Company Honored for Educational Sustainability Initiative
WESTBOROUGH, Mass. – (November 29, 2012) – Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), a global IT services company that offers a broad range of information technology services, including IT consulting, technology implementation and application outsourcing, today announced that it has been named a winner of the 2012 WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards for its Àkura School Management System. The 2012 WITSA Awards recognize organizations whose use of IT has exhibited exceptional achievement in Public Sector Excellence, Private Sector Excellence, Digital Opportunity and Sustainable Growth.
“Our goal in creating the Àkura School Management System was simple: to bring together school management, teachers, students and parents to enhance the quality of education,” said Kris Canekeratne, chairman and CEO at Virtusa. “As an organization, we are committed to sustainability and it is through efforts like this that we can collaboratively improve education, healthcare and the environment on a global level. We are thrilled to be one of five organizations honored by WITSA for our commitment to corporate social responsibility.”
“The School Management System introduced by Virtusa is guaranteed to change the landscape of administration within schools around the country,” said Rev. Fr. Sylvester Ranasinghe, principal, St. Joseph's College, Sri Lanka. “It is easy to implement and adopt and will undoubtedly be a fantastic managerial tool to aid principals, teachers and parents in planning and prioritizing classes, lesson plans and more. Time spent on manual administration of daily activities can be cut down tremendously and all energy can be focused on improving the children’s education.”
Honored in WITSA’s Digital Opportunity Award category, Virtusa’s Àkura School Management System facilitates the daily administrative activities of a school and provides user-friendly dashboards to manage them. Àkura allows school authorities to maintain operational and master data on teachers, parents and students, and provides an online portal through which teachers and parents can collaboratively view students’ progress. Additionally, Àkura enables school management to track the progress of teachers.
The system includes a free, open source, dynamic web-enabled application that schools around the world can download and install at no cost to effectively and efficiently manage their environments. Easily customizable, the software provides robust security features to define access rights, streamlines attendance recording in schools and offers innovative reporting capabilities.
Developed under Virtusa’s Tech Reach initiative, the Àkura School Management System was initially developed for St. Joseph’s College Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2011. It was made internationally available in February 2012 and since then, has been adopted by schools and universities in 130 countries and downloaded more than 6,000 times. Àkura is just one of Virtusa’s many key Tech Reach initiatives which focus on using IT in an innovative way to empower and enhance the quality of life, create opportunities for the community members and unleash the full potential of the community.
Virtusa’s Àkura School Management System represents an important part of the company’s overall sustainability focus which is based on four pillars including Digital Reach, Tech Reach, Code Green and Campus Reach. Virtusa’s Digital Reach program promotes digital literacy by increasing access to useful information technology, while Tech Reach initiatives allow the company to apply its technical skills to positively impact surrounding communities. Through the Code Green project, Virtusa drives several key environmental initiatives to improve the global footprint and encourage sustainability. Finally, through Campus Reach, Virtusa aims to be the model corporate contributor to academic institutions.
For more information on Àkura, visit http://akuraschools.org/. To access the company’s sustainability reports, please visit http://www.unglobalcompact.org/participant/10007-Virtusa-Corporation.
About the WITSA Global ICT Excellence Awards
Every two years, The WITSA (World Information Technology and Services Alliance) Global ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Excellence Awards recognize select organizations who have positioned themselves as leaders and top innovators by fully realizing the potential of ICT to grow the bottom line. This year’s winners were honored at the World Congress Gala Dinner on October 23 in Montreal, Canada. To see a full list of winners, please visit: http://www.witsa.org/v2/media_center/pdf/2012AwardsPR_v01.pdf.
About WITSA
The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) is the leading recognizedinternational voice of the global ICT industry, whose members from 84 countries and economies represent more than 90 percent of the world ICT market. WITSA is dedicated to advocating policies that advance industry growth and development; facilitating international trade and investment in ICT products and services; strengthening WITSA’s national industry associations; and providing members with a broad network of professional contacts.
WITSA hosts both the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), the premier global industry sponsored ICT conference, and the Global Policy and Trade Conference (GPAC).
WITSA members are leaders in a globally interconnected marketplace. Because the challenges facing the ICT industry are undisputedly global in nature, WITSA members work together to achieve a shared vision on important issues of common interest. WITSA makes it possible for its members — ranging from Mongolia and Argentina to Kenya and the United States — to identify common issues and priorities, exchange valuable information, and present a united position on industry issues. For more information on WITSA, please visit www.witsa.org