Informatics Institute of Technology celebrates 25 of success and empowerment of youth

Informatics Group Chairman and IT founder Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe 

By Kiyoshi J. Berman

Q: Can you comment on the 25-year history of IIT?

A: When the institute was set up in 1990, our objective was to produce IT graduates for the software industry in Sri Lanka. The goal at that time was to produce about 150 graduates per year in Computer Science. However, currently things have vastly changed. 

The institute was started to cater to needs of the IT industry work force. We were in the IT industry, we still are and we did not have sufficient IT professionals. Back in 1983, all State universities put together were only producing less than 100 graduates. Because of this shortage, we partnered with the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) which was then the second largest non-federal university in the UK with a student population of around 50,000. Initially we commenced with an IT degree. Thereafter, we introduced a Business degree with MMU and this collaboration went on for around 15 years. 

In 2005, IIT partnered with the University of Westminster which offered a combination of Software Engineering and Business related undergraduate degree programs. Due to the academic quality that was evident from numerous sources they in addition offered a postgraduate program later on. 

As of today, we have more than 3,000 alumni who are employed locally and throughout the world. The majority of them are holding prominent positions in both IT and Business sectors. In most of the reputed IT companies whether export driven or otherwise, our graduates are working in top positions. Several of our graduates have commenced their own start up companies and are competing with some of the established companies.

 

Q: How have IIT graduates contributed to the Information Technology sector in Sri Lanka?

A: Most of our graduates, accounting to about 80% are employed in the local industry and out of them the vast majority is in the export industry working in organisations like Virtusa, MIT, John Keells, WSO2, Zone24x7, 99X, and Codegen to name a few. In the business sector we have our alumni holding top positions at Fonterra, Hayleys, Unilever, etc. For instance, even the Finance Director of Unilever is an alumnus of IIT. 

Then the rest of the graduates are working abroad mainly in the United States, Canada, England and Australia. We are proud to say that some of them are even working in global organisations like IBM, Google and Microsoft.  

 

Q: IIT has a reputation for conducting British degrees in Sri Lanka. What are the latest British universities affiliated with IIT?

A: Now we are affiliated with the University of Westminster which is over 170 years old. We are also conducting Master’s programs from University of Keele. However, University of Westminster is providing more degree programs than University of Keele or University of Manchester. In the future, we will be tying up with a few more British universities and maybe a few Australian universities to conduct programs other than IT. 

 

Q: What are the degree programs currently offered by IIT?

A: Currently we have five degree programs consisting of three Bachelor’s degrees namely BEng (Hons) Software Engineering; BSc (Hons) Information Systems with Business Management and BSc (Hons) Computer Science.

University of Westminster introduced BSc (Hons) Computer Science degree with pathways leading to specialisation areas such as mobile and web computing, games and computer graphics and multimedia computing. 

We also have two postgraduate degree programs, namely MSc Software Engineering and MSc Advanced Software Engineering. 

Our foundation program allows students who do not possess the requisite Advanced-Level qualifications but, who possesses only an Ordinary Level qualification to continue with the degree upon successfully completing this one year course. 

In future, we are planning to tie up with a new university to start a completely new business faculty with finance, economics, accounts and the full gamut of business because now we only have business programs related to IT. 

 

Q: What are some of the prominent success stories of the IIT alumni?

A: IIT graduates have an excellent track record of achieving national and international recognition through IT related competitions and research paper publications. IIT has achieved the enviable task of winning Gold at the National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA) conducted by the BCS on three consecutive occasions. 

In 2015 IIT achieved another milestone by winning a total of six awards out of a possible nine. In the Imagine Cup 2015 event conducted by Microsoft Inc. students were awarded first place for Games, Innovation and World Citizenship categories. This was the first time a single education institute bagged six awards in a single occasion.

 

Q: What is the campus life at IIT like?

A: Our facilities include a well stocked IT library which was once recognised as the best IT library in Sri Lanka. We have most of the books, journals, periodicals, magazines and so on that was recommended by the University of Westminster. We provide reference facilities for students from other institutions. 

