For over 20 years Zone24x7 has been at the forefront of the global tech sector, bringing together cutting-edge research and meaningful business impact.
Headquartered in the USA and with a tech talent hub located in Sri Lanka, Zone24x7 specializes in building intelligent solutions and products.
Comprising, but not limited to, quality engineering services, digital payments, augmented warehouse management systems, data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) solutions, Zone24x7 has been redefining how enterprises operate, engage, and grow, for more than two decades.
Techie.LK recently had a conversation with Zone24x7’s General Manager Vipula Liyanaarachchi, who has over 20 years of experience in the global engineering industry.
How has Zone24x7’s focus evolved over the past few years, and what are the biggest growth opportunities you see today?
Zone24x7 has always been defined by our commitment to staying at the cutting edge of technology. While generative AI has recently captured global attention, intelligent and sophisticated systems—particularly computer vision and AI solutions in retail, warehousing, and healthcare—have been core to our expertise since our inception.
The introduction of generative AI has further enhanced our capabilities. Rather than starting from scratch, we have utilized these new tools to make our existing intelligent product platforms more human-friendly, accessible, and affordable. Today, our primary growth lies in helping clients create hyper-intelligent, automated workflows that deliver direct business value.
Alongside this focus, we have implemented a rapid adaptation in how we engage with the global market. We are strategically transitioning away from traditional time-and-materials engagement models toward value-driven, productized technology solutions. This pivot ensures we maintain a distinct competitive advantage by aligning our output directly with our clients’ business success.
How has Zone24x7 balanced resilience with investment in new technologies and talent?
Our geographical distribution and technical diversity are our primary risk hedges. Operating across the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia means that localized market turbulence in one region is offset by stability in another.
Technologically, we balance software engineering with hardware development, embedded systems, and robotics. If market demand cools in one tech sector, our multi-disciplinary capabilities allow us to pivot seamlessly to another.
Where do you see AI creating the greatest value for enterprise customers over the next three to five years?
With advanced AI and generative systems, we can optimize business workflows, cut operational costs, and automate complex tasks that were previously impossible to address. For enterprises, the primary value drivers are enhanced speed, improved accuracy, and significantly reduced time-to-market. These advancements enable our clients to scale operations and service larger portfolios without a linear increase in headcount.
Rather than acting as a passive service vendor waiting for clients to explain their problems, we operate as a proactive strategic partner. We often travel directly to our customers’ real operation sites to observe workflows firsthand, allowing us to identify inefficiencies and propose improvements before they are even raised as issues. This immersive, on-the-ground approach ensures our solutions are deeply aligned with the realities of our clients’ business environments.
What are some of the most exciting or challenging real-world problems your teams are currently solving?
Our most compelling work is in the domain of video analytics and computer vision. Leveraging our proprietary product CVAP (Cognitive Vision Analytics Platform), our engineering team is currently addressing several complex challenges.
Examples include real-time person re-identification and tracking across complex CCTV networks, and advanced material and tool quality inspection systems for production floors, including one designed to detect micro-defects in specialized fabrics. On the biomedical front, we are conducting research on human liver disease identification and management using ultrasound imaging; the project team has already published a peer-reviewed paper on this topic.
What does Sri Lanka need to do to strengthen its position as a global technology and innovation hub?
Sri Lanka produces exceptional engineering talent, driven by a rigorous national education system. However, a lower inclination toward entrepreneurship compared to other talent hubs leads to brain drain as engineers seek more challenging environments.
To strengthen our global standing, we must prioritize two key objectives: in the short term, we must foster an ecosystem that attracts high-value foreign direct investment to provide engineers with world-class, complex projects domestically. In the long term, we must build stronger integration between academic research, industry, and policy to ensure we successfully convert homegrown research ideas into market-ready products.
What is the company’s approach to attracting, developing, and retaining high-quality engineering talent?
We prioritize continuous technical growth through a dedicated, well-funded Learning and Development department that actively supports the ongoing professional evolution of our team members. To attract the best entry-level talent, we collaborate closely with universities, making long-term investments such as sponsoring the Informatics Infoschol program, where we provide undergraduates with a full five-year mentorship. Furthermore, we maintain a well-structured interview and screening process to ensure we identify the highest-caliber professionals for experienced roles, providing every engineer—regardless of their career stage—with a clear and supported path forward.
