UCSC students win “Google I/O Hackathon–2013”
View(s):In a spectacular achievement, students of the prestigious University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) the pioneer in the higher education sphere of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Sri Lanka clinched the coveted “Google I/O Hackathon – 2013” by winning the first and second places at the internationally-acclaimed “Google I/O Extended Colombo – 2013”. The top honors went to UCSC student Salinda Sandaruwan Karunarathna, who won the first place, while the second place was awarded to Rasika Perera, who is also a student of UCSC.
‘Google I/O Extended Colombo-2013’ is the first ever Google I/O Extended event in Sri Lanka hosted by National Mobile Service Provider, Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel was held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute recently. ‘Google I/O Extended Colombo-2013’ is the event organized for people who are unable to attend the live conference in San Francisco.
Commenting on the remarkable achievements of the two students, UCSC Director, Professor Gihan Wikramanayake said:
“During the past 25 years, our students have won many national and international awards and their work, creative performance and achievements have been duly recognized and rewarded at these important fora.
“This impressive achievement by the two UCSC students is the newest in the institution’s proud record of bagging honors and accolades. As the academic staff of UCSC, we are jubilant that two of our students have been able to reach the pinnacle to merit honor and recognition by Google, which has given a new dimension to the internet.
“The “Google I/O Extended Colombo – 2013” competition is conducted annually by Google world-wide. As a part of this event, there was a contest which gave an opportunity to young participants to submit their creative work based on Android and Chrome computer language software within a short deadline. Our two students clinched the “Google I/O Hackathon – 2013” honors in this competition”.
Google I/O is an annual developer-focused conference held by IT heavyweight Google, featuring highly technical, in-depth sessions focused on building web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine and more. This event has been held annually since 2008 and the hosts saw a participation of over 5500 web, mobile, and enterprise developers this year. They contributed in building applications in the cloud with Google and open web technologies, during the interactive sessions in San Francisco.
The event was organized by Google and Mobitel, allowing members of the IT fraternity in Sri Lanka to not only experience and interact with developers around the world but also to connect with other talented developers in Sri Lanka and play a pivotal part in the local interactive sessions like ‘Business Opportunities in Android developments in Sri Lanka’ and ‘Trends in the mobile telecommunication industry’ and Hackathon Sessions (an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects) with demonstrations.
In the picture (Left to Right) are UCSC student Rasika Perera, who won the second place and Salinda Sandaruwan Karunarathna, who won the first place.
In the recent past also UCSC has won a series of accolades at many competitions conducted both at the national and international level. Amongst them were the Gold accolades won at NBQSA organized by the BCS the Chartered Institute for IT to recognize and reward the most innovative quality software solutions, together with several Silver, Bronze and Merit awards. Imagine Cup which is an annual competition sponsored and hosted by Microsoft Corporation is also one that the students have won in the past. In addition, UCSC has won several ‘e-Swabhimani’ awards organized by ICTA for the most outstanding digital-content creation.
At APICTA international competition, UCSC has clinched the Gold and Merit awards for the best software solutions in the region. UCSC has also been recognized at Manthan and World Summit Awards.
The University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) is the pioneer in introducing internal and external degrees in the ICT sphere in Sri Lanka. The major goal of the UCSC is to prepare students for careers in Information and Communication Technology as Software Developers, Systems Analysts, Network Administrators, Database Administrators, Web Developers, IT Managers, IT Strategic Planners and IT Policy Makers.
This well-known higher education institution offers diploma and higher diploma courses, internal and external undergraduate degree programmes, postgraduate and research degrees.
Thousands of students who had successfully completed UCSC study programmes over the past 25 years are gainfully employed in the ICT sector both locally and internationally. They continue to make a significant contribution not only towards the development of the ICT sector but also towards Sri Lanka’s economy prosperity.
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