The after lunch session took a more internal orientation, with the participation of Duo staff members in discussing the changes that should come within the company in order to gain higher technological growth while maintaining sustainability.

The first panel discussion of the day, moderated by Sampath of Sponge Learning was on Computer Technology. The panel comprised the company’s product managers, Wasantha and Sanka, who as senior employees of the company shared their extensive knowledge on the evolvement of technology in general and computer hardware in particular. They also discussed the technological enhancements they plan to introduce into Duo’s core products, DuoSubscribe and DuoContact, in the future.

This was followed by a speech on the importance of social media marketing and staff involvement in blogging for business growth by Mr. Rajit Hewagama from Copacetic Media, Duo’s new social media partner. The importance of publishing content over social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were discussed in this speech. The importance of staff involvement in blogging was observed by the company, and as such, a blog has been incorporated into the new Duo website which was launched a few days ago.

As pointed out by our CEO at this point, we should “make sure that we share our experience with the rest of the world. This would not only be of use to the others but would also bring about social recognition for the individual of Duo and for the company as well.”

Panel Discussion

The second panel discussion of the day was a very interesting and animated one, participated by Duo’s project managers and team leads. The theme of this was creativity and innovation at Duo Software. Anjana Chandrathilake highlighted the need to bring out the hidden talents of each individual, while Rangika Perera was of the opinion that the active participation of staff members in discussing steps that need to be taken to improve the development process was at a satisfactory level. Desmond Fernando stressed on the importance of identifying what each individual in a team was good at before allocating work, in order to bring out the best of each person. He also mentioned that the value of encouraging team members and giving them due recognition for achievements could not be overstated. Lasitha Senanayeka, answering a question on the importance of creating a more vibrant work environment, stated that a relaxed and stress free organizational culture will bring out the creativity of individuals. He also stressed on the fact that when it comes to meeting deadlines, each and every person in a team should take responsibility.

The day’s events were concluded by a highly inspirational speech by CEO, Mr. Muhunthan Canagey. The key issues brought up by him in his speech was the need to adapt to changing times, and the importance of working with passion & sharing knowledge. He stated that ethics need to be induced deep down into the organizational culture.

“We believe in our people, our ideas, our techniques, our methodology and continuously bringing about change. That is what Duo believes in”, he said.

Muhunthan, CEO Duo Software addresses some of the attendees.

Duo Software held its annual staff convention on 8th and 9th October at Bentota Beach Hotel. In accordance with Duo becoming the first software product development company in the world to receive Carbon Neutral certification earlier this year, the chosen theme for the convention was “Sustainability and Change”.

The convention was presided over by the company CEO Mr. Muhunthan Canagey, while the guest speakers of the day were Prof. Gihan Dias of University of Moratuwa, Mr. Sathis Arnold of Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute and Mr. Rajit Hewagama of Copacetic Media. Also present were representatives from The Carbon Consulting Company, who has been with Duo for the past few months in its attempt to achieve Carbon Neutral Certification. Day one of the event comprised a series of talks and panel discussions regarding sustainability and change, while on the second day, the employees had a chance to relax and enjoy with their colleagues.

The key event of the day was the presenting of the Carbon Neutral certification to our CFO Jennifer Samuel by the officials from the Carbon Consulting Company, in the presence of the CEO. This was a proud moment indeed for everyone at Duo Software.

Duo Software Carbon Neutral Certification handover

The unveiling of Duo’s new vision and mission statements was also a highlight of the day.

The convention was kicked off by an opening address by Mr. Sanith de S. Wijeratne, the Chief Operations Officer of The Carbon Consulting Company on the importance of sustainability.

Although it was disturbing to learn of the escalated growth of climate change and its huge impact on earth and its people, what was more shocking was the realization that this was in fact brought about by people in their thoughtless day to day activities. However, it was relieving to learn throughout the course of the day that the measures we could undertake, and have indeed already undertaken, to minimize the change rate and its impact as a company in the ICT industry was indeed great.

As Mr. Wijeratne pointed out, “sustainability and innovation are joined at the hips, and if we want to improve living standards for more and more people without resource degradation, innovation is a must.” He stated that the phrase “each one should teach one” was highly applicable here, where literacy should be increased in terms of sustainability.

This informative opening address was followed by a speech by Mr. Satis Arnold. He took Mr. Wijeratne’s speech a step further by discussing climate and technological change and its impact on the ICT industry. The emphasis was on what is happening in the world in general and in Sri Lanka in particular, where what should be done to minimize the negative effect of climate change were addressed.

It was disturbing to know that 2% of the global CO2 emission is produced by the ICT industry. This was of particular relevance and interest to Duo as we were made to understand that the responsibility we had as a company in this regard.

Prof. Gihan Dias of University of Moratuwa addressed the gathering on the interesting issue of cloud computing, where he steered the topics of the morning into a different but nevertheless related area.

According to Prof. Dias, some of the characteristics of the cloud architecture are resource pooling, location independence, on-demand self services and measuring services where you are billed for what you use. Implementing (or the use of) a cloud architecture is advantageous to a business as this would reduce capital expenditure on infrastructure, maintenance cost & need for skilled manpower, and there is no need of back up servers.

Prof Gihan Dias being thanked for his contribution to the event.

The remarkable aspect of this is that not only would cloud computing allow an organization to reduce its expenditure and thereby go for a higher profit, but would also help reduce carbon emission, as resources are all centralized and therefore the numbers of machinery used would be minimized. This again brought to mind the triple bottom line that each company should have in mind mentioned by Mr. Wijeratne in his opening address, which is the protection of People and the Planet while going in for Profit.

In light of these two discussions by Professor Dias and Mr. Wijeratne, we were made to feel proud as a company to note that we have already implemented an internal cloud, and brought down the number of servers from 30 to 6, as reminded by Mr. Muhunthan at the end of this speech