Category - Events

1 min read

Ideamart, the developer community of Dialog Axiata, announces their inaugural annual hackathon: Code Ultimatum. This the first instance where Ideamart is opening up the competition to the public. Applicants first need to submit a small video clip of their proposed idea to the Ideamart team. Ideas are set to be on open category and could range from corporate apps to educational apps to games. Importantly atleast one of the Ideamart APIs needs to be used in the development. Teams can consist of 5 members and the teams with the top 10 ideas would be chosen for the hackathon. Cash prizes and other benefits await the winners.

“This is a great opportunity for developers to showcase their talent, learn on the mobile business line, and also generate some money as well. We are expecting some great apps to come out of this the competition, and we hope to give marketing support to such applications”

– Roshanth Gardiarachchi, Ideamart Team

This is the second hackathon which is conducted by Ideamart. The first hackathon was held at the University of Moratuwa and resulted in some cool apps like TaxiBuddy and MegaMind.

For more information on ideamart and its APIs visit www.ideamart.lk

Code Ultimatum flyer

GBG Colombo: Mobile for Business – Live Blog!

October 24, 2013

1 min read

Welcome to the Live blog of Mobile for Business event organized by the GBG Colombo.

UX Colombo – The first meetup

August 24, 2013

2 min read

The first ever UX Colombo meetup was held last Thursday(22nd August) at 99x Technology premises, with the aim of creating awareness and educating the Sri Lankan tech community on User Experience Designing. The meetup was attended by over 100 tech enthusiasts from the industry.

User experience is how a person feels when interfacing with a system

The speakers for the meetup

Shiran Sanjeewa – Art Director @ Netstarter

Pramith Rupasinghe – COO @ Solomo IT

Hasanga Abeyaratne – UX Lead @ 99x Technology

Kalana Wijesekara – Senior Software Engineer @ 99x Technology

The event was well organized, started right on time, included interesting presentations and freebie stickers :). UX Colombo will be organizing more meetups in the future, in addition to UX courses in order to increase the UX expertise in Sri Lanka. Below are some of the key points gathered from the meetup.

Why?, When?, Where?

UX Colombo

Key components which creates the UX in Software Products

Components of UX

User Centered Design Process

The Paradigm Shift

The Paradigm shift

User Persona

This is a way of documenting your target users. By filling each of the four quadrants below, you get a better idea on the end user, and sometimes you might find out that the target user does not exist.

User Persona

MIT – GLOBAL STARTUP LABS 2013 – SRI LANKA

August 5, 2013

Entrepreneurship, Events

5 min read

For the 3rd consecutive year Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Global startup labs (Formally known as AITI) successfully carried out their annual student entrepreneurship program which spanned for 7 weeks in corporation with the University of Moratuwa – Sri Lanka. This is a program to assist cultivating the next generation of entrepreneurs in emerging regions.

During these seven weeks, 24 Sri Lankan top undergraduates were teamed as five companies to develop startups based on a mobile or web application with careful guidance of four MIT instructors Akanksha, Amber, Dhaval, Valerie, industry professionals and mentors in Sri Lanka as well as alumni of previous GSL classes. Program curriculum consisted of not only technical coding but touching every crucial subject and skill areas essential for these budding entrepreneurs from market research and business law to finance and presentation skills.

There were industry visits where these students had the opportunity to meet the innovative brains behind the successful startups such as Millennium IT and Anything.lk. Furthermore the students participated in a weekend long hackathon sponsored by Google – Sri Lanka. Also they pitched their products twice before Launch Day to investors and consultants.

Marking the end of this year’s program, the ‘Launch Day – the culminating event’ was held last week (1^st August 2013) at The Kingsbury- Colombo with a gathering of industry professionals, and leading entrepreneurs.

It was a four hour event auspiciously commenced with lighting of the oil lamp by the honored guests followed by welcome note by Amber Houghstow – MIT.

MIT_Startup_Labs1

Opening key note was given by Dr. Harsha de Silva – Consultant Lead Economist mentioning the value of this program to Sri Lanka.

MIT_Startup_Labs2

All five startups were presented to the audience with a judging panel comprised of 8 industry professionals.

