Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Asanga Abeyagoonasekera 2013.jpg
Born Colombo, Sri Lanka
Occupation Government Administration
Years active 2004–present
Spouse(s) Kumudu[1]

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera (Sinhalese: අසංග අබේගුණසේකර; born 21 August 1977) is a columnist[2] and author. He is a visiting lecturer in International Political Economy for University of London in Sri Lanka Royal Institute of Colombo. Asanga has more than a decade of experience in Government, serving as the head of several Government Institutions to positions at the board level.

Asanga is the Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka(INSSSL)[3] He is the former Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS) which is a Sri Lankan government think tank.[4][5]

Early life and education

He is the only son of Ossie Abeygunasekera, who was the leader of Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya (SLMP), presidential candidate and Member of Parliament from Colombo District. Ossie Abeygunasekera was assassinated by a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suicide attack in 1994.

His primary and secondary education at the S. Thomas' Preparatory School and Ananda College, he gained BSc in Computer Science and a MBA from the Edith Cowan University. He has also undertaken executive education programs at the Harvard Kennedy School,Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, India School of Business and Yale University. He is an alumni of the National Defence University Washington[6]

He is a scholastic member of the Golden Key International Honour Society.[7] for academic performance.

Career

Having worked in the Sri Lankan telecominication sector as a project manager at Sri Lanka Telecom and Hutchison Lanka, he joined Government sector in 2005 and was appointed Chairman of the Ceylon Fishery Harbours Corporation (CFHC)[8][9][10] following the Asian tsunami in 2004 which destroyed many fishery harbours. He held the post until 2010 after successful reconstruction of the fishery harbours and transforming the loss making cooperation into profit,[11] He was appointed Chairman of the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Agency in 2010[12][13] and served until 2011, he was appointed as Executive Director of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies the Government foreign policy think tank under Ministry of External Affairs. He was also on the Board of Directors of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority from 2005 to 2010. On 10 April 2015, he was appointed as a Broad Director at the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL) by Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake.[14] Asanga served as an consultant to Minister of Finance until May 2016.

In 2012, Asanga was selected as a Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum.[15]

He is the founding curator of the Global Shapers Colombo Hub and the Global Dignity Country Chair for Sri Lanka.[1]

In 2012 Asanga established "Dirisaviya Foundation" a non governmental not for profit foundation which operates several initiatives including ipaidabribe.lk[16] a powerful global crowdsourced anticorruption website, global dignity for school children www.globaldignity.org[17] and Junior World Entrepreneurship Forum (JWEF)[18] recognizing local young entrepreneurs. Dirisaviya Foundation also launched two mobile apps Sri Dalada[19] and Sinhala Poets.[20]

In 2015 he published a book "Towards a better world order".[21] He has published articles in international journals and media on foreign policy, security and geopolitics. He has delivered lecturers in many think tanks and Universities around the world. In 2016 he authored a chapter for “The Modi Doctrine: New Paradigms in India’s Foreign Policy”[22]

References

External links

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