doing and then came and approached
13:42 to become a partner.
13:45 So that was just magic happening because
13:47 like uh we we wouldn't have been able to
13:50 go and convince any of them but they saw
13:52 the work that we do and then then they
13:55 came. So I think um uh the the the
13:58 recipe that is hard like I think when
14:00 things become successful it's easy to
14:03 sort of uh say that this was the recipe
14:05 and then all of that but like there are
14:07 few things I think it's repeatable.
14:09 Obviously one big factor has been we've
14:11 been lucky. So I think that I need to
14:15 confess but then um um one one one thing
14:18 was the vision of what we wanted to do.
14:20 I think it resonated and it connected
14:22 quickly. You like that's the first time
14:24 you said right about our idea we just
14:26 remember it very easily. >> [snorts]
14:26 >> [snorts]
14:29 >> uh the vision was clear and and and and
14:33 the vision uh was clear and then I think
14:34 most importantly we were very lucky I
14:36 don't know what happened but we actually
14:40 defined our values up front distributed
14:42 decision making at all levels because
14:43 the values are clear and within those
14:45 values you can do anything within the
14:47 hub and it's very flat we don't have
14:49 designations as such and all of that
14:50 unless you are a full-time employee
14:53 who's dedicated your career to it all of
14:55 us are volunteers and and then if you
14:57 look the values we also defined a value
15:02 like let's say being apolitical. So um
15:04 operating this kind of an environment it
15:05 was very lucky that we made that
15:07 decision to be apolitical. So we've
15:09 stayed out of all of that and and that
15:12 has allowed us to independently operate
15:14 in the way we want to operate. We've
15:16 stayed corporate and technology
15:18 independent. So it's a platform for all
15:21 of them. So likewise and these values we
15:23 defined 15 years ago. We were just lucky
15:25 that we we made that decision and that
15:27 has helped us in decision making
15:30 especially in a distributed way and and
15:33 and also we stayed transparent so people
15:35 can come in contribute with ideas
15:38 everyone could chip in and and everyone
15:40 rolls up the sleeves and does things
15:42 like for example even still now now I
15:44 think you should visit by GC it'll
15:46 happen in August we have 20,000 people
15:49 attending so it's just grown to be
15:51 something and there are like if you look
15:53 at Japna still the infrastructure is not
15:54 there. We don't have event management
15:56 companies and so forth. So even from
15:59 taking out the garbage to arranging the
16:01 chairs, it'll be the CEOs of the
16:02 companies of the alumni companies and
16:04 volunteers who's rolling up their
16:06 sleeves and doing it right up till 10:00
16:09 or 11:00 in the night. So it's beautiful
16:11 to see this and and people who come in
16:13 like like like even yourself to all of
16:15 that. It became addictive for a lot of
16:18 people to keep coming back because they
16:21 just enjoyed. I'm sure if you were not
16:22 uh if you not moved out of the country
16:24 you would have also continued to come.
16:26 So most people are like that like who
16:28 who who are part of this journey has
16:30 been coming and and being part of this
16:32 year after year. It's almost become like
16:35 a pilgrimage for coming to the YGC and
16:36 the B competition and now of course the
16:39 innovation festival. So so it's grown
16:41 and and I think those are probably the
16:43 characteristics which allow this
16:45 community to sort of build into
16:46 something sustainable.
