IIT Cutting Edge 2014: Innovation at its best

Monday, 7 July 2014 00:54 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) which has been in the forefront of transforming its students into entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders, recently held ‘Cutting Edge 2014’ for the 12th consecutive year. The Cutting Edge exhibition showcases the innovative projects created by students of IIT who are currently studying Software Engineering and Information Systems with Business Management (ISBM). This year’s Cutting Edge exhibition is based on the five elements of nature. Keeping this theme in mind the students of IIT presented some of the most state-of-the-art technological and business solutions that will help empower humanity. This year the Academic Excellence Award presented by Virtusa was bagged by G.H. Fernando for her project ‘DroidCard: Intelligent Virtual Bank Card Mobile Application for ATM Withdrawals’. The runner-up for this category S.S. Serasinghe received an award for his project ‘LogXtractor – An Intelligent Integrated Development Environment for Log Structuring and Log Extraction’. The third place was awarded to D.D. Ratnasothy for his project ‘InGuide – An Indoor Guidance System’.

Under the Business Innovation Award category presented by Informatics, the first place was bagged by Arquib Ismail for his project EduFinder which is a social tertiary education finder. The second place under this category was awarded to Jehan De Silva for his project Tripd – A Smart Travel Assistant to Manage Travel Risks. The third place for the Business Innovation Award category was awarded to Abinia Sachithanantham who developed Inspirit – An optimised IT and Management Solution to Improve the Performance of the SME Apparel Merchandisers. The judges for this exhibition headed by Prof. GihanWickramanayake and his team from British Computer Society (BCS) are experts from the fields of IT and Management. This year’s exhibition saw many creative inventions that included solutions for categories such as Artificial Intelligence, Communication Networks, Hardware Based Networks, Healthcare, Mobile Application, Multimedia and Graphics, Virtual Reality, Web Based Solutions, Education, e-Commerce, Finance, Health, Hospitality Management, Management Information Systems Planning, Sales and Marketing and Supply Chain Management. The exhibition also featured ifm – ‘voice of IIT’ the radio channel aired by IIT students and also a ‘Gaming Centre’ which featured some of the latest online video games which also included an Xbox as well. The Exhibition is not simply an internal concern but instead is open to the corporate world and in fact attracts key personnel from top end IT based Companies who are invariably the ultimate employers of the students. This allows for employers to assess the capability and talent of the students and offer career opportunities for them. As an exhibition Cutting Edge allows any interested party to come interact with the creators of these projects and is entitled to a demonstration. Many of the students develop and implement projects that are beneficial to existing systems while some students develop applications and devices that exist in a league of its’ own. Students are able to utilise their knowledge obtained through their course as well as the experience they gain through their industrial placement. The tenacity and ambition of the students lead to creation of truly remarkable software and hardware solutions that are applicable to not only the software and business sectors but also systems which could help day to day lives. Cutting Edge is an event held in the grandeur due to the quality and quantity of projects that are present for viewing. Students are allowed a significant amount of time under the guidance of their chosen supervisor to conceive an idea and follow the concept through to its final phase. A rigorous process of trial and error is present during the development of the project. Students are exposed to the arduous process of creation and destruction to obtain the perfect solution that embodies their vision and determination. Many of the winners of Cutting Edge 2014 will be participating in national and international level competitions expected to take place within this year. Previously, students of IIT have bagged multiple awards at competitions such as Microsoft Imagine Cup, National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA), Google Summer of Code and e-Swabhimani. Continuing the winning streak at national and international competitions, this year too, IIT emerged victorious once again at the 2014 Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. Five teams from IIT participated in the ‘World Citizenship’, ‘Innovation’ and ‘Games’ categories and all five teams went on to win awards, bringing credit to IIT. As the curtains come down at another years’ Cutting Edge exhibition, IIT is confident that there would be no limit to the innovative ability of the students passing through the Institute’s doors.With 24 years of experience as being a pioneer in providing internal British higher education in Business and Information Technology in Sri Lanka, IIT has produced nearly 3000 graduates who are holding prestigious positions across the globe. Informatics Institute of Technology; Tel: 2360212, Hotline: 0722 72 72 72 web: www.iit.ac.lk, email: [email protected].