Digital Capacity Building Program for Non-IT Professionals in the State Sector: Session 3

Description

On Monday, 14 th September 2026, a three-hour session on Leveraging AI Tools was held at the Gampaha Divisional Secretariat. Around 100 participants attended — Grama Niladharis, Development Officers and other government officers (Figure 1). The session was led by Mr. Rukshan Senanayake and Dr. Thilina Thanthriwatta and coordinated by Ms. Pipuni Wijesiri . Framed as a digital capacity-building programme for non-IT professionals in the public sector, the session was aimed at officers whose daily work is administrative rather than technical, and who have had little structured exposure to the AI tools now embedded in ordinary office software (Figure 2). Why public officers Divisional Secretariat staff sit at the point where government meets the public. A Grama Niladhari handles correspondence, reports, certifications and records for an entire division. Development Officers compile and circulate information constantly. The work is document-heavy, deadline-bound and, in Sri Lanka, frequently multilingual. That is precisely the profile of work where general-purpose AI tools save real hours — drafting and summarizing, translating between Sinhala, Tamil and English, tidying up reports, and turning notes into a clean circular. Nothing here requires a software license or a coding background. What it requires is someone to sit down and demonstrate it. Take-aways • AI tools are most useful for first drafts, summaries and translation — the repetitive middle of office work. • Every output needs a human check before it becomes an official document. • Be careful what goes into a public AI tool: citizen data is not yours to paste.