16:49 >> Wow. 20,000 people. That's almost like
16:53 one of the biggest tech events that
16:56 happens in uh in APAC. Something that I
16:59 really vouch for is the involvement of
17:02 the volunteers. Uh they roll up their
17:04 sleeves and then they say, "Okay, I'm
17:07 going to help uh to execute this." And
17:09 they've been executing this for 15 plus
17:13 years now. Um so that execution like
17:17 every time every year when you have your
17:20 execution uh going on I I think it
17:24 compounds over time um and then it adds
17:26 value um as well like when things
17:29 compound as almost like a sort of law of
17:31 attraction kind of thing that happens uh
17:34 over a period of time as well that's
17:36 something that I've seen people who have
17:39 moved out who are based out of Japna
17:41 moved out to uh uh work in Silicon
17:45 Valley in the US and Europe also uh like
17:47 very passionately uh helping out this
17:51 cause because they want the region uh to
17:55 be successful. They want this making
17:57 Japna to be the next Silicon Valley a
18:00 reality. I think that comes out of lot
18:02 of like I think passion. Um so coming up
18:05 to like some of the success stories
18:07 right you mentioned about like 100 plus
18:09 startups. I know Senzag grow is doing
18:12 some amazing work when they started off
18:15 also. Um even Miller had like
18:18 connections to like India they were like
18:20 trying to do stuff in India as well
18:22 which is pretty amazing. So any of the
18:25 interesting startups that has come up
18:29 from IHub uh that you want to share?
18:31 >> Go shopping with SnapIt and grab
18:33 unbelievable rewards from the brands you love.
18:35 love. >> [music]
18:35 >> [music]
18:42 >> So I'm not going to name companies right
18:44 now because I didn't ask for them for
18:46 the permission but I'm sure they are all
18:48 going to turn up in your podcast in
18:50 future [laughter] and they will talk. So
18:53 so I'll let them sort of refer it but
18:55 I'll give you context of this. So one of
18:56 the beautiful things that has also
18:57 happened is there's hundreds of
19:00 companies and I just want to pick a few
19:02 and and and and all of them are doing
19:04 amazing work and and you you named
19:06 already uh sense made sense agro and and
19:07 stuff like that which which is doing
19:11 amazing work u there's a lot of
19:13 companies who actually now now come out
19:16 of this some of them established very
19:18 well 100 people companies and and so
19:20 forth which is in operation 100 engineer
19:21 companies and and so forth which is
19:24 doing amazingly well uh one of The
19:27 beautiful things is the fact that uh the
19:29 most uh sort of rewarding there are two
19:31 things that has actually come out of it.
19:33 There was this uh
19:35 donor organization which actually was
19:37 talking to us and evaluating the work
19:39 that we did. So they were doing due
19:41 diligence on us and then they they came
19:43 and uh they said something which was
19:45 very interesting. So this was the first
19:48 time they actually saw a program where a
19:50 beneficiary their terminology they call
19:52 it as beneficiary has actually come back
19:55 to become a sponsor of the program.
19:57 So at YGC one of the beautiful things
19:59 that has happened is that we have
20:03 sponsors now who are alumni companies.
20:06 So that's something which I I think is
20:08 is remarkable. Secondly, something that
20:10 makes us very happy and this been a
20:13 rewarding experience is to find juniors
20:16 who came while they were at school. So
20:18 they were at school when they came and
20:21 competed at by GCU junior and the fact
20:24 that we've run for 14 years. We have
20:26 people who participated junior who are
20:28 now CEOs of their companies running
20:30 companies with 25 people, 30 people, 40
20:33 people which is another like sort of a
20:35 rewarding experience. This is what we
20:36 sort of envisioned at some point of
20:38 time. Anything that you do when you keep
20:41 doing it consistently the compounding
20:44 loss of compounding sort of kicks in and
20:45 then when you turn back and look at it
20:47 it looks like magic that has happened
20:49 even across programs because now we have
20:51 expanded even like we even run
20:53 entrepreneurship clubs at schools. I
20:53 don't know whether you would believe
20:56 that we actually give cash to children
20:59 at school where they design businesses
21:00 and run businesses and we run a
21:02 competition at the provincial level
21:05 where we reward the school which has
21:07 made the most amount of money using
21:10 that. We give another award for the team
21:12 the the the club which has made the most
21:15 amount of impact with that money and the
21:16 third award for the best business model
21:18 innovation. So children are actually
21:20 designing and running businesses. That's
21:22 the best way you in which you can sort
21:24 of learn entrepreneurship. So so that
21:27 there's a lot happening currently.
21:30 >> That's actually a culture change as well
21:32 because that's not how been brought up.
21:34 Parents would pamper us and then they we
21:36 really don't know the value of money.
