King Sasanka – Sri Lankan Writer & Retired Aviation Professional.

The fuel QR code and weekly quota system are currently in operation. Some users find it difficult to manage the week within their allocation, while others find the quota exceeds their requirements. Unfortunately, any remaining balance cannot be carried forward to the following week or collected in containers, a restriction largely based on safety and security concerns. I believe the application should include a feature allowing users to transfer their weekly allocation to another registered member. This could be done either as a bona fide gesture or through a marketplace where the recipient pays a surcharge (e.g., 5%) above the pump price. Alternatively, a bidding system could be implemented where the highest bidder secures the remaining quota. If the existing state-run application cannot support these features, a private platform could facilitate these trades, allowing high-demand users to refuel legally without hindrance. 1. Executive Summary The current National Fuel P...

It’s hard to walk five meters in Colombo or Kandy without seeing those little black-and-white pixelated squares. From paying for your kottu to scanning a LinkedIn profile, QR codes have become the unofficial "digital glue" of Sri Lanka. But while we’re all experts at pointing our cameras at them, few realize that this technology wasn’t born in a Silicon Valley lab, it was born on a factory floor, inspired by an ancient board game. In the early 1990s, the automotive industry was hitting a wall. Masahiro Hara , an engineer at Denso Wave (a subsidiary of Toyota), noticed that the traditional barcodes used to track car parts were failing. Barcodes are "one-dimensional", they only store data horizontally. This meant they could only hold about 20 characters of information.  Workers often had to scan up to ten different barcodes on a single box just to log the parts. The "Go" Inspiration Hara wanted a code that could be read faster and hold more dat...