Our retention strategy centers on building an environment where engineers can perform at their best while tackling complex challenges they wouldn’t encounter elsewhere in the country. This starts with our leadership—including our Chairman and CEO—who come from technical backgrounds and have cultivated a ‘tech-first’ culture where our teams thrive.
As General Manager, what leadership principles do you think have become most important in managing highly skilled, multidisciplinary teams across a rapidly changing and dynamic industry?
Our leadership philosophy centers on agility, open communication, psychological safety, and collective growth. We believe our people are our primary asset, and we invest heavily in understanding individual needs while providing consistent support and frequent feedback.
We cultivate a culture where team members are encouraged to take measured risks, prioritize mutual support, and learn from one another. We emphasize performing as a cohesive team and encourage every individual, including interns, to look at the “big picture” rather than focusing solely on daily tasks. By ensuring that every contribution is recognized and that team members gain broad exposure to complex challenges, we empower our people to perform at their best while contributing to our shared success.
What emerging technologies or market trends do you believe will have the greatest influence on Zone24x7’s strategy over the next five years?
The introduction of generative AI and the practical realization of humanoid robotics are the primary emerging trends shaping our future. To thrive in this landscape, humans must operate at an increasingly sophisticated level, and we are aligning our business strategy accordingly. AI will not replace our exceptional human talent; instead, it will elevate their contributions, allowing them to focus on high-value, strategic work while making advanced technology accessible to a wider audience. Consequently, our core strategy is centered on people development, not merely to keep pace with AI, but to cultivate expertise and creativity that exceeds what artificial intelligence can achieve on its own.
What advice would you give young Sri Lankan engineers and other tech and IT professionals who aspire to build careers in AI and advanced technologies?
Our young engineers need to think as opportunity creators rather than just job seekers. Given the significant investment pouring into AI, Gen AI tools will undoubtedly excel at coding. However, the crucial human element remains identifying the right problems to solve with that code. Engineers should avoid becoming overly attached to a single tech stack—like Java or .NET—and instead focus on understanding the business and the bigger picture. This holistic perspective is the true path to success.
Does Zone24x7 get involved in academia, training and education for young, upcoming IT and tech professionals and undergraduates? Does the company have any plans, strategies or activities to improve academia and training in these sectors?
We are deeply involved in shaping the next generation of engineers. My staff members and I serve on several Department Industry Consultative Boards (DICBs) to align university curricula with global industry standards. Our engineers also act as guest lecturers, delivering specialized course content in software engineering, business analysis, data science, and AI. Furthermore, we supervise final-year undergraduate projects, mentor research teams, and serve as judges in national hackathons and robotics competitions across major state and private universities.
We actively engage with students across the country, traveling from Jaffna to Uva Wellassa and Ruhuna to conduct workshops and share industry knowledge. We also facilitate industry visits, where students are invited to our office to experience a real-world work environment firsthand. Finally, our internship program is widely recognized as providing one of the most valuable, hands-on experiences available in the local industry, offering students a comprehensive look at the professional engineering landscape.
Any thoughts on how can Sri Lanka create more globally recognized technology products rather than only providing engineering services?
The talent is already here. Sri Lankan engineers routinely build end-to-end global products. However, because these initiatives are often funded by overseas parent entities or investors, the product IP is registered abroad. It is important to recognize that companies like Zone24x7 are, at their core, US entities that generate most of their value using local Sri Lankan talent. Our products, while often not perceived as ‘true Sri Lankan’ offerings on the global stage, are entirely envisioned, designed, and built by local teams.
The missing link to transitioning from this service-heavy model to brand ownership is a robust local venture capital and startup-funding ecosystem. To build globally recognized Sri Lankan product brands, we must improve domestic access to risk capital and establish a supportive early-stage investment framework that allows the IP of these world-class creations to remain rooted here.
Anything else you would like to share about Zone24x7?
Zone24x7 will always remain a people-centric, technology-first company. As tech paradigms shift, our core commitment remains unchanged: To be an indispensable, highly trusted innovation partner that helps global enterprises transform their businesses through intelligent technology.