21:38 But like once you have money once you
21:41 spend start spending start earning at
21:43 the early stage they definitely need to
21:46 learn about like financial management
21:48 and all sorts of things which are like
21:51 very very useful uh that every school
21:53 should be teaching at early stage.
21:55 >> Yes. So there are actually 65 schools
21:57 which actually have entrepreneurship
22:00 clubs with this model in the northern
22:03 province today. And uh it's amazing like
22:06 we we have this uh uh thing at the 5G
22:07 innovation festival where they come and
22:09 showcase what they have sort of done. We
22:12 have uh schools from like even some of
22:15 the islands who actually came up with
22:18 massively innovative business model innovations
22:19 innovations
22:21 and and they they they run all kinds of
22:23 things. You would expect them to
22:25 sometimes run a business like like
22:26 running a bookshop or something to make
22:28 money. But they were running cricketer
22:30 tournaments, excite cricketer
22:31 tournaments and getting money out of
22:34 sponsorships and making money out of it.
22:35 Another school was actually running
22:38 puppet shows to make money out of it. So
22:41 they they understand that now all of
22:43 this can be business like we when we
22:45 were kids we never thought that cricket
22:47 can be a business, right? So so they
22:49 they are thinking very differently. So
22:51 it's very encouraging science for the future.
22:52 future.
22:54 That's very true and especially that's a
22:56 very good sign for northern province um
23:00 as well. Um so uh Son I have not seen
23:03 this model elsewhere even across the
23:06 world and then across the region also
23:09 like there's one uh s story a similar
23:13 story uh in Vietnam where uh the people
23:15 who are going through this program they
23:18 tend to kind of encourage the alumni to
23:21 come back and help um other people out
23:24 and then to recruit etc. I think the
23:27 same model is happening in YDC as well.
23:29 But if someone wants to like sort of
23:32 replicate the same model um can be in
23:36 Sri Lanka or maybe elsewhere um like is
23:38 there a way for them to do it? Should
23:40 they be in touch with you? How does it work?
23:41 work?
23:42 >> So that's actually an offer that we've
23:45 been making to everybody. So it's just
23:47 that we don't have the bandwidth to
23:50 replicate ourselves. But we've learned a
23:53 lot of things along this journey and we
23:56 are happy to share all of this with
23:58 anyone who wants to sort of replicate a
24:00 similar model a communitydriven
24:03 community uh driven uh uh innovation
24:07 model and um a lot of things that we do
24:10 uh we actually even opensource it and
24:12 know for example we run a book program
24:15 for grade 6 to9 students. It's a
24:17 gamified program because with COVID we
24:19 saw a massive drop in participation from
24:22 schools in in YGC junior. So we wanted a
24:24 rural participation to come back again.
24:26 So we designed this program where the
24:27 first level of the programs doesn't have
24:30 anything to be do with technology. It's
24:32 basically like it it would have a work
24:34 item to say go and collect different
24:38 types of flowers in the garden tabulate
24:40 the number of petals in it and then we
24:42 introduce Fibonacci numbers to them.
24:44 Then we showed them how Fibonacci
24:46 numbers is used in architecture. So they
24:48 started something very primitive but
24:49 learned something very advanced at the
24:52 end of that sort of worksheet. So what
24:55 we have done is we we run this like we
24:58 designed such programs and they complete
24:59 level one and then they get into level
25:01 two and then get they get into level
25:02 three. Level three they introduced
25:04 programming and stuff like that like
25:07 like last year's level three was one of
25:09 the levels was quantum computing. So
25:11 this is for grade six to nine students.
25:14 they they complete. Okay. So, this book
25:16 program has more than 5,000 people part
25:18 5,000 students year on year
25:21 participating on it. So, uh and and they
25:23 can send it by post. So, they don't have
25:25 to even send it by or they have the
25:27 option of sell it by WhatsApp, Viber and
25:30 all of that as well. So the the point I
25:32 was trying to make is this book program
25:34 the design of the book and everything we
25:36 actually release it with the most
25:39 lenient creative common licenses
25:41 because we want actually people to take
25:43 this and replicate it anywhere they want
25:45 to replicate
25:46 along with this I'm just taking this
25:48 book as a one example of thing that we
25:50 open source but like everything that we
25:53 do we are happy to share because uh we
25:57 feel that although um it's not seen it's
26:00 highly possible for people to replicate
26:01 this in other places. You'll have to
26:04 tinker it, customize it, localize it,
26:07 but there are some highle fundamentals
26:09 which will stay the same.
