Sri Lankan students win Merits at APICTA Awards 

Sri Lankan student participants with FITIS officials at APICTA award ceremony. From left: FITIS President Software Chapter Sanjaya Dayananda, APICTA Nominee Anupa Rajasinghe, APICTA Merit Award Winner Thewnitha Piyadasa, APICTA Nominee Ranula Basnayake, APICTA Merit Award Winner Sasandara Dilmina, and FITIS Vice President Software Chapter Kalinga Ihalagedara 

The Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards 2023 took place in Hong Kong from 5 to 8 December 2023 hosted by the Hong Kong Computer Society. Federation of IT Industry Sri Lanka (FITIS) submitted four outstanding software development projects in three student categories. Two of these projects won Merit Awards.

FITIS conducts an annual competition named “Young Computer Scientist,” under the guidance of the Ministry of Education. This year there were submissions of over 1,400 software development projects from students of both public and private schools. In collaboration with the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), the Ministry of Education and FITIS were able to shortlist 410 projects for the first round, eventually narrowing down to 31 projects for the final round.

An expert panel of judges comprising academia and industry professionals, selected four outstanding projects for submission to APICTA. The projects and their respective developers are:

1. “Smart Wheel Chair” by Thewnitha Piyadasa of Nalanda College, Colombo 10, in the category ‘Student – Junior Student A.’

2. “KAI-Virtual Voice Assistant” by Ranula Basnayake of Puhulwella National School, Matara, in the category ‘Student – Junior Student B.’

3. “Survival Odyssey: A Tale of Survival” by Sasandara Dilmina of Central College, Anuradhapura, in the category ‘Student – Senior Student.’

4. “PseudoPy/StudyGenie” by Anupa Rajasinghe of D.S. Senanayake College, Colombo 07, in the category ‘Student – Senior Student.’

These APICTA nominees were recognised at the INFOTEL Exhibition 2023, by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, accompanied by Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha, and State Minister of Technology Kanaka Herath, for their outstanding achievements.

Three prominent companies in the IT industry, namely Softlogic Technologies, Millennium IT ESP, and Informatics Institute of Technology, generously provided sponsorship to facilitate the participation of these students in APICTA.

The project “Smart Wheel Chair” of Thewnitha Piyadasa (Category: Junior Student A), and the project, “Survival Odyssey: A Tale of Survival” of Sasandara Dilmina (Category: Senior Student), secured Merit Awards by impressively scoring over 95% during their project presentations.

The recognition received by these projects at the APICTA competition highlights the presence of hidden talents in every corner of the country and our responsibility to diligently seek out and nurture these talents.

The next “Young Computer Scientist” competition, organised by FITIS, is set to commence in the first quarter of the year 2024.