Vision to impact: ACCA’s 6th annual student conference resounding success

Tuesday, 4 November 2014 01:22 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Annual Conference, the flagship event of the ACCA Sri Lanka Students’ Council, which brought together eminent corporate personalities to share their insights, experience and knowledge with the conference participants, was held on 11 October 2014 at Waters Edge. As the largest global professional Accountancy body, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) of Sri Lanka has formed the ACCA Students’ Council to host events and a wide array of professional training initiatives, which add value to young corporates/students to enrich their soft-skills to complement the theoretical knowledge while creating a platform for professional networkingand uplift their career potential.

This was the sixth consecutive year to hold this prestigious event. Titled ‘From Vision to Impact’ and attended by over 500 participants, this year’s conference brought together an eminent panel of speakers comprising of: Cricketing Legend Kumar Sangakkara, World Champion in Public Speaking, Trainer/HRD Specialist Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, Capital Maharajah Group Director Chevaan Daniel and Metropolitan Director Niranjan De Silva. Kumar Sangakkara delivered his key note address on the main topic of the conference and spoke about how he had achieved the vision he had in life and the methodologies he had adopted to become the icon he is today. The second key note address was given by Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, who was recently selected as the world champion for public speaking and is also a renowned trainer and HRD specialist. Dancing his way through his speech on the subject of ‘Chasing Butterflies’, he delivered a key message to the audience and said, “Dreams are sometimes as elusive as butterflies. Still, life is all about empowering people to follow their dreams.” Chevaan Daniel also addressed the audience on ‘The power of collective ambition’ that touched on beating the odds against any challenges faced in life, whilst the afternoon session comprised on an interesting an interactive address by Niranjan De Silva, who spoke on the topic of ‘simplifying complexity’ outlined methods such as Kaizan to adopt such a lifestyle that would in turn lead to success. This was followed by a panel discussion on the topic of ‘Entrepreneurship: The Real Story behind the Success’, moderated by Deshal De Mel, Senior Economist at Hayley’s Group. The panelists comprised of: Kapruka.com CEO and Founder Dulith Herath, Spa Ceylon Co-creator and Director Shalin Balasuriya, Academy of Design Founder Linda Speldewinde and Google Asia Pacific Sri Lanka Country Consultant Rohan Jayaweera, who shared some interesting views on this topic. This year’s conference had a host of eminent sponsors comprising of the main sponsor Mercury Institute of Management, whilst the CO-ALP sponsors were CCBT, K-AIMS, Neptune Edification and KBBS. The Title Corporate Sponsor for this year’s event was Good Hope Holdings, with the Diamond Sponsors being Dialog Axiata PLC and the Blue Ocean Group of Companies. The Platinum sponsor was ANC with the Gold sponsor being Sri Lanka Insurance and the Silver sponsor as Ceylon Biscuits. The Hospitality sponsor was Waters Edge. The Photography Partner for the event was Dylan Seedin Photography with the official design partner being Mind Bend Project.