26:11 >> Like you mentioned, the whole program
26:13 has been open source. Uh and I'll leave
26:15 uh a link to the program if someone
26:18 wants to sort of get in touch or maybe
26:20 contribute. Um this book idea is very
26:23 interesting. Um so how do you create
26:26 these type of like worksheets? Can
26:29 people get involved in helping out to
26:31 create worksheets like this?
26:33 >> Absolutely. So what happens is we have a
26:35 research team who anchors the project
26:36 but then we have volunteers who actually
26:40 chip in with ideas with worksheets and
26:43 also reviewing that. So like even all
26:44 those parts are done completely
26:46 voluntarily. So they they sort of get
26:48 involved in that and and it's a
26:50 different book every year. So it's three
26:52 levels of book and a entirely different
26:54 book every year. So that it's it's a new
26:57 experience. they learn something and and
26:58 it's the theme is very different from
27:01 year to year and so forth. So we would
27:02 love to have participation from more
27:04 people. There's so much scope for people
27:06 to volunteer and sort of get involved
27:08 and and also by learning if they can
27:10 replicate in their own communities
27:11 anywhere in the world. We would love to
27:13 see that happen. there across the world
27:15 there are different markets like similar
27:19 conditions what uh Japna had and and has
27:21 as well because what we have seen is
27:23 what happens in the US like the
27:24 communities that are being started off
27:27 easily gets replicated but hey come on
27:30 in Sri Lanka there's a totally different
27:33 social communitydriven innovation model
27:35 that people can take in and run into
27:38 while you were building entrepreneurs in
27:41 Japna uh you let go of corporate life
27:44 and became an entrepreneur yourself now
27:47 uh with Mantra Aai. Um so which is
27:50 interesting uh that's an AI startup. Do
27:51 you want to share a little bit about
27:52 what you do?
27:56 >> Sure. So so I didn't actually quit my my
27:58 corporate job to become an entrepreneur.
28:00 I I quit my job thinking that I want to
28:01 retire. [laughter]
28:04 So I was like I had a target that okay I
28:06 need to have more time on my hands and
28:08 one of the the the things was like we
28:10 were doing up and and stuff like that
28:13 but always I was missing living in Japna
28:15 so I wanted to sort of move and live in
28:17 Japa. So that was the main reason I quit
28:20 my full-time job and I moved to Japna.
28:22 Once I moved here I was just playing
28:24 around with technology and I had more
28:26 time to build. So I spent a lot of time
28:29 building stuff and then first I actually
28:32 spent a lot of time with blockchains
28:34 trying to understand and all of that and
28:37 then I found that it's it's a brilliant
28:40 piece of maths that is waiting for
28:42 problems to be sort of where it could
28:45 fit in to solve very early on I got into
28:48 AI and and I I started experimenting a
28:51 lot with AI and then what happened was
28:54 while I was in my corporate life at
28:56 Applua one of the things I had to do was
28:59 like um I had to look at some of the
29:01 operational aspects which also included
29:04 managing inside sales teams. So I come
29:07 from a technical background and I had no
29:10 idea managing a sales team. So it was a
29:13 suffering for me uh because um sales
29:15 numbers fluctuates people do demos
29:17 sometimes it doesn't close. It's hard to
29:19 sort of put a finger and say exactly
29:21 this is why sales numbers are not sort
29:24 of working out this month. and a top
29:26 performer sometimes it's very hard to
29:29 differentiate from a low performer give
29:31 feedback to the low performer we found
29:34 it very hard and then I realized that I
29:37 I love chess I play a lot of chess as in
29:38 not that I'm a good chess player
29:41 probably rate myself as an average club
29:44 player uh but I I love the game when I'm
29:45 just sort of stressed I would go and
29:47 play online chess uh my my coping
29:51 mechanism I suppose so u so I I love
29:52 chess and one of the things that I
29:53 realized This was like when you want to
29:56 sort of improve in chess, you you either
29:59 figure out where your deficiencies are.