Rohan Jayaweera, Sri Lanka Country consultant, Google Asia
Udena Wickremaesooriya, Member board of Brandix
Anthony Rodrigo, Group CIO, Dialog
Prabath Gamage, GM, Product Development and Customer Solutions
Prajeeth Balasubramaniam, Founding partner at Lankan Angel Network
Dumindra Ratnayake, CEO, Etisalat
Nissanka Weerasekera, Partner, Aureos Capital
Kasturi Wilson, MD at Hemas Holdings PLC

Team presentations were highly professional and the manner the students presented them was extremely amazing.

Refreshment and networking break was carried out where the gathering was given the opportunity to see live demos of the products and to meet these budding entrepreneurs personally. In the meantime, the gathering was requested to vote for the audience choice award by filling an online form.

Then the session commenced with a speech from Professor Ananda Jayawardhana – Vice Chancellor University of Moratuwa, followed by a few tokens of appreciation to the MIT Team.

Madu Ratnayake – Director & Vice Chairman of SLASSCOM, addressed the gathering on GSL – path ahead in Sri Lanka emphasizing how the Sri Lankan community has been teamed up to take this initiative forward in upcoming years

The most awaited moment, the ‘Awards and Recognition’ session started with SLASSCOM entrepreneur awards presented as follows by Madu Ratnayake

2nd Runners up – Team WhiteRay for product Careless Droid

1st Runners up -Team BeeHex for product ClicknPick

The Winner – Team HawkEYE for product youth-Jobs.lk

There were three more awards from the launch day co-sponsors Dialog, Etisalat and Mobitel as follows

Dialog Technical Innovation award – Team WhiteRay for product Careless Droid

Mobitel Audience Choice Award – Team WhiteRay for product Careless Droid

Etisalat Social Impact Award – Team HawkEYE for product youth-Jobs.lk

That concluded the MIT GSL 2013 launch day and it is the day these students launch into becoming entrepreneurs. Congratulations to the winners of the MIT GSL 2013 and wish you all the best for all five teams for a successful business in the future.

Do take a look at the new startups and their respective projects for MIT GSL – Sri Lanka 2013 which are listed below.

VMart.lk by team AquaVision

VMart is a new online platform where any budding entrepreneur can easily set up an online business within 5 to 10 minutes. In that time, any interested seller can sign up, create their own profile, customize and personalize their storefront, upload their first product images and descriptions, and begin receiving online orders.

ClicknPick by team BeeHex Technologies

With the array of its remarkable features of referrals, profile building and gamification ClickNPick is a web application with an Android mobile component which provides a two-way platform for the tutors and students. Tutors can post their expertise whilst interested parents or students can view these details and together with the review/rating scheme, can easily select the best suited for their needs and locations.

For more information please visit www.clicknpick.lk

Modarue by team Zkylark

With ModaRue, the user can find all the new exclusive fashion releases and offers, they can get style recommendations according to their style preferences and also reserve items for a time period until they visit a particular shop. ModaRue also has a designer corner where fashion designers have their own profiles and can reveal their unique talents.

For more information please visit www. modarue.com

CarelessDroid by team WhiteRAY

Phone misplacement and theft has become a growing issue in the society. WhiteRAY solves this problem with “CarelessDROID”: an Android application which allows you to connect to your phone via SMS. It doesn’t require Wi-Fi or internet connection. The phone owner can send an SMS from any other phone to recover their data or facilitate phone finding.

For more information please visit Google Play Carelessdroid

YouthJobs.lk by team HawkEYE

The time to sort through onslaughts of poorly-matched CV’s in response to your highly selective job postings is over! YouthJobs provides the perfect platform to intelligently filter applicants to your recruitment needs and learn the skills and interests of your potential future employees. For the job seeker, our platform allows you to easily manage your professional profile, construct your CV, find companies that match your skills and interests, and receive career guidance including skills to improve.

For more information please visit www.youthjobs.lk

GBG Colombo presents,YouTube Night – Decoding Viral Videos

August 1, 2013

2 Comments

2 min read

The July GBG meetup(YouTube Night) was on a different theme at a different setting.. It was held at the relaxing atmosphere of The Manchester pub

Shehan, CEO of Loops Social Media Solutions started things off and discussed on the value of Youtube as a marketing channel, and also on why videos go viral.

Here are some of the Key stats and points he discussed,

31% of videos are music videos
Average duration of a video is 4 minutes and 12 seconds
There are 2 Billion Youtube views per day, Compare that with the approximage number of 2.5 billion TV sets
1 Billion unique Youtube videos views per day
1 out of 2 internet users use YouTube

Why would a video go viral?

