World Construction Symposium by CIOB and UOM on 8-9 Nov.

The eighth World Construction Symposium will be held on the theme ‘Towards a Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Built Environment’ on 8-9 November in Colombo. The event planned for July this year had to be postponed due to Easter attacks and redesigned to a reduced time phase.

World Construction Symposium is an annual event jointly organised by the Ceylon Institute of Builders and Department of Building Economics of University of Moratuwa. The first symposium was held in 2012 during the time the industry was booming after the end of 30 years civil war in the country. Since then, this annual event progressed consecutively to the eighth year with the global and local issues important to the sustainable development of the Construction Industry. 

The themes of the symposium covered a wide range of subjects such as energy management, procurement and integrated project delivery, multinational construction projects, construction practices, quality and productivity, new technologies, research law and dispute resolution in the development of sustainable construction.   

Industry practitioners and academic scholars use the symposium as a platform to present papers on innovative ideas and share knowledge to work for the future sustainability in the construction industry.  

Papers were submitted by local and global academic scholars on the subjects related to green building and technologies, Public Private Partnerships for built environment, environment economics and on many other matters on sustainable construction. The symposium supports the industry professionals in Sri Lanka for continuous professional development (CPD) on skills, knowledge and experience.   

According to Ceylon Institute of Builders President Dr. Rohan Karunaratne, local construction companies could use the opportunity for their professional staff on training, where they could gain knowledge and exposure through the World Construction Symposium.  

The event is popular now and attracts considerable foreign and local student participation for their PhD paper submissions. Several overseas universities work with the World Construction Symposium by encouraging their students to use the opportunity for the submissions. Many of them visit Sri Lanka for participation and CIOB together with UOM support the tourism industry in Sri Lanka with this annual symposium.  

Since the year 2015, CIOB has added the Green Awards to the fellowship night of the World Construction Symposium by giving wide publicity for the construction companies who are keen on sustainable construction.  

Siam City Cement Lanka is the Platinum Sponsor of the event WCS 2019 and Kalani Cable sponsors the event as the Gold sponsor. Alumex supports the event as the Silver sponsor. Elite Engineering, Macksons Paints and Ceylon Steel are Bronze sponsors of the event. Hatton National Bank is the official banker of the event. 

ANCL has always been generous in giving print media publicity and Derana TV has come forward as the electronic media sponsor to support WCS 2019. These major stakeholders of the construction industry have always been supportive to hold this important annual event successfully.  

Prof. Chitra Weddikkara chairs the symposium with Dr. Yasangika Sandanayake and the team from University of Moratuwa. Council members and the Membership of Ceylon Institute of Builders support the World Construction Symposium to be the most significant annual forum of the construction industry in Sri Lanka.