30:01 So in a game of chess, you might have a
30:02 deficiency in your opening, middle game
30:05 or end game or you might have uh
30:07 deficiencies in detecting certain
30:09 patterns like techniques. So you might
30:11 not see a fork or whatever. Sales is
30:14 similar. So when you have a sales
30:16 conversation, a demo, you have a
30:18 structure to it. Some people are good at
30:20 explaining or elicitating the customer's
30:23 requirements but they are bad at asking
30:25 for the sale. So they do everything well
30:26 but they don't ask for the sale so the
30:29 sale doesn't close or sometimes what
30:31 happens is they they do all the parts
30:34 well but then they don't uh handle
30:37 objections well. They might bring up an
30:38 objection about a competitor and they
30:40 don't sort of answer that well or they
30:42 have issues in sales techniques. So for
30:44 example, they might not be doing
30:46 mirroring or they might not be doing
30:49 value selling or they might not be using
30:51 social proofs in their conversations. So
30:54 I realized like okay this can be this is
30:57 a nice fit for AI for for inside sales
30:59 teams doing this. So I I started
31:02 building manga it was not I just
31:03 building a solution for it and then
31:05 there were people who said like okay
31:07 this is interesting. I analyzed a few
31:08 companies data and showed them. They
31:10 said like okay we ready to pay for it
31:12 and I didn't have a company. So I just
31:14 registered a company just because people
31:17 were ready to pay for it. So that's how
31:20 I sort of got into entrepreneurship sort
31:22 of journey as as such and then I was
31:24 also fascinated by AI. I wanted to see
31:27 as an individual how much you can push
31:28 even today
31:31 uh I I work on it full-time. there's a
31:34 teenager who's actually um handling the
31:37 content and social media part of it and
31:39 uh the rest is I'm I'm trying to see how
31:42 much as an individual you can push uh
31:45 this using AI and and and it's it's it's
31:47 a fascinating journey because uh I
31:50 myself uh from a skills and learning and
31:53 all of that learned a lot and also it's
31:54 contributing as in it's it's helping
31:56 businesses because one of the latest
31:58 features that we launched was live
32:02 coaching. So, while you're on a a call,
32:04 a demo, you could actually have an
32:07 overlay on your call, which is actually
32:09 listening in and pulling up your battle
32:12 cards, pulling up your deficiencies to
32:16 remind you, don't forget to uh ask for
32:19 the sale. This particular thing came up
32:21 in the conversation. The customer
32:22 mentioned, you have missed it. You might
32:24 want to just address it. So, instead of
32:26 giving this feedback later on, it's
32:29 actually doing it live. Um so building
32:30 those kind of stuff has been fascinating
32:34 because it's fun. Uh so it's early days
32:37 uh but u it's a fun journey and I'm
32:40 enjoying it.
32:41 That's pretty fantastic like especially
32:43 the overlay part look at different
32:46 aspects of the sale and then like try to
32:49 close at the end of the day right with
32:51 AI I think you pointed out like a very
32:53 important point is that like you
32:56 dabbling with the whole idea after uh
33:00 sort of retirement I would say um but
33:01 the thing is like you were able to like
33:04 build something up very quickly and then
33:06 uh push it out and then see how the
33:09 market would react and you've been also
33:12 So like a very vocal advocate about AI
33:16 and then you were talking about um
33:19 especially about the the new intern the
33:22 human AI co-creation and then you also
33:25 have this India
33:31 uh analogy uh etc. So you are pro AI uh
33:34 type of a person. So in your opinion
33:38 like how does like future of software
33:39 development looks like?
