Sri Lanka does not contain the proper mindset to rightfully stabilize its startup ecosystem due to lack of investment, small Local Market and lack of training on critical areas. IEEE Innovation Nation is launched to address these challenges and provide training, mentoring and financial support to budding entrepreneurs to take their idea to the next level. At the end of this rigorous program, at least 50 young people will be added to the Sri Lankan workforce every year, who are fully trained in all related areas to start a successful business. An awareness session on IEEE Innovation Nation Sri Lanka will be happening on 14th May 2018 from 4pm to 4.30 pm at the Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. At this session the participants will be getting a clear clarification on what ways they will benefit from IEE Innovation Nation Sri Lanka as well as a proper briefing about the competition guidelines, eligibility and judging criterion.  For all those willing to participate, this awareness session will be of use in case of team formation and proposal submission. Anyone interested in IEEE INSL 2018 is welcome to join us.

An ice breaking session for the student branch members of IEEE in University of Sri Jayewardenepura was successfully held on the 6TH April 2018 at Help Age Sri Lanka with the participation of Ms. Nuwini Dulanga, Sectional Student Representative of IEEE Sri Lanka Section as an invited speaker. The workshop was organized by the 3rd year members of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura student branch. This meet up was organized solely with intention of building team spirit among the members of the student branch coming from different faculties of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura despite their geographical distances and busy time schedules at the university. The gathering was welcomed by a third year student member Mr. Senal Perera, who gave a brief introduction about what is IEEE.  At the very beginning the members were installed into three different groups and were asked to get to know each other, after which the teams were engaged in an interesting game session which tested how well they knew their team mates. Then Ms. Nuwini Dulanga, Sectional Student Representative of IEEE Sri Lanka Section shared some interesting facts about IEEE and also some very useful tips to get the maximum benefit out of a student membership in IEEE. She was able to inspire everybody gathered with her experience in IEEE and showed how only by giving are you able to receive more. She encouraged all of the members of the student branch to volunteer as much as they can in order to gather tons of experience that sure will worth for a lifetime. After another fun game session which strengthened the team spirit of the members, Mr Dulan Dias the Interim Chair of the IEEE student branch of University of Sri Jayewardenepura talked to the gathering about institutional organization of IEEE and a very clear briefing about the constitution that is yet to be approved at the Annual General Meeting for the student branch of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He also improvised the necessity of increasing the number of student members from the university and how the existing members should work on encouraging their colleagues to join IEEE.  After another brain teasing game session, third year student member Ms. Sajini Senaratna did an introduction session on volunteer tools (vTools), which is a wide range of tools developed by volunteers for IEEE members and IEEE volunteers. The toolbox simplifies organizational efforts and administration by offering web-based software in order to reduce time spent on managing activities and to assist in member development. After another fun game session, the year plan for 2018 was discussed among the members with Mr. Senal Perera presenting the pre-planned schedule. The Team Building Introductory workshop concluded successfully, achieving the day’s goal of building team spirit within the student branch community of University of Sri Jayewardenepura.  IEEE USJP Student Branch is greatly thankful for Miss Nuwini for sharing her experiences with the members gathered and also all of the members who took the time out of their busy schedules to make this event a success. Article By Nishavi Ranaweera IEEE Student Member, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Guest talk on Big Data was held on 4th of December, 2017 at the premises of Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Sri Jayewardenepura from 9.00am to 10.30am. Guest speaker for the event, Dr. Sudha Ram conducted his speech under the topic “Using Big Data for Predictive Analytics in Healthcare”. Though the concept of Big Data is relatively new, it has already started changing the world. What is Big Data? It is an evolving term that describes large volume of structured, semi structured & unstructured data which has the potential to be mined for information. This information in return can provide insights that leads to better decision making & strategic business moves. Simply put, it’s a way to solve the problems that were deem too impossible to solve until recently. In this day and age, Health Care has become a basic necessity. With billions of people living around the world, we have huge amounts of data coming in daily on Health care. What could Big data do to help? Health Care been an ever growing industry, Big data can provide health care number of potential applications for predictive analytics. Dr. Sudha Ram’s guest talk covered these areas thoroughly while providing the students knowledge on something new and exciting. The guest talk was organized in collaboration with the Information Systems Research Group, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura and Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Article By Amith Pathiraja Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.  

IEEE Techsters’ Meet up, August Edition was successfully held on the 31st of August, 2017 at Hall No 03(NFC3), New Faculty Complex, University of Sri Jayewardenepura from 3.00 p.m. to 5.00 pm with the participation of  Mr. Haritha Thilakarathne (Engineer-Data Science and analytics at Tech One Global Ltd, Colombo) as the guest speaker and the mentors of the IEEE student branch, University of Sri Jayawardenepura,  Dr. P. Ravindra De Silva( Senior lecturer, Department of Computer science, Faculty of Applied Sciences) and  Dr. K. S. Lasith Gunawardena (Senior Lecturer, Department of Information technology, faculty of Management Studies & Commerce). Session was commenced with Mr.Dulan Dias welcoming the gathering and inviting Mr. Harith Thilakarathne to deliver the guest speech for the meet up. Topics of the session were Machine Learning, AI and Chatbots. It was an interactive session with many questions raised towards the audience by the speaker to get to know the audience better and to deliver his knowledge precisely.  The audience also raised questions to fill up their gaps in knowledge and to get to know what is happening in the tech world outside the university boundaries. Speech included audio and visual information about the topics the guest speaker was covering. It also included an interesting video about experiments carried out on Artificial intelligence. Mr. Haritha Thilankarathne concluded his speech leaving the audience enthusiastic and more interested to know about the latest advancements in the tech world. The session was followed by a mini hackathon with the participation of all the members of the audience. They were divided into small groups of five and were to answer a few questions on coding. Everyone gathered hurrying to find the answers to the questions within the given limited amount of time. After the mini hackathon, the motivated audience were given IEEE stickers appreciating their presence at the session. IEEE Techsters’ Meet up-August Edition concluded successfully, meeting the goals for the day, by enhancing the knowledge of the young minds of the gathering. IEEE Student Branch was immensely thankful for Mr. Haritha Thilakarathne for sharing his knowledge with the members and for spending his precious time to make this event a success. Article By Hasini Perera IEEE Student Member, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.  

As the undergraduates of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, the need of initiating an IEEE Student Branch at the university was seen as a necessity, especially for the growth and the development of our undergraduates as well as for the overall development of the university. Hence, an IEEE Awareness Session was held at the university with the foremost intention in providing a proper introduction to the students about IEEE and its importance. The session was successfully held at the New Faculty Complex of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, on the 24th of August, 2017 with a participation of a significant crowd representing all the six faculties of the university. Representing the IEEE Sri Lanka Section, the former coordinator of Region 10 Student Branch & former Sectional Student Representative of Sri Lanka Section  Mr. Yasitha Harshanath did an introductory presentation on IEEE while sharing his experiences and the great benefits of IEEE. While creating a platform for us to initiate action to form an IEEE Student Branch at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, this experience opened up a wide door to access latest technology trends, industry news, career opportunities and many more benefits for our undergraduates. Article By Randula Edirisinghe IEEE Student Member, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.