Kushlani Wimalagunaකුෂ්ලානි විමලගුණ(She)

I loved helping people see better. But over the years, I became fascinated by a deeper question: what determines what we actually see? In 2023, I took a diversion into holistic vision therapy. During my work, I began noticing something fascinating: people do not simply see the world through their eyes. Their brains influence what they notice, focus on and give meaning to. When we are afraid, we tend to notice more of what confirms our fear. When we are focused on an opportunity, we begin noticing possibilities that were there all along. I call this principle Neural Attraction. It became the foundation of a book I am currently writing and researching, called Law of Vision. Then COVID happened. While many people were understandably seeing fear and uncertainty, I noticed something else: thousands of women professionals and entrepreneurs were struggling with something I understood personally — visibility. Before COVID, I had relocated my vision therapy clinic, Eye Council, from Duplication Road, Colombo 03, to Punchi Borella, Colombo 10. I had built my professional identity in one location, and suddenly I was in a new place where very few people knew I existed. Then COVID made physical discovery almost impossible. I started speaking with women professionals and entrepreneurs through a community called Bossbabe.lk. We discovered that many of us had the same problem: we were good at what we did, but the people who needed us could not easily find us. Then one day, during COVID, I needed a baker for my son’s birthday. There was no simple way to find the nearest suitable baker. I had to repeatedly ask in Facebook groups and wait for recommendations. My 5 year old son who had been listening to my Bossbabe conversations asked me a simple question: “Why isn’t there an app where all your bossbabes can be found, so we can find the closest one?” That question stayed with me. In August 2021, I launched Elephantress.com, a directory exclusively for women entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. It began as a small, almost hidden network, but it allowed me to observe a much bigger problem. The problem was not simply that women needed more marketing. People needed a better way to find the right person, in the right place, when they needed them. Over time, I spoke with many professionals and entrepreneurs and kept troubleshooting this problem. I realised that being invisible was not just a business problem. It limited our ability to connect, serve, collaborate and contribute as human beings. That insight led me to rebrand the concept as Humans.lk. In July 2024, Humans Negombo, a restaurant and physical meeting place on the coast of Negombo, was established by my husband. It gave the idea something it had previously lacked: a physical place where real humans could meet. I began shaping Humans.lk into what I envisioned as a digital human library of Sri Lanka — connecting the physical world of human relationships with a digital platform where professionals, entrepreneurs and businesses can be discovered by location. Looking back, I realise I was unconsciously thinking like an entrepreneur long before I called myself one. I experienced a problem. I listened to people experiencing the same problem. I experimented with solutions. I built something. I learned from what happened. And I kept transforming the idea. Today, Humans.lk is my attempt to solve one simple problem at scale: How can the right human be easier to find when someone needs them? Because I believe every human is a living book — carrying knowledge, experience, skills and stories that deserve to be discovered.