More local research vie international spotlight via ICTer initiative

Friday, 13 December 2013 00:03 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Shabiya Ali Ahlam More local researchers are vying for the global spotlight under an initiative championed by the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC), which kicked off the 14th annual ICTer Conference this week. In partnership with the New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Conference on

Advances in ICT for Emerging Countries (ICTer), has received 112 papers where 68 papers were from state universities, 23 from private universities, 17 from foreign universities and four from private organisations. Out of 112 submissions 18 are full paper submissions, 24 short papers and 18 poster papers. Forty papers from the total submissions will be selected by an expert panel to be published in the ICTer journal and IEEE Explore (www.IEEE.org), an international digital library highly popular amongst ICT professionals. IEEE, ), the world’s largest technical professional society, is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence to get wider international participation and promote research in fast emerging nations. Over two days via the main conference, workshops and tutorials global and regional experts will share key insights within a forum of 150. Some of the subjects covered include Video Forgery and Motion Editing; Miltimodality + Multimedia + Sensors + Pleasant Interfaces; Design Based Mobile Learning Research; Enhancing Health Communication Using Digital media; Architecture for Digital Knowledge Ecosystems; Document Image Analysis: Past, Present and Future; Statistical Relational Learning- Different Formalisms and Representations and From Bioinformatics to Systems Biology. Chief Guest at the ceremonial opening of the Conference yesterday Higher Education Ministry Secretary Dr. Sunil Jayantha Nawaratne said that although the country carries out a number of research studies only a few reach commercialisation.

“Sri Lanka has many capable students who have carried out exceptional research studies. Lacking is their ability to commercialise their work,” said Nawaratne at the event which was graced by ICT Agency of Sri Lanka Chairman Prof. P.W. Epasinghe as guest of honour, and National Central University Taiwan Prof. Timothy K. Shih as the keynote speaker. Dr. Nawaratne also explained that in an attempt to further encourage research studies in the country, the Government has instructed state universities to allocate 10% of their capital budget for research work starting from 2014. Opining that research work alone is not enough, he called for more Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to help take research from desk to market. “If you look at the world’s top ICT companies such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, just to name a few, that are all from USA. Why is it that emerging nations cannot make it to the world market? It is simply because we are not linking our work to the world market,” he told the audience while stressing the need for students to have the spirit of entrepreneurship. The keynote address will be delivered by National Central University Taiwan Prof. Timothy K. Shih who will speak on the topic of ‘Video Forgery and Motion Editing’. The conference will also feature seven other eminent speakers which include Shimane University Japan Prof. Masahito Hirakawa, Stockholm University Prof. Robert Ramberg, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Prof. May Oo Lwin, University of Western Sydney Prof. Athula Ginige, Indian Statistical Institute Prof. Umapada Pal, University of Mumbai, India, Dr. Sushil Kulkarni, and University of Southampton Prof, Mahesan Niranjan. Pix by Sameera Wijesinghe