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Outsourcing’s new outpost

Villagers in Sri Lanka get connected to the world economy.

Back in 1998, Nandasiri WanninayaKA used his first computer to improve the English lessons he gave to the children of rice farmers in Mahavilachchiya, a town of about 800 families in northern Sri Lanka. Wanninayaka never suspected the device would help him found his own company—and help bring the benefits of outsourcing to this isolated and impoverished village.

Wanninayaka’s early English students are now young adults, with no interest in becoming soldiers or farmers. So they work for OnTime Technologies, a company Wanninayaka founded last year to handle administrative work and data entry, mostly for clients in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, 200 kilometres (125 miles) from Mahavilachchiya. Firms such as telecom operator Dialog and conglomerate John Keells send data via a wireless Internet connection to OnTime staffers, who handle the processing. The firm is now branching out beyond data entry; it recently began creating software programs for overseas companies. And some of Wanninayaka’s former students are teaching their parents how to read, so they can go online in the village “computer lab” to read the newspaper.

Outsourcing is usually seen as a process that only creates jobs in cities. But OnTime shows outsourcing can work in rural areas like Mahavilachchiya too, where the gentle whir of computers meshes with the sound of chirping birds, whispering trees and a babbling brook.