Young Sri Lankan investor and entrepreneur, Mr. Arjuna Gihan Fernando (popularly known as Gi Fernando) was made a Member of the Order of British Empire (MBE) in the New Year Honors 2017. The Queen’s New Year’s Honors list awards people in the UK who have made significant contributions to society, including everything from charity, to journalism, and to technology. Member of the Order of the British Empire, is the first rank of the order and is the one which most are admitted to. It allows the holder to put the letters MBE after their name

Gi Fernando is a technology investor based in the UK who has backed businesses such as Citymapper, BookingBug, Car Throttle, and Plan. He graduated from Bristol University in Engineering and Computer science and briefly worked for the HSBC Bank, but his entrepreneurial abilities took him to set up his own social media business ‘Techlightenment’, later sold to Experian, the global leader in consumer business and credit reporting.

Gihan now runs Freeformers, a Company he founded in 2012, which recruits young people, turning them into trainers, to help businesses, by understanding social media and digital marketing. Freeformers aim to tap into the vast pool of talent, especially the latent technical abilities of the young (below 25), which formal qualifications do not necessarily capture.