Industrial Visit – 2010
The Computer Science undergraduate students had a two-day industrial visit in the Southern part of Sri Lanka. This industrial visit is a proud initiative of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Jaffna in collaboration with the SLASSCOM (Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies). Twenty four special degreee students and two senior lecturers visited Virtusa, IFS, MIT (Millennium Information Technology), eCollege, Cinergix Research and Sabre Technologies during their stay in Colombo from 11-12 November, 2010.
Objective: To provide our students with the opportunity to meet IT industrial professionals and engage in a knowledge sharing session while getting an orientation to the available career options within the industry.
Day 1 (11/11/2010)
Morning Session: Our first day programme was delayed due to the heavy rainfall in Colombo. About 10.30am, students and lecturers visited the IFS Ltd located in 501 Galle Road, Welwatta, Colombo 06. Students attended the presentations delivered by the Managing Director Mr. Jonas Bridgwater of IFS and two other staff members of IFS. Following the presentations we had a tea break. Thereafter, students had a chance to visit their main work areas, workshop rooms and the main network control room. Students and staff of UJ joined with some of the staff members of IFS along with the coordinator of SLASSCOM for lunch at IFS.
To know more about IFS Sri Lanka Ltd, visit: http://www.ifsworld.com
Afternoon session: Around 2.00pm, students and lecturers visited Virtusa located in Orion City, 752, Dr.Dannister de Silva Mawatha, Colombo 09 (Dematagoda). The Associate Director Mr. Denver De Zylva of Virtusa gave an overview to their infrastructure and services. Students and staff were taken on a guided tour by Mr. Denver to see the structure of the Virtusa building and facilities that are provided to their staff and other visitors. Furthermore, he also delivered a talk about Green code for IT an initiative of Virtusa. Following his presentation and tour, we had another presentation on how Virtusa recruits employees and how trainings are provided to apprentices. Thereafter we had a coffee break and the two senior lecturers of UJ had a discussion with Mr. Andrew De Mel (executive – Campus Reach Office), on how UJ students can be involved in the IT industry or be trained in the future.
To know more about Virtusa, please visit: http://www.virtusa.com/
Day 2 (12/11/2010)
Morning Session: The second day, we had a pleasant weather. We visited the Millennium Information Technology (MIT) located in No.1, Millennium Drive, Malabe. MIT’s student representatives and executive members welcomed and took us on a tour to their buildings. After having a tea break, we were directed to the main auditorium. Our students attended three presentations and actively participated in the question answering session. Finally, MIT provided us a delicious buffet lunch and complimented us with a gift.
To know more about MIT, visit: http://www.milleniumit.com
Afternoon session: Following the visit of MIT, we again visited the Orion City at Dematagoda for sessions at eCollege, Cinergix Research, and Sabre IT companies. Initially we all went to eCollege and we were warmly welcomed by our alumni Mr. G.R. Prithiviraj Kulasingham, who is a Senior DBA Lead at eCollege. Thereafter, students were divided into three groups enabling them to engage in a knowledge sharing session and to guide them in CV, interview preparations, and career selection.
To know more about eCollege, Cinergix, and Sabre, visit: http://www.cinergix.com, http://www.sabretch.com, and http://www.ecollege.com, respectively.
About the Industrial visit …
“This visit has given us as academics a chance to meet eminent people from the IT industry and to know the philosophies to be a leading and successful establishment. Each company has given a different perspective of the IT industry which gave us a clear picture about the industry. This experience will help us to train the students in the right direction such that they will be successful in the industry. The staffs were very helpful and open. Companies tried their best to give us the best not considering the time. They adjusted their times according to our arrival and stayed late to complete the activities”.
— Dr. E.Y.A. Charles (Head of the Department and Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Jaffna)
“First of all I would like to thank the SLASSCOM for providing such a great opportunity to our special degree students in Computer Science to visit the leading IT-based companies in Sri Lanka. This is our first industrial visit in the last two decades. This visit has provided awareness not only to the cutting-edge technology in the IT industries in this country but also to their infrastructures. I believe this visit will add more value and confidence to the students in their degree programme and in finding jobs. Also, this might give an opportunity to us to collaborate with those industries at some level of extents”.
— Dr. A. Ramanan (Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Jaffna)
“This industrial visit is good for us because we didn’t know much about the industrial training. But now we are the first batch who visited these top IT companies in Sri Lanka. This is a great opportunity for our University and is useful for us to look at prospective careers in the future. We request this industrial visit would be continuous effort from the industry to boost and encourage us students”
— Mr. K. Anurathan (Special degree student in Computer Science, University of Jaffna)