It includes things that grab your attention
The thumbnail is eye catching
Great Keywords
Advertising of the Video
Promoted through Social Media Influencers
It includes cats and babies 🙂

Next off IFilm Sri Lanka showed one of their creations, Killer Kothu: The Lankan Zombie Apocalypse a collaboration with JehanR. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out below. Its Hilarious.

They managed the entire video with two days (which included the writing of the script). Impresssive!

They also showed a beautifully done video on Leopard Trails. Take a look at it below.

The event then spinned off to a fun tone as attendees teamed up to create some Youtube magic. Few guys got together to create a human YouTube. Next was the harlem shake. (Cant wait till the video is uploaded)Then there was the response video to Ex-Alien.

The official stuff ended there, and proceeded onto networking with some drinks.

Youtube Nights was a fun filled event, and hope such themed events will continue in the future. It was also a refreshing change to the standard tech meetups. Kudos to the organizing team!!

SL2College Voices 2013

July 25, 2013

2 min read

For those of you who have just finished their A/Ls , taking the next step into undergraduate studies may be tricky. With the amount of higher education options, it gets quite difficult to decide on the best course of studies for you. You maybe fond of a certain stream but unsure of the career opportunities available. You are looking for expert advice but from where will you get it?

SL2Voices 2013

SL2Voices 2013 is an undergraduate conference organized by SL2college, with the participation of leading Sri Lankan academics and entrepreneurs who will give you the expert advice needed to move in to the correct option of undergraduate studies.

The event will be held on the 25th August, 9.00am to 4.30pm at the University of Colombo V.K. Samaranayake Auditorium

Speakers

The speaker panel will include the following highly distinguished personal

Mr. Dian Gomes, Group Director MAS Holdings

Mr. Sanjiva Weerawarna, CEO WSO2

Vidya Jothi Prof. Arjuna Aluwihare
Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Peradeniya

Prof. Ajith De Alwis
Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering University of Moratuwa

Mr. Arj Wignaraja,
Founder and Managing Director – Remote Sensing Metrics Asia

Dr. Sujatha Gamage,
Scientist at Lirneasia

Ms. Nelum Senadira,
The US-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission

Mr. Charitha Ratwatte,
Chief Manager – Sustainability at Dialog Axiata PLC

Mr. David Samuel – Business Development Manager, Australian Trade Commission (Austrade)

Mr. Asanga Abeyagoonasekara,
Executive Director at The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies

Mr. Dennis Schroeder (DAAD)

If you are seeking info on undergraduate studies, this event would be a great place to get an understanding on it.

For more info visit the SL2Voices 2013 website.

ROBOFEST 2013 goes to Jaffna and Trinco to find hidden talents

June 27, 2013

Events, News

3 Comments

2 min read

In their fourth consecutive year, ROBOFEST annual robotic competition organized by SLIIT goes to rural areas in finding hidden talents. There were workshops carried out for school children in Jaffna and Trinco June this year. This is their story of finding hidden talents!

The Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) organizes ROBOFEST. Organizing team is headed by Dr. Lasantha Senevirathne. ROBOFEST 2013 competition takes place under three categories; school, undergraduate and open. The final competition will be hosted at the Malabe campus premises on the 13th & 14th September this year.

To encourage young minds on the very popular field of “robotics”, ROBOFEST committee decided that they want to go out of Colombo. Jaffna workshop was held on 17^th May. Trinco workshop was held at Kinniya Central College on 14^th June. Many enthusiastic students around Jaffna and Trinco areas respectively were gathered for those events.

“Since the school category of the competition is open for school students island-wide; we believed that we needed to give more attention to schools in rural areas as they do not have sufficient exposure to modern electronics and robotics. When we held workshops last year, we saw many enthusiasts from areas far from Colombo participated. And on the day of the competition, it was clear that, they had to work harder to get down the parts to build the robot compared to students around the capital. But they were equally talented. They’ve been having a hidden talent all along and all they needed was a “little push” and a “friendly hand” to help with putting things together. And that is exactly what we did during our workshops. And now, it’s good to see a new enthusiast joining us every day” said the media correspondent of ROBOFEST.

ROBOFEST 2012

Last year’s competition school category was won by the project “Tinker” by Mahanama College Colombo 03. Second and third places were secured by projects representing Maliyadeva College, Kurunegala. More details of the last year’s competition can be seen here.

