CSSL ICT Leader of the Year is Mr. Kanishka Weeramunda. He is having over 17 years of ICT experience and 4 years in the financial technology domain and eco-system support. He is the Founder and CEO of PayMedia (Pvt) Ltd. He was titled as the Most Valuable ICT Entrepreneur; in 2015 and was recently awarded with the Best CEO of the year; and the ;Future Leader of the Year’. He is a trainer for the EU – Sri Lanka trade related assistance, organized by the International Trade Centre (ITC) and UNIDO and has been a mentor for many successful start-ups. Kanishka is well recognized as a thought leader in the fin-tech industry. He is a graduate from the University of Colombo in Bachelors of Information Technology, holds an MBA and an MSc in HR and chartered IT professional from the institute of Chartered IT professionals in UK.

CSSL ICT Student Award-School category Ashan Hansaka Rathnaweera.

CSSL ICT STUDENT of the year (Undergraduate Category) Kugathasan Janarthanan.

CSSL ICT Researcher of the Year is Dr. Kanagasundaram Ahilan

CSSL ICT Educator of the year is Prof. Nihal Kodikara

CSSL Best Start-up of the Year was awarded to Jendo Innovations (pvt) ltd

CSSL Emerging ICT Leader of the Year is Mr Keerthi Kodithuwakku

CSSL CIO of the Year was awarded to Dr. Prasanna Lokuge

CSSL ICT Leader of the Year is Mr. Kanishka Weeramunda

National CSSL ICT Awards 2017 is the annual Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry Awards ceremony organized for the fifth consecutive time by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) in order to encourage, recognize and celebrate the excellence in ICT practice by rewarding the best and the finest of ICT professionals. The project was lead by Prof Samantha Thelijjagoda, student counselor/Council Member of CSSL. For these ICT Awards, CSSL first called nominations and applications and then conducted the selection by a panel of experts from the ICT industry as well as academia.  The judging panel included –

• Mr Shanta Yapa  -Past President of Federation of IT Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS), Software Chapter
• Mr. Geethapriya Tillekaratne – Past Chairman, BCS the Chartered Institute for IT -Sri Lanka Section)
• Ms Sandra De Zoysa – -Member of the board of Directors-SLASSCOM (Group Chief Customer Officer, Dialog Axiata PLC
• Mr Ahamed Nishadh -Representative from ICT Agency Sri Lanka
• Mr Yasas V Abeywickrama-President CSSL
• Mr Prabath Samindra –Vice President CSSL
• Prof. Samantha Thelijjagoda – Project Lead for CSSL

The winner of CSSL ICT Student award –School category is  Pasindu Chathuranga Wijesena from Ananda College Colombo. CSSL ICT Student Award-School Category winner is a student of Ananda College, Colombo. He entered to the Ananda Collage after grade 5 scholarship examination, after having primary education at Kahawatta Primary School, Kahawatta. He has taken part and won the gold at the following major national level contests:

1. Sri Lankan Olympiad in Informatics – 2016 and 2017
2. National Schools Software Competition – 2015
3. Young Computer Scientist Competition – 2014
4. Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair – 2013
5. Junior Inventor of the Year – 2012