33:40 >> Right. I'm not sure whether if I want to
33:43 call myself a pro AI person but I think
33:46 I will call myself a technology
33:48 optimist. So normally I have an
33:50 optimistic sort of outlook on
33:52 technology. I can go wrong on this with
33:54 especially with AI it can go anywhere.
33:57 So one of the things I I I think is it
33:59 actually technology has pushed us
34:01 forward. It has helped us uh that the
34:04 net has been positive is my view on on
34:06 technology of obviously technology has
34:08 its sort of drawbacks issues and all of
34:11 that but like if you look at overall at
34:13 at a massive scale at a at a macro scale
34:16 it has been a net positive and and and I
34:19 feel that AI is a is a pivotal moment in
34:22 in in in the history of humankind and
34:26 also I think that um software industry
34:29 as a whole is is having it Kodak moment
34:31 it it's it's going to turn it on its
34:35 head and um I don't think the software
34:37 industry is going to sort of disappear
34:39 but uh the software is going to get commoditized
34:40 commoditized
34:43 uh so for example there are places where
34:45 software couldn't go in earlier because
34:47 the unit economics of building that
34:50 software didn't work but now it's
34:51 possible to take software to those
34:54 places where software couldn't go in uh
34:57 because it's become faster cheaper uh to
35:00 build Right now the the the challenge is
35:02 in actually taking it to market making
35:05 it work making it useful for people
35:07 making lives better with it and so
35:09 forth. So like like very quick example
35:13 that I'll show you like on and y we
35:14 always wanted to have a platform for
35:16 ourselves which we couldn't but now if
35:17 you look at we have a complete platform
35:20 for ya where you can register you can
35:22 have a QR code now we can track the
35:25 impact across all our initiatives. We we
35:27 can we can now track that this person
35:30 came as a junior participant
35:33 came to a senior then was part of
35:35 accelerator and all of that is
35:36 completely tracked and even their
35:38 attendance to everything is tracked on a
35:40 single platform. None of the CRM could
35:42 actually do this for us. Now with the
35:44 help of AI it's wcoded and built and
35:46 it's on production. I was just checking
35:48 out like we've not even publicly
35:50 announced but there's about thousand
35:53 plus sort of already uh registered and
35:57 using that. So this is something that we
35:58 couldn't have done. We are a not for
36:00 profofit. We don't have that luxury of
36:02 like massive budgets to build a software
36:05 project in the past right but now we
36:07 have this opportunity to build the
36:09 software for a specific purpose make it
36:11 work a place where software unit
36:13 economics didn't work earlier. So
36:14 likewise there's a lot of new
36:16 opportunities for software to go into
36:18 places where it didn't make sense
36:21 earlier. So so I I think that's going to
36:23 change and it's going and and also more
36:26 people are going to build software and
36:28 what I had realized now is if you have
36:31 clarity of thought on what you need it's
36:34 easy to build software now that's the
36:37 biggest issue. uh so when we don't know
36:39 what we want then you can't build but if
36:41 you know what you want to build it's
36:44 it's easy to sort of orchestrate the the
36:47 AI uh and get it done and it's going to
36:49 get even more easier because you need to
36:51 know that this is actually an
36:52 exponential sort of growth that's
36:55 happening last year probably people were
36:56 arguing that it was good for code
36:58 completion but now it has actually
37:01 changed a lot more you can do a lot more
37:04 and and almost like you can module
37:06 generation is almost on the brink and
37:07 probably there already. I would argue
37:09 that it's already there and and and and
37:12 and you if if you know what you want to
37:14 build. One of the things that I did
37:16 recently was uh we we did recently was
37:18 that we ran a workshop called build with
37:20 AI for people who don't come from
37:23 technical background.
37:25 So this was part of reality program. We
37:27 had about 50 plus participants. So there
37:30 was a teacher who came for that program
37:33 who actually ended up building a startup
37:35 for teaching
37:38 and this teacher never thought that he
37:40 could actually build software by himself
37:43 to to make it work at this level. So I
37:44 find that to be fascinating when these
37:46 tools are given to people who have this
37:48 problem that they know exist they are
37:50 the specialist in those domains. Now
37:52 when the superpower of building software
37:54 is given to them, they're building
37:56 amazing stuff solving a real problem
37:58 which is out there. It's an opportunity
38:00 if you really look at and if you have
38:02 the agency to sort of learn that and and
38:04 do that uh and embrace it. I think it's
38:06 an opportunity. So there's going to be a
38:07 massive difference between people who
38:09 embrace and people who don't embrace it.
