The Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT), a leading provider of higher education in Computing/ICT, Business Management and Law, marked its entry to the research arena by hosting the Business and Technology (BAT) Conference 2015 on the 9th of April, 2015 at the APIIT City Campus. BAT 2015 showcased emerging research in Business, Management and Technology.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Sustainability’. Papers were invited from a wide range of subject areas in Business and Computing. An overwhelming number of abstracts were received by the first call and these underwent a stringent review by a panel of local and foreign academics. On the day of conference, sixteen (16) research papers were presented and thirteen (13) research posters were showcased.

The event began with the keynote address on ‘Sustainability’ delivered by leading academic, Professor. H.D. Karunarathna, and well known entrepreneur Mr. Peter D’ Almeida. Professor. H.D. Karunarathna, Acting Director, Institute of Human Resource Advancement and Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Colombo highlighted the importance of knowledge creation, governance for sustainability and the need for more entrepreneurs in order to achieve true sustainability. Mr. Peter D’ Almeida, Managing Director/Chief Executive of N*able (Pvt) Ltd. focused on the need to invest in creating a learning community and nurturing creative thinking.

The conference was complemented by four (04) industry talks. The first session was delivered by Mr. Vasana Wickremasena, Executive Director, CICRA Consultancies (Pvt) Ltd on ‘Current Cyber Security Threats’. Mr. Rohana Palliyaguru, Manager Operations & Principal Information Security Engineer, Sri Lanka CERT|CC conducted the second technical talk on the ‘Evolution of Cybercrime and Countermeasures’. Mr. Shafraz Rahim, Senior Executive - Product Service Innovation, Ideamart- Dialog Axiata Plc. introduced the Dialog Ideamart platform to the audience and showed how it has encouraged entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka. Predictive Analytics was the topic of discussion for Mr. Buddhika Kasthuriarachchy of N*able (Pvt.) Ltd. who explained how Big Data is used at N*able.

An ‘APIIT Research Excellence Award’ was awarded in both Business and Computing Tracks. The Business award was won by Mrs. Shashika Naotunna from Sabaragamuwa University, Sri Lanka for the paper titled ‘Perceived Supervisory Support and Non-Managerial Employees’ Commitment to Change in Sri Lankan Apparel Firms’. Dr. Dhananjay Kulkarni and Ms. Nawodika Siriwardena from APIIT, Sri Lanka won the Computing award for the paper titled ‘Secure Authentication Techniques Using Graphical Passwords’.

The steering committee for BAT 2015 was led by Conference Advisor, Mr. S C Kaluarachchi - Head of Business School. The conference was chaired by Dr. Hemamali Tennakoon, Senior Lecturer, APIIT Business School. Conference proceedings (ISBN 978- 955- 7678 - 00 – 9) were published and is available for reference.