Has represented Sri Lanka at many international events. The CSSL ICT Student award-Undergraduate category was won by  Keet Malin Sugathadasa of University of Moratuwa. He is a product of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa. As an emerging young student in the field of research, he has an interest in areas related to Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Cyber Security. He has excelled well in academics, resulting in being the top of the batch for consecutive years maintaining the cumulative GPA 4.05 out of 4.2. He won awards at many national and international competitions such as Google I/O 2016, Cakelabs IoT Hackathon, IESL YMS Hackathon Fiontrai 2016, Cima Launchpad 2016, Yarl Geek Challenge, Hackadev 2015 and AirAsia Air-volution 2017, bringing glory to the university as well as to the country. CSSL ICT Researcher of the year is Dr. Lakshman Jayarathna. He is a Senior Lecturer attached to the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC). He obtained his B.Sc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Colombo and his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Western Sydney,  Australia. He is currently the principal investigator of the Automated Content Based Audio Music Monitoring Approach for Radio Broadcasting Channels in Sri Lanka, in which his team is investigating an approach to identify songs for radio channels in Sri Lanka in order to ensure the intellectual property rights of the song creators. Further, he is currently the principal investigator of the Computational Approach to Train on Music Notations for Visually Impaired in Sri Lanka where his team is using music notations to enable visually impaired musicians to overcome the barriers they had in learning music, most highlighted in reading and regenerating music notations. CSSL Emerging ICT leader of the year was awarded to Mr Mohamed Shehan. He is a young entrepreneur, creative thinker interested in finding innovative solutions for the benefit of differently able people such as hearing impaired, visual impaired since the world today has not created much products or innovations that could solve their basic day to day problems. He has initiated many projects and the “I-chum” (a high tech glass for visually impaired people), “Twig- Gab” (a wearable device for hearing impaired people) and “Dream Spawn” (a high tech device for controlling the dreams) are the top innovations, expected to add high value to the society. The Best start-up of the year is LIVEROOM. This is a startup based in Colombo which specializes Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality platform developments. The company’s main product is a cloud based sales and marketing platform powered by the latest augmented reality technology to support online sales. This company started through a final year project when the founders, Sameera Nilupul and Chameera Wijebandara were at  the university. Few achievements of the company:

• Represented Sri Lanka at “4 Years From Now” (4YFN) 2016 and 2017 Barcelona, Spain
• Represented Sri Lanka at “Innov-Fest unbound 2016” at Singapore
• Finalist at “Unilever Startup Battle”, Singapore in 2016
• Among Top Three Startups to use “Google Tango Technology”, Paris
• One of the 57 rising Startups from Asia announced by

e27 and Startup Tracker

• Winner at e-Swarnabhimani competition organized by ICTA
• One of the top 3 startups at Lenovo Tango challenge held in Spain 2016

CSSL CIO of the year is Mr Udana Wickramasinghe He is a seasoned Digital cum Business Executive who has provided effective stewardship for local and global organizations. He started his career in banking and moved into IT which helped him to gain significant experience in both digital and business arenas.  He has over 22 years of experience, with 11+ at the C-level, in Sri Lanka, UK and Australia with an operational footprint covering territories including other European countries and emerging markets. He is currently serving as the Director and CIO for Sri Lanka Tourism where he oversees operations of three key organizations including Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau, and Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management or formerly known as the Colombo Hotel School. There were no winners for the ICT Educator and Female ICT leader for this year. CSSL ICT Leader of the year is Mr Dulith Herath. He is the award-winning founder and Chairman of Kapruka and serial entrepreneur. In just over 11 years of operation, Kapruka has evolved by leaps and bounds, scaling from a humble website running on a laptop to a billion-rupee icon of success and disruptive innovation. As a renowned corporate personality in the business world beyond local boundaries, he is enriched with expertise and experience to guide, mentor and motivate the youth to be un-paralleled and un-wavering entrepreneurs to drive Sri Lanka towards one of the most exciting and dynamic economies. National CSSL ICT Awards 2017 – Advertisement  

