The Bill Gates Foundation of Bill Gates, the owner of the world-famous Microsoft company, has come forward to develop agriculture in Sri Lanka. Bill Gates Foundation is offering to increase agriculture in this country by introducing software to use digital technology for increasing productivity and nutrition in the agricultural sector. The preliminary discussion for this purpose has been held at the President’s Office under the chairmanship of President Ranil Wickramasinghe.
A grant of 250 million dollars is received from this project to develop the agriculture industry in this country and the primary objective is to collect data in the agricultural sector to increase the nutrition of rice and other crops. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation officials expressed their agreement to this project when they met President Ranil Wickremesinghe last week.
It has been mentioned in the preliminary discussion held at the President’s office that the new software will provide the necessary guidance for obtaining productivity directly from the use of fertilizers and preserving the productivity obtained. In addition, the Bill Gates Foundation is committed to digitizing the social security system. Apart from this, the financial system of the country as well as the sector related to climate change will also be digitized through this software.
Also, it was revealed in the initial discussion that this will help to prepare the government policies. These activities will be under the supervision of Mr Sagala Ratnayake, Chief of Presidential Staff, Presidential Adviser on National Security and Mr Saman Ekanayake, President’s Secretary. (Lankadeepa)
