SLIIT launches Co-innovation Centre with JKH/SGIT

SLIIT, the premier degree awarding institute in Sri Lanka, which provides a broad scope of academic opportunities for students, recently partnered with John Keells Holdings Plc/Strategic Group IT (SGIT), in launching a Co-innovation Centre which will help students to work on real-life initiatives and projects and get hands-on exposure in an organisational context.

SLIIT students are afforded valuable opportunities to further their knowledge-base and enhance future career prospects with SGIT’s vast experience in a broad spectrum of industries.

This will also serve as an in-house internship program and will offer SLIIT students access to collaborate with JKH/SGIT on many of the identified initiatives as well as tap into the decades of experience and knowledge in implementing and delivering ICT solutions as well as exposure to platforms such as SAP and Microsoft. They will also have the added benefit of gaining exposure from their global reach through their established partnership with SAP and Microsoft.

As a non-state university, SLIIT has autonomy in its curriculum development, outreach and growth initiatives. Through this internship, SLIIT students have a valuable opportunity to receive hands-on experience of the corporate world and international business practices.  Commenting on this strategic launch, SLIIT President/CEO Prof. Lalith Gamage noted: “The objective of introducing such an internship program is to offer our students some industrial exposure. Experience has shown us that students who undergo these programs receive better jobs and perform better in the industry.” 

Prof. Gamage urged SGIT officials to recreate its unique learning resources and research culture within the space provided enhancing the internship program. 

“To take our industry forward we need innovation and must be research orientated. This is the bigger picture we have in mind and we thank SGIT for joining us in this endeavour to take the industry and our institution forward,” Prof. Gamage said. 

“In today’s context, we strongly believe and endorse Open Innovation and as such we are very keen to collaborate with institutions such as SLIIT and expand our ecosystem in being able to co-innovate and co-create. 

“This obviously is a step in the right direction and will help us fast-track our journey and forge a long-term alliance with SLIIT. This centre will be one of the incubation centres where we believe new ideas can be incubated and nurtured. This will help us push the boundaries and grow the ecosystem faster. We are very excited about this journey and wish to forge ahead with this and expand the scope of this centre to include social, mobile, analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) in realising the full value of the SMAC stack for ourselves,” said John Keells Holdings Plc Group CIO and Executive Vice President Ramesh Shanmuganathan.

Those present at the launch event were senior officials from SLIIT including Professor Gamage, Dr. Malitha Wijesundara, the Dean Faculty of the Computing, Chithranganie Mubarak, Director Administration and Chairperson of ICTA, Dr. Kosala Yapa Bandara, Head of Department of Software Engineering and Saman Gunawardana, Industry Liaison Manager, Industry Training. Representing SGIT senior management were Ramesh Shanmuganathan, Executive Vice President, Group CIO, Harsha Senanayake, Assistant Vice President, Head of Enterprise Applications and Services, Neomal Perera, Assistant Vice President, Head of Operations and Commercials and Nishan Thevathason, Assistant Vice President, Head of Enterprise Infrastructure and Services. 

Ten companies have already joined the SLIIT in-house internship program. With the construction of a new 12-storey building, the SLIIT is confident of being able to further expand this program to support the career aspirations of talented undergraduate students, broadening their prospects and helping them meet the challenges of today’s business environment.