CSSL ICT Student Award-School category Pasindu Wijesena

ICT Leader of the year Dulith V Herath

ICT Researcher of the Year Dr Lakshman Jayaratne

K Malin Sugathadasa ICT STUDENT Award Undergraduate Category

Mohamed Shehan Emerging ICT Leader of the Year

The LiveRoom Pvt Ltd Best Start-up of the Year

Udana Wickramasinghe CIO of the Year

The fourth annual “Excellence in ICT” awards ceremony organised by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) was held recently at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo in conjunction with the inauguration ceremony of the National IT Conference 2016. CSSL is the premier organisation dedicated to promoting and improving professional standards in the information communication and technology sector of Sri Lanka. These awards intend to encourage, recognise and celebrate the best and finest of ICT professionals. This year, the CSSL presented awards for excellence in five categories, namely: ICT Leader of the Year, CIO of the Year, Female ICT Leader of the Year, Emerging ICT Leader of the Year and Best Startup of the Year. The ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Shanil Fernando, Co-Founder and Managing Director – Sri Lanka for CAKE Corporation, a Silicon Valley based company that creates disruptive technology for the restaurant industry. The CAKE platform in its current state processes over US$ 1 Billion in revenue annually, and is in use by over 5000 restaurants in the US. The company grew last year at a rate of 150% YOY. Prior to CAKE, Mr. Fernando was a founding member of Virtusa. He has been an advocate and change agent in the Sri Lankan IT industry encouraging a move away from IT services to focus on product innovation and product engineering, a model very successfully adopted by smaller countries like Ireland and Israel which can potentially bring significant value creation to Sri Lanka. Mr. Fernando has also been named in Echelon’s 40 under 40 list of most important risk takers, job creators and rule breakers. The CIO of the Year award went to Conrad Dias, Chief Information Officer – LOLC Group and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer – Lanka ORIX Information Technology Services Ltd., /LOLC Technologies Limited. Mr. Dias is a seasoned veteran in Business and Information Technology, Software Engineering, Project Management, Strategic and Investment Planning, Finance Management, Corporate Restructuring and Unit Trust & Fund Management. His experience spans over two decades and he has been instrumental in successfully integrating ICT divisions of all acquisitions and strategically leading the ICT direction of all sectors. Prior to LOLC, he served as Consultant and Group CIO for Hirdaramani Group of Companies and was an Assistant Vice President at Vanik Incorporation Ltd serving in various capacities. Mr Dias holds an MBA from the University of Leicester. Prof. Mahesha Kapurubandara, Dean International and Professor, Department of IT – Faculty of Computing, at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology won the award for Female ICT Leader of the Year. She counts nearly three decades of experience in the ICT industry specialising in Information Systems and IT education. Believed to be the first woman in Sri Lanka to receive a Professorship for ICT, she was also recognised by Women in Management – Sri Lanka, with the award of their silver medal at the 6th Professional & Career Womens’ Awards 2016. In spite of all her responsibilities, she still remains committed to research. Her research interests are ICT for Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs), Women Entrepreneurship and Business Process Management (BPM). She also serves on the editorial boards of many International Conferences and serves as a reviewer. The award for Emerging ICT Leader of the Year went to Ganindu Nanayakkara who is an award-winning innovator and Software Engineer currently working at 99X Technology. He is the inventor of the iHelmet which was the first runner-up under the Transportation Category in the Verizon Powerful Answers Award 2015. Mr. Nanayakkara has won awards at numerous other competitions such as Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA), Global Impact Competition (GIC), Manthan Awards South Asia, NBQSA, eSwabhimani, Young Computer Scientist, etc. He was also recognised in Forbes Asia – 30 under 30: Consumer Tech in March 2016. Auxenta Pvt. Ltd. won the award for Best Startup of the Year. Funded by Bayview Capital, a company owned by a well-known serial entrepreneur, Riz Virk and together with two more highly acclaimed ICT specialists, they entered the industry by developing a Bitcoins mobile trading platform named “Bitcoins Bazaar”, for Bay Coins LLC. With a workforce reaching 100 within just two and a half years since its inception, Auxenta has so far acquired more than 20 clients across 3 continents – USA, Europe and Asia. The company’s revenue growth numbers increased by 300% in the year 2015. Auxenta has been recognised by Echelon Magazine as one of the most exciting tech start-up companies in 2014 and they were also recognised as one of the 20 most promising companies in Quality Management Systems for 2015 by US-based CIO Review magazine. As the annual CSSL awards ceremony continues to generate much recognition and excitement amongst ICT professionals in Sri Lanka, the organisers expect to increase the number of award categories to cover a wider cross-section of the IT fraternity in the future. National CSSL ICT Awards 2016 – Advertisement  

ICT Leader of the Year 2016 – Shanil Fernando

CIO of the Year 2016 – Conrad Dias

Female ICT Leader of the Year 2016 – Prof. Mahesha Kapurubandara

Emerging ICT Leader of the Year 2016 – Ganindu Nanayakkara

Best Startup of the Year 2016 – Auxenta

The annual National CSSL ICT AWARDS were organized for the third consecutive year in order to encourage, recognize, and celebrate the excellence in ICT practice by rewarding the best and the finest of ICT professionals.

