SLIIT students shine in Tertiary Category at NBQSA 2013

Friday, 6 December 2013 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Ganindu Nanayakkara, a third year student at SLIIT, clinched the Gold award under the Tertiary Student Category at the recently concluded National Best Quality ICT Awards (NBQSA). This accolade was presented to Ganindu for his innovative ‘iHelmet’ project; a special helmet, with an embedded solution developed to empower ground forces in a battle field. Along with the Gold, the Silver award, under the same category, was also won by a team of final year students studying at SLIIT. With their project titled ‘Panacea’s Jacket’, Pramadhi Attapattu Arachchi, Mithra Mayadunne, Jayaruwan Rupasinghe and Dineth

Cooray, were the dynamic team members who won this award for SLIIT. NBQSA is an annual competition which is organised by the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT Sri Lanka Section, which aims to provide recognition and create a window for international appreciation for innovators in the ICT industry of Sri Lanka, as well as to showcase and benchmark Sri Lankan ICT products. NBQSA is the only national competition of its type in Sri Lanka which has been, since 1998, recognising the individuals and organisations for their outstanding contributions to the development of ICT Industry in Sri Lanka. Among the 146 entries at NBQSA 2013, 47 were commercial products from the local ICT industry and 99 were student projects by undergraduate students. iHelmet “My product iHelmet is designed mainly for the military ground forces. The helmet includes, inbuilt cutting edge features such as ultrasonic distance sensors, night vision, passive infrared detection and sensor guided flash light. All high tech features built to the iHelmet are based on the issues faced by ground forces and all the solutions are optimised to tolerate harsh environmental conditions. The helmet uses an Android application which constantly communicates with the electronics built into the helmet via a secure Bluetooth link. The app is capable of processing all sensor readings built into the product, managing all features and communication with the soldier,” explains the proud winner, Ganindu Nanayakkara. “Firstly, I wish to congratulate the students of SLIIT for their hard-work and commitment on creating such innovative projects. I also take this opportunity to thank the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT for organising this event annually, which gives our students the chance to portray their talents and be recognised for their outstanding contribution. Competitions of this nature will not only develop the ICT industry in Sri Lanka but also will encourage more students to participate and showcase their skills in this fast, expanding field,” mentions SLIIT President and CEO Professor Lalith Gamage. Panacea’s Jacket Commenting on the project ‘Panacea’s Jacket’, the project leader Pramadhi Attapattu Arachchi notes, “Panacea’s Jacket is a research project which targets to help and support people who need a certain level of medical attention. The Panacea’s Jacket is a system which is capable of continuously monitoring a human being’s medical condition. In order to monitor the medical condition, the jacket is capable of measuring blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, respiratory rate, physical posture and tracks the physical location of the patient, thereby caretaking patients with heart attacks, asthma, blood pressure and rheumatoid arthritis.” The team behind this innovative IT solution for patients with special medical conditions won the Silver award at the HSBC youth enterprise award and Rs. 200,000 to commercialise their project. Adding to their list of achievements, the team also won the merit award at the recently concluded SLIIT CodeFest 2013, software competition. Outstanding projects “The creative projects designed and presented by our students were outstanding. Each and every one of them worked tirelessly at every stage, from preparing the proposal document to the delivery of the final product. We as the faculty of SLIIT commend them for their enduring effort throughout this entire competition. Both Gold and Silver winners have been nominated to participate for Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) 2013, which was held from 24 to 28 November in Hong Kong,” notes SLIIT Faculty of Computing Dean Dr. Malitha Wijesundara. Over the years the students at SLIIT have done exceptionally well at the National Best Quality ICT Awards. In 2007, two SLIIT teams clinched not only the Gold, Silver at NBQSA but also won the APICTA Gold award beating countries including India, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.