Computer Society of Sri Lanka elects new Executive Council

Council Members. Seated from left: Treasurer Heshan Karunarathne, Vice President Dr. Ajantha Athukorale, President Damith Hettihewa, Secretary Dr. Parakum Pathirana, and Assistant Secretary Commodore Janaka Gunaseela.

Standing from left: Council Member S. Shageevan, Assistant Treasurer Rasantha Hettithanthrige, Past President and Council Member Prabath S. Wickramaratne, Council Member Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe, Publication Secretary Indika De Zoysa, Council Member Dr. Adeesha Wijayasiri, and Student Counsellor Heminda Jayaweera

The Annual General Meeting of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) was held on 26 January, and the new Executive Council for the year 2021 was duly elected. 

Nimbus Cloud Lanka Ltd. Managing Director Damith Hettihewa was elected as the President, whilst University of Colombo School of Computing Deputy Director Dr. Ajantha Athukorale was elected as the Vice President.

The other elected members of the Executive Council are LOLC Group Head of Information Security and Compliance Dr. Parakum Pathirana (Secretary), CodeGen International Ltd. Director – Business Development Heshan Karunarathne (Treasurer), General Sir John Kotelawala University Faculty of Computing Dean Commodore Janaka Gunaseela (Assistant Secretary), Mobitel Ltd. Senior General Manager Engineering and Operations Rasantha Hettithanthrige (Assistant Treasurer), Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology COO Heminda Jayaweera (Student Counsellor), Huawei Technologies Vice President Indika De Zoysa (Publication Secretary), and Council Members Deutsche Bank AG Vice President/Head of Operations and Head of Information Technology Prabath S. Wickramaratne, Esoft Metro Campus CIO S. Shageevan, Lanka Bell Managing Director Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe and University of Moratuwa Department of Computer Science and Engineering Lecturer Dr. Adeesha Wijayasiri.

Hettihewa is a well-known industry personality with more than 25 years of ICT industry experience in both the public and private sectors. He has been a leading industry contributor as CEO of ICTA, FITIS, and Informatics. He served as the coordinator of the Presidential Taskforce on IT and held senior positions in Dialog and Mobitel, Presidential Taskforce in IT, having started his IT career as a System Engineer at Sampath Bank. 

Damith served in CSSL Executive Council since 2014 and held various positions, including Conference Chair, Assistant Secretary, Secretary, Vice President prior to being elected as the President in 2021. His career spans over two decades, having worked in leading organisations in Sri Lanka, including Sampath Bank, Dialog, Mobitel, etc.

CSSL President paid tribute to CSSL Founder President Dr. R.B. Ekanayake. Damith Hettihewa outlined his vision for the Computer Society of Sri Lanka in 2021 and highlighted the priorities for the year under the three tier pillars of CSSL Vision, namely Value Creator, ICT Frontier, and Community voice.  

CSSL new President highlighted the urgent need for recognition of local professionals with Chartered IT Professional status and an early policy formation endeavour with necessary legal enactments in order to embrace frontier technologies such as AI, Big Data, Drones, Autonomous transportation etc. of Sri Lanka to leverage industry 4.0 opportunity for Sri Lanka to become a wealthy state.

The New CSSL president thanked Ajith Salgado, who first invited him to serve in the CSSL council in 2014, Prabath S. Wickramaratne for guiding CSSL to a new height with innovative strategies during his two-year tenure and outgoing Executive Committee members. 

Prior to the new office bearer elections, outgoing President Prabath Wickramaratne presented the annual report 2019/20, which articulated several successful projects which were implemented.   CSSL is committed to fostering standards and professionalism amongst the country’s ICT professionals and adopted the CSSL Code of Conduct for Executive council members at the AGM 2020. CSSL’s code of conduct further strengthens the CSSL Code of Ethics framework, which was adopted by CSSL in 2017.

The President and Executive Council welcome professionals and students to actively engage in the new initiatives for 2021, which will be launched shortly and invite more and more ICT professionals to become a member of the prestigious professional body to further enrich their profession and careers.