The CSSL awarded four awards in National CSSL ICT AWARDS 2015 and the award ceremony was held at Galadari Hotel, Colombo.

• Best ICT Student of the Year (Schools Category)
• Female ICT Leader of the Year
• CIO of the Year
• ICT Leader of the Year

Best ICT Student of the Year (Schools Category) award was won by Roshnal Lihinikadu

Roshanl Lihinikadu is a past student of Royal College, Colombo 07. He did A/L’s in the mathematics stream in 2014.  He obtained certifications from Oracle Inc In 2011 as an Oracle Certified Programmer in Java SE and ME. Currently he is doing the final stage of the BCS (British Computer Society). At present he is a co-founder and director at Stampede (Pvt) Ltd., which is a software development and outsourcing firm. He is also an intern at Forestpin Corp, which is a fraud Analytics Company based in the US.

Awards won by Roshnal:

• Think Quest Live by Oracle Education Foundation (USA), 2nd Place Award, Under 17 Application Development (Worldwide). Developed an SMS encryption/decryption mobile application called TED.
• National Schools’ Software Competition (NSSC) 2011 – Under 17 – Silver Award , 2012 – Under 17 -Gold Award , 2013 – Under 19 – Gold Award and 2014 – Under 19 – Gold Award
• IT Mastermind – 2013, All-Island 1st Runner Up
• IDEA Challenge organized by Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka, 2013, All-Island 1st Runner Up
• IEEE CodeExpertz 1.0 organized by University of Moratuwa, 2013, All-Island programming competition 1st Place.
• SEARCC International Schools’ Software Competition – Represented Sri Lankan team 2011 – 2nd Place and 2012, & 2013  – Participated
• Represented Sri Lanka at International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI)2013 – Australia  , 2014 –  Taiwan  and 2015 – Kazakhstan
• Represented Sri Lanka at Asia Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO Online)2013 – Singapore , 2014 – Kazakhstan , 2015 – Indonesia

Female ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Vishaka Nanayakkara

(Senior Lecturer/ Former Head ,Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa)

Vishaka Nanayakkara is graduated from University of Moratuwa, with a first class in Computer Science and Engineering in 1994 with the rare distinction of being the recipient of UNESCO gold medal for the student with the highest graduating average of the faculty of Engineering.

She obtained her Technical Licentiate in Computer Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

She joined the teaching faculty of the university upon graduation and was appointed the Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 2005 and served in that capacity for six years. She is currently a senior lecturer.

During her sabbatical leave in 2011/12 she worked as the Dean, Faculty of Electrical and Information Technology at Northshore College of Business Technology where she was instrumental in setting up this new academic entity in Sri Lanka collaborating with a British University.

She was then appointed as the deputy project director of the Higher Education for the twenty first century (HETC) Project of the Ministry of Higher education of Sri Lanka. One of her main responsibilities was to enhance employability skills of the undergraduate students. Conducting ICT and English competency building programs and a common testing for all universities was one of her achievements during her two year tenure at the HETC project. She was very passionate on promoting the use of ICT for teaching and learning in both technical and non-technical faculties of the state universities and worked tirelessly to achieve that

Her research interests are on Network performance modeling and analysis; Technology based teaching, learning and assessment in education; E-learning & mobile learning and its implications on developing nations; and ICT for development. She has published in national and international foram on these topics. As a presenter who enjoys her public speaking she has made many country presentations at global gatherings on Higher Education in Sri Lanka.

As an academic who is committed to producing highly employable graduates Vishaka works very closely with the Sri Lankan IT industry. She is very passionate about expanding and improving the skilled IT work force in Sri Lanka.