Below are a few captured moments from the event:

Robofest moments

Internet Entrepreneurship Forum – Rotaract Club of USJP

June 16, 2013

LEE

2 min read

Event: Internet Entrepreneurship Forum

Organizers: The Rotaract Club of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in collaboration with the Department of Entrepreneurship USJP

Date & Venue: 11^th June 2013 @ Fayol Hall University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Sponsors: sl2college.org

This forum was organized with the aim for the cultivation of the entrepreneurship among undergraduates of USJP; making some of them budding entrepreneurs of tomorrow. 3 of the most significant characters in the field of internet based business presented their experiences and ideas in an interactive fashion.

Mr. Rohan Jayaweea, Country Consultant, Google Inc.

Mr. Reeza Zarook, CEO, Anything.lk

Mr. Indi Samarajiva, Founder of YAMU and Kottu blog syndicator

7 Problems to overcome and 7 things to think about – by Rohan Jayaweera

Rohan is also an entrepreneur himself, disclosed some of the difficulties that he has faced and mistakes that others can also learn from. Here is a summary of his session.

7 Problems to overcome

7 obstacles to overcome

7 Factors to think about

7 factors to think about

Final Quote:

Final Quote

Entrepreneurship as a voyage finding new territories – Indi Samarajeewa

Indi introduced himself as a business owner who does not make much money out of those businesses at the moment. His experience in the field as an entrepreneur was highlighted in this session. Here is a summary of his session.

Entrepreneurship as a voyage

How to Start a Startup ?- Reeza Zarook

Reeza is a Charted Accountant by profession, a man “who knows his numbers” did an inspiring and very interactive session taking everyone’s attention throughout the session. Here is a summary of his session.

How to start a starup

Below are a few captured moments from the event

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Software Product Engineering Conference (SPEC): Colombo – June 2013

April 15, 2013

2 min read

Colombo camp community is coming back in June 2013 with the first ever product engineering conference. Software services and outsourced development sector has a strong footprint in Sri Lanka compared to the software product development. However software products have the potential of breaking the barriers of sizes of economics when they are positioned strategically. Leveraging on that aspect requires in-depth working knowledge of how modern day fast moving software products are built worldwide. This event will be an excellent forum to discuss the common problems faced by the product engineering as a whole. Organizers believe that this will be a milestone in the Sri Lankan IT community in bridging the gap in the knowledge and skills.

Content

Keynote

Business Engineering aspects of Products

Guttorm Nielsen

Chief Product Officer @ SuperOffice

Lean Requirements Management

Christian Willoch

Chief Information Officer @ Centric

Accelerate your growth with Cloud

Torgeir Lyngstad

Chief Technical Officer @ Adra Match

Product Architecture is a specialized niche

Ragnar Harper

Infrastructure Architect @ Microsoft

Making quality visible in product engineering

Jan Petter Hagberg

QA Manager and Process Architect @ SuperOffice

Mobility needs of modern Enterprise Products

Arne Solheim

Chief Technical Officer @ Nordeca Insight

Automation for Productivity

Tommy Sivertsen

Product Manager @ Corena

For Whom?

Colombo camp community is inviting CEOs, CTOs, IT Managers, Software team leads and Tech leads to join and get the benefit of this event.

About the Organizers

Colombo camp community is an independent group of software professionals whose goal is the advancement of the Sri Lankan IT community making Sri Lanka a global hub for global IT services. They are famous for a list of camps and conferences in the last few years including Colombo code camp, Agile camp, SharePoint camp, iPhone Dev Camp and Agile Conference.

About the Event

The event will be held on the 14th of June at the Grand Ballroom, Waters Edge. Please visit www.spec.lk for more information.

spec_flyer

2013’s First MobileMonday

February 13, 2013

1 min read

MobileMonday Colombo is an initiative of SLASSCOM to create a single forum to bring together the mobile community consisting of the telcos, software providers, hardware suppliers, academia and users. MobileMonday will kick off its first event of 2013 on the 18th of February, 5pm on wards at the Bay Leaf.

The keynote speaker is Dr Geoff Gregson, Associate Professor from the University of Edinburgh. An intriguing topic of Commercializing and protecting your ideas on intellectual properties: Focusing on the Mobile Application Industry would be in discussion. Tickets are priced at Rs. 500 and to register please visit www.mobilemonday.lk.

MOMO Flyer

Spark IT – Igniting Sri Lankan ICT Industry

February 3, 2013