Executive Committee Member
Vice-Chairman of News Paper and Social Media Advisory Board
2022.11.25
Dharmananda Wijesinghe educated at Royal College Colombo and earned a BA (Honours) Special Degree in Economics from the University of Colombo. He continued his studies in different streams and was successful in obtaining a Post Graduate Diploma in “Writership & Mass Communication” and MA Degree in “Journalism” from the University of Sri Jayawardenepura.
Wijesinghe started his career as a Printer, in Lake House; the largest state owned newspaper organization in Sri Lanka. He underwent an overseas training in Graphic Arts Industry in Italy as far back as in Early 1980s. He has perused a career in Graphic Art and Printing Technology.
With the gathering of scholastic knowledge in the field of Journalism, he changed his profession from Printing to Web Designing in 1994, in the latter part of his career in Lake House. It was a revolutionary move in his life and now he is one of the most senior Web Masters in Sri Lanka.
In September 1995, a breakthrough innovation was introduced by Lake House for Daily News & Sunday Observer, by publishing them online. These were the first newspapers in South Asia to be published online. Dharmananda Wijesinghe was the Leader of the computer team, Web Manager, who handled day today publishing work of these online newspapers since its inception. Awareness of the online culture and popularization of Internet to the Sri Lankan society commenced with this significant move by Lake House.
Popularizing the usage of “Sinhala Unicode” in the web also was basically done by Lake House as the premier newspaper organization owned by the government. Lake House Web team, led by Manager Wijesinghe, was instrumental in formulating & developing the online edition of “Dinamina” using Unicode Sinhala. The Dinamina was the first Sri Lankan online newspaper that used Unicode Sinhala Fonts “Iskoola Potha” and “Malithi Web”. Then after “Silumina” newspaper followed the same path.
Wijesinghe’s Public Sector Service history, in addition to the Web Manager in Lake House, runs in several disciplines as,
- General Manager in National Film Corporation (NFC),
- Deputy General Manager (HRM & Admin) at National Housing Development Authority (NHDA) and
- Media & Vocational Training Director at the National Youth Services Council (NYSC)
His greatest passion in life is using his technical know-how to benefit other people and organizations. He is a Technical Feature writer. Further, he served as a Web Consultant in the Department of Cultural Affairs under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. At present his Web consultation knowledge is being utilized in honorary basis by the Department of Museums for the development of the official Museum website.
Wijesinghe has been working as a visiting Mass Media Lecturer at the Department of Sinhala & Mass Communication of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura for over twenty (20) years. His expert areas are Printing Technology, Trends of new-media & broad usage of Social Media in society. He is a popular Lecturer among University media students.