CIO of the Year award was won by Saman Perera
(CIO – Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd)

Over 24 years of proven industry experience and over 20 years of which at Management/ Senior Management level with Telecommunication Service providers.

Strong strategic business management skills with core technology background.

Key Achievements in ICT industry – has been the key architect and led teams of IT Professionals in the design and development of following key projects among many other

Complex, end-to-end Customer Care and Billing solution covering all business operations for a Mobile service provider (Mobitel) and for a Fixed line service provider (Lanka Bell).
Complex Mobile Money, electronic reload systems converging many technologies used by millions of Customers Island wide.

An award winning ticketing system for Sri Lanka Railways, which automates the entire advanced seat booking system and facilitating the system as a national platform to all the telecommunication service providers.

Global award winning eVisa (electronic travel authority) portal / ecommerce solution integrated with payment gateways and backend systems for Department of Immigration and Emigration.

Has been a part of CSSL as a council member, speaker, panel member and a session chair in the NITC conferences.

Has been involved in the academic activities as a visiting lecturer for MBA in Information Systems conducted by Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo and serving as an external resource person (Thesis Supervision) MBA in Information Technology, Computer Science and Engineering Department of University of Moratuwa.
Holds MBA in Management of Technology from University of Moratuwa, MSc in Computer Science and BSc from University of Colombo.

Currently working as Senior General Manger Information Systems for Mobitel.

ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Dr. Nayana Dehigama 
(Chairman/ Managing Director of  EPIC Technology Group)

Dr. Nayana is the Founder Chairman/ Managing Director of EPIC Technology Group, the renowned ICT solutions provider with a proven track record of 18 years. His company being one of an undisputed leaders of the Sri Lankan software industry has collected an unprecedented number of 64 national and international accolades in the past 6 years. The company won the National Business Excellence Award in ICT sector for the 3 consecutive years from 2008 to 2010. They also won the highest number of awards at the National Best Quality Software Awards 2011, which they achieved for the fourth time. Epic Lanka also won the first ever Gold Award for Sri Lanka at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2008.  Nayana has commenced operations in several other countries in the region too.

Nayana holds a Doctoral Degree at the School of Management of the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. Having acquired professional qualifications in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, he also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing Management and an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Nayana was adjudged the Sri Lankan Entrepreneur – Platinum Award Winner in 2012, and the most coveted Asia-Pacific Young Entrepreneur Award Winner in 2010 organized by the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Nayana is a sort after Public Speaker in Entrepreneurship, Innovations, Career Guidance and Motivation. He has delivered many orations in prominent national and international forums and conferences. He also has delivered many guest lectures in most of the Universities and Professional Associations in Sri Lanka. Nayana is a past Chairman of Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE).

National CSSL ICT Awards 2015 – Advertisement

Best ICT Student of the Year (Schools Category)

Female ICT Leader of the Year

CIO of the Year

ICT Leader of the Year

The annual CSSL Excellence in ICT Awards ceremony held at the kingsbury Hotel, Colombo. These awards intend to encourage, recognize and celebrate the excellence in ICT practice by rewarding the best and the finest of ICT professionals. The Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) is the premier organization dedicated to promoting and improving professional standards in the information communication technology sector.

In this year, the CSSL awarded three awards for ‘Emerging ICT Leader of the Year’, ‘Female ICT Leader of the Year’ and ‘ICT Leader of the Year’.

The Emerging ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Dhanika Perera.

Dhanika Perera is the Founder & CEO of Bhasha Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, a Sri Lanka based software company & a social enterprise dedicated for developing local language software solutions. He is the inventor of Sinhala rendering technology on Android platform & he invented SETT Browser as the first Sinhala/Tamil supported mobile web browser & Bhasha Helakuru as the first Sinhala soft-keyboard for Android, enabling local masses to get the benefit out of ICT solutions in their own languages. He founded his company Bhasha while he was following his bachelor’s degree at University of Moratuwa converting his professional life from an engineer to an entrepreneur. He was awarded the mBillionth South Asian Award in 2011, the e-Swabhimani National Award in 2011 & 2012 & the NBQSA National Award in 2012 for his innovations & honoured as the Emerging Entrepreneur in 2013 by University of Moratuwa.

