At the exhibition of inventors in Geneva 2017 Mr M.A Dasman won third place for the inventions related to the transportation industry. Currently, he has applied for four patents regarding these inventions. The Sri Lanka Inventors commission is currently working out to get the patents approved as soon as possible. Sri Lanka has very disappointing progress when considering the area of new inventions. Mr M.A.Dasman is a good example for the very few who put on great effort to get the country out of this situation. He who operates his business from Kospalawinna village of Ratnapura district which is 100Km away from Colombo participates in our business interview today.

Please introduce yourself

My name is M. A. Dasman. I reside at the Golden Grove Village at Kospalawinna, Ratnapura. My business is next to my home. I’m married and have two children. My wife and the two sons also are involved in my business.

I spent my childhood at Panadura. My father was a Foreman at Ceylon Transportation Board. Mother stayed at home taking care of us. So she was very aware of my activities. Whenever my mother goes out for domestic needs, I lock my brother and sister in a room and then I create simple things using bulbs and pieces of wires. That was my main hobby at that time.

During the time my father retired, I was in 8th grade. After the father’s retirement, we changed the residences to the village of my mother, which is in Pelmadulla, Rathnapura. During that time, our only income was the little tea plantation we had.

One day I stole 150 Rs amount of money from my father and bought some of my electronic needs such as wires and Transformers. My mother saw this and feared that I would get electrocuted through these activities. So she hid these things away from me. Resulting from that fear such activities were always restricted for me. But I never stopped studying Electrics and Electronics. The villagers always wanted my services for events in the village on poya days. Especially for the events held on the Vesak and Poson days. I also recall designing light systems in pandols.

How did you improve your electrical knowledge and business knowledge?

After A/Ls I followed an Electrical course in the technical college of Ratnapura. I could gain theoretical and practical knowledge. After the completion of that course, I earned through electrical work such as house wiring and repairing electric items. At each of these occasions, I always tried to experiment something new. During the time I was following the electrical course I worked part-time in a garage during weekends and in the evening. I got a salary of 20 rupees per day. I saved a little amount of money from that and bought books about electric circuits and experienced them practically. After completing the electrical course in 2 years I got employed in the same garage which I worked part-time. The owner of that garage Mr Ananda directed me to a weekend course in German Tech college Ratmalana. He approved me study leaves and salaries for it. Even today I’m very grateful to him for the great support that he has provided.

When repairing the vehicles at the garage I carried out new experiments on them. Oxidation of vehicle electrical circuits was a frequent problem with most vehicles repaired through the garage. We had to find solutions frequently for this problem. Mr Ananda of our garage supported me in every way for this task. During that time as an experiment, I could produce motorcycle wire harnesses. Till then the motorcycle wire harnesses were imported from other countries. They were somewhat expensive. I could produce a substitution for a lower price as a local product with the same quality. These wire harnesses have a quality which doesn’t second to the imported ones. But I didn’t have enough money to continue this production as a major business. So I decided to go abroad for foreign employment as an Electrician and restart the business sometime later from the money I save from the job. But even that expectation faced various difficulties. So I had to let it go.

At that time I was married. I had two sons. All the money I had was spent on applying foreign employment. During this time I had resigned from the former job also. Domestic monetary problems also arose. During this time people who knew me came to my house to repair motorcycles. The wire harnesses of these bikes were produced by me myself through the low budget I had. The money I earned was used to bring materials from Colombo and start the wire harness production as a very small scale business. My wife provided great support in this. Because my products were very high in quality a great demand was created. During this time my former employer Mr Ananda came forward to help me. He agreed to reserve a little space in his workshop for my work.

The greatest obstacle for me at that time was the unavailability of wires with standard colour codes in Sri Lanka. So I had to paint the wires myself before using them. This was a very hard task for me. One day I went to the ACL Cables and explained to them my requirement. They visited my workshop and checked out my products. They were satisfied with my products and were kind enough to produce a special wire production with colour codes for me. Because of this, my business began to improve significantly. My wife and brother devoted greatly to my business. Great profit could be gained because my family members were working.

One day a lorry distributing wires agreed to distribute my productions island-wide. I also agreed to this because I was also searching for the market at the time. After weeks I realized this was a hoax. I could not get money or my products back from that lorry. Then with my own effort, I began selling goods in various areas. I started importing quality materials for my business from other countries to improve product quality. I only imported a little amount for customer orders only since I didn’t have a great amount of money.

During this period my products had a great demand but the problem was I didn’t have enough expenditure to produce an excess amount. This was a big problem at that time. During that time I had the membership of Motor Cycle Repairman’s society in Ratnapura. My business was named after the initials of my two sons as MV Electronics.

One day a customer came for me to replace a wire harness. He refused to use my product. He wanted to use an item from Panchikawaththa spare parts market which he claimed is an imported one. When I checked it I realized that it was also one of my products. It had only the name MV Electronics remaining. The catalogue which I include in the package was removed. It was sold as an imported item for a more expensive price by deceiving customers. This was done by one of my buyers in Panchikawaththa spare parts market. Then I decided to go to the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka and get a certificate for my product. A certificate was issued.

Do you have any ideas for the development of this field as an inventor in the technical field?

In my view, the main thing is that our country should have a national policy regarding the development of all areas. That should be hard to change according to the ruling political party. Another thing is that inventors like us should have a proper organization to gain technology and consultancy. Also, we should direct our future generation, such as school children, to create new inventions by getting the help of inventors like us. The private sector, and government sector employees, should also be acknowledged, and electronic media should provide more space for promoting inventions.

Interview by- Mr.R.A.D.A. Ajith Ranasinghe.
CEO -Sabaragamuwa Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
1st year Student of University of Sri Jayawardhanapura.
Master Degree in Entrepreneur (2016/2018)