SLIIT CodeFest 2014 concludes on high note

Monday, 24 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

CodeFest 2014, an event hosted by the Faculty of Computing of SLIIT is one of the biggest software competitions among school and university students. This is a unique initiative to provide a stage for the zealous programmers to frame their best code. With a record breaking number of students participating this year, CodeFest 2014 was held for the third consecutive year at the SLIIT campus in Malabe. Upali Gunasekara, principal of Royal College, Colombo was the Chief Guest at the awards ceremony.

Gold Award Central College Piliyandala The competitive battle among the participants made the competition intense and appealing. This year, under the school category, over 700 hundred students representing over 130 schools participated in the Software Development and Quiz Competition. 101 teams, which comprised of 404 undergraduates, from 13 universities and higher education institutes competed in the 24-hour ‘CodeFest Hackathon’. Parallel to the competition, SLIIT conducted a series of workshops around Sri Lanka, to train students in game development. In addition, a technical awareness session for university students on big data analytics was also organised at the SLIIT auditorium. Winners of the Software Development Competition, under the school category for the best three projects were Central College, Piliyanda, Zahira College, Kalmune and Telijjawila Central College, Matara. These winners walked away with a Gold, Silver and Bronze award respectively. Zahira College, Kalmune also clinched the People’s award. In the school category of the ICT quiz contest Sripali College, Horana, Musaeus College, Colombo and Kegalu Vidyalaya, Kegalle emerged first, second and third respectively. The University of Colombo – School of Computing, University of Moratuwa and the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) secured the first, second and third place respectively under the tertiary category in the Hackathon Competition. SLIIT also clinched the award for the ‘Most Creative Design’. “CODEFEST is one of the many initiatives taken by SLIIT, towards propelling the country in becoming a knowledge hub. Over the past three years, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of participants and we hope to continue this event in the years to come. CodeFest is an ideal platform to promote the application of skills honed from ICT related modules taught in schools and universities,” notes SLIIT President and CEO Professor Lalith Gamage. The strategic partner for this event was the Ministry of Education – ICT Branch. Main sponsors of this event included Bank of Ceylon, IFS, and Loadstar, Virtusa, Sheffield Hallam University (UK), MIT, Pearson, Zone24x7, and Kasper Holdings. The technical partner was n-able.