The Female ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Lakmini Wijesundara

Lakmini Wijesundera is the co founder and CEO of Ironone Technologies. She has vast experience in enterprise software & Management, and as CEO of IronOne Technologies, she leads a team of over 100 technology professionals with offices spanned across USA, Malaysia and Sri Lanka with partner offices spanning many other countries such as Singapore, Philippines, South Africa, UK among others. She is the driving force behind IronOne’s technological breakthroughs and go to market strategies. Lakmini graduated from Imperial College, University of London in Engineering in 1994. Starting out her career as a Computer Engineer and progressed to lead her own Engineering firm which caters to globally ranked companies including Citi Bank, Prudential, Victoria Secrets, May Bank, Stock Exchange of Malaysia, Maxis Telecom which are all global leaders in their spheres. She now handles the global strategy, marketing, sales and operations by leading a highly talented handpicked super-team at Ironone technologies.

The ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Harsha Purasinghe

Harsha Purasinghe is a serial entrepreneur who founded number of technology ventures & contributed towards building notable products since his debut in software industry at the age of 19. Harsha is behind founding of Microimage, Microimage Mobile Media and Microimage HCM Asia in 1995, 2007 and 2014 respectively. Today, Microimage is considered the most successful High School Start Up Story in the ICT industry of Sri Lanka.

In 2013, Harsha founded WSO2 Mobile to build a suite of lean, enterprise, mobileware to solve enterprise mobility challenges. This was incorporated, as a fully owned subsidiary of WSO2 the leading open source middleware company. Harsha was recognized as the “Most outstanding entrepreneur in IT/BPO industry in Sri Lanka” in 2007. Harsha was also chosen to the list of 40 under 40 Business Leaders listing compiled by Echelon Magazine – A leading business magazine in Sri Lanka. He was also one of the 21 selected globally for the “2014 Eisenhower Innovation Fellowship” granted by the Eisenhower Fellowship in the US.

National CSSL ICT Awards 2014 – Advertisement

 

CSSL ICT Leader of the Year 2014

CSSL Female ICT Leader of the Year 2014

CSSL Emerging ICT Leader of the Year 2014

The annual CSSL Excellence in ICT Awards was inaugurated recently at the SEARCC International Conference held in Colombo. These awards intend to encourage, recognize and celebrate the excellence in ICT practice by rewarding the best and the finest of ICT professionals.

The Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) is the premier organization dedicated to promoting and improving professional standards in the information communication technology sector. In its inaugural year, the CSSL awarded three awards for ‘Emerging ICT Leader of the Year’, ‘Female ICT Leader of the Year’ and ‘ICT Leader of the Year’.

The Emerging ICT Leader of the Year award was won by Chamira Prasad Jayasinghe

Chamira is a serial entrepreneur, innovator and an avid programmer. Having obtained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in information technology from the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, he established a company of his own, Arimac Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. Currently, Arimac consists of 15 full time creative crew committing their effort for National and International Enterprises.

Upamalika Ratnayake became the Female ICT Leader of the Year

Upamalika is the CIO / Senior Deputy General Manager – ICT at Ceylinco Insurance PLC, Life Division. Upamalika counts nearly three decades of experience in the ICT industry. Her forte being the Information Systems and IS Audit.

The ICT Leader of the Year was Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana

Dr. Sanjiva founded WSO2 in 2005 in order to reinvent the way enterprise middleware is developed, sold, delivered and supported through an open source model.

The awards presentation happened during the SEARCC International Conference.

National CSSL ICT Awards 2013 – Advertisement

 

CSSL ICT Leader of the Year 2013

CSSL Female ICT Leader of the Year 2013

CSSL Emerging ICT Leader of the Year 2013