38:11 Um I understand that there are
38:13 limitations, there are issues uh which
38:15 you need to be careful. I'm not playing
38:17 any of that down. But it's also opening
38:19 up a lot more new doors. It's is a
38:21 revolution right at the brink of it.
38:22 Especially if you are an entrepreneur,
38:24 it's an interesting sort of phase to
38:26 because all the old playbooks are sort
38:28 of been thrown out. So it's everybody's
38:32 in like at the same starting line almost
38:34 right now. So So that that's the
38:34 opportunity I see.
38:38 >> AI has made the playing field level for
38:40 everyone who can like they can just
38:42 start it off. uh and then especially uh
38:46 sanen uh like uh when you look at like
38:47 throughout the human history uh
38:51 technology has like changed and then has
38:54 made uh jobs redundant and then new one
38:57 pops up as well which we don't see now.
38:59 Um like if you look at like a couple of
39:02 years ago like w coders or w programmers
39:06 they weren't like a thing. Uh now it is
39:08 a thing as well. There's also this
39:11 notion of um young graduates thinking
39:14 about hey are we going to lose jobs um
39:19 etc too just because of AI uh but the
39:21 thing is the next wave of like jobs like
39:24 similar to software engineers might come
39:26 in in the future uh we don't know how it
39:29 looks like um so you are writing a book
39:33 u like a AI natively the uh the book is
39:37 a live book as well um So um I'll leave
39:40 a link to that book if anyone wants to
39:42 read it. It's a very interesting one.
39:45 Talks about like different aspects um of
39:48 this AI and then journey uh too. What's
39:51 your vision for northern province?
39:53 >> So I I think probably more than a vision
39:55 I think vision is clear. We want to
39:56 somehow create the the north to be an
39:59 innovation h that's sort of the vision
40:00 that we work on in order to achieve
40:04 that. I think if we can sort of somehow
40:07 instill in everyone
40:10 the need for agency to take ownership
40:14 and execute things and and and be
40:17 curious uh to to explore and try and
40:19 it's it's okay to fail even somebody who
40:22 tries and fails is a hero we can sort of
40:25 instill that thought process at scale I
40:27 think that could be the best outcome
40:29 that we can get I think that's the most
40:31 important outcome even with AI I
40:34 one segment that is very hardly going to
40:37 be replaced is is entrepreneurs.
40:39 So, [snorts] so that opportunity is
40:42 going to be there. Rules I think would
40:44 change as you said even youngsters if
40:46 they can start building on their own I
40:48 think they can do even bigger things. Um
40:51 so so I think the uh instead of the the
40:54 old playbooks of trying to find a job
40:56 where you can fit in as an intern or a
40:59 junior might not exist. it it might
41:00 change but like if you want to build
41:03 something there is a entire world in
41:04 front of you where you can try and even
41:06 if you fail people are going to happy to
41:08 take you in because you come with a
41:11 self-taught MBA so so that's sort of the
41:14 opportunity I see and I hope that uh
41:16 there are more people um who [music]
41:18 would actually take agency in anything
41:19 it doesn't have to be entrepreneurship
41:22 but like whatever they want to execute
41:23 to to take accountability take
41:25 responsibility and do and and [music]
41:27 then that would create like a domino
41:29 effect of more people sort of getting
41:31 inspired by them and doing that. So
41:33 that's what I wish for.
41:36 >> Thank you Sanden for joining today. Um
41:38 and then wishing you all the very best
41:40 for all the future endeavors.
41:42 >> Thank you so much Shaflas. Thank you for
41:44 the support over the so many years to
41:48 reality hub and and then professionally
41:49 and and and [music] thanks for that and