Our students also have the opportunity to get involved in extracurricular activities such as musicals, drama, ‘Dance Org’, ‘Stage Craft’ and other events organised by the institute. These events greatly enrich the overall skills of students. Through these events, the campus has gained popularity for having a vibrant student population and sociable culture. These activities also help students develop their interpersonal skills to be rounded students who can be part of any organisation. We have further introduced the Toastmasters club to help students improve their language, communication and leadership skills. 

Besides stage performances, we encourage sports activities within the campus. We have sports teams for rugby cricket, football, basketball, badminton, swimming and tennis. 

Our students get involved in community work as well. Last year alone, they raised over a million rupees for the cancer hospital in Maharagama. Apart from that, students run their own radio station which is on air at certain times. 

When our graduates go in for job interviews, they often stand a better chance compared to candidates who have studied similar degrees in other local universities. This is because we don’t just focus on the degree certificate itself. Through our extracurricular activities, we ensure we develop other skills they need to thrive in the corporate environment.

 

Q: In which ways does IIT work together with the State universities?

A: Well, we are complementing the IT education of the State universities and not competing with them, which creates a healthy balance in the country’s academic environment. It has been found that the Sri Lankan IT market demands for around five to ten thousand IT professionals every year. Everyone is trying to work for it, so we’re also contributing to fulfil a national requirement. 

Moreover, there are many State university lecturers teaching at IIT and vice versa. Some of our lecturers work part-time at Moratuwa, Kelaniya and other universities.  

To mention one of the ways we linked with state universities was through the Asian Development Bank project some time ago. ADB requested for our quality requirements and study approach to be introduced to State universities. We didn’t have any objections towards this. At that time, most of our quality requirements which came from the University of Manchester went to the State Universities through the Asian Development Bank project. Likewise, we are trying to work together towards a common goal. 

 

Q: What are the future plans of IIT?

A: We are planning to increase the capacity of the campus and increase the undergraduate and post-graduate student population. For this, we will be relocating to larger premises next year. 

We have tied up with UOW for a Doctoral program. Now one of our staff members is pursuing a PhD program at the University of Westminster under this collaboration.  In future, we are hoping to increase the capacity of this program to cover around 5-10 PhDs per year.

Besides, we want to focus more on research activities.  

Currently we have a considerable amount of research being conducted but we aspire to enhance our capabilities. We hold an annual event called ‘Cutting Edge’ where students get the opportunity to display their projects to industry and academia. These projects are backed by a lot of research and bring out innovative ideas. Most of their research today is carried out using digital media rather than library books. There have been many cases where large companies have hired students with good projects. These companies are looking to gain from the research carried out by the students and product developed by them even if it’s not necessarily perfected. 

We constantly encourage students to come up with new ideas, carry out research and bring it to a stage of a product of some sort. In the following years, we are planning to launch a project incubation program where we would select a few outstanding projects and build upon them. We want to encourage our young IT students to implement what they think is a good idea whether it’s for commercial purposes, science or community. 

 

Q: What is your advice for school leavers who wish to pursue a career in Information Technology? 

A: My advice would be to choose a degree program which goes beyond theoretical knowledge and gives real world, on-hands experience while setting you up for a great career path. 

If I talk in terms of our educational approach, our degree programs are designed in such a way that students get one year industry experience which helps them to cement their theoretical knowledge. As a result, most of these students get job opportunities even before the final results are released.

We also have a scholarship program which allows the student to work and study at the same time. This way, the student is given the chance to work with one of our associate companies for five years while doing the degree program. Now we have more than 20 organisations that collaborate with us on this endeavour.  Nearly 5,000 candidates apply for this scholarship programme every year but we only select a fraction of them who successfully pass our stringent testing procedures. 

I would like to invite all school leavers who wish to pursue a great career in Information Technology or business to come around to IIT and find out for yourselves how you can shape your future with us.