IIT innovators develop projects to empower communities
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With over 3,000 graduates that are currently empowering over 250 multinational and local blue-chip companies, the Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) is renowned for producing innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders.
IIT fosters and encourages undergraduates to become innovators that will empower industries and communities. The annual Cutting Edge Exhibition organized by IIT is an event which provides a platform for Business and IT students to showcase their innovative projects and provides them an opportunity to compete in both local and international competitions. Savani Kavishka De Silva, Gayakshika Gimhani and Lakshana Vadivalagan displayed state-of-the-art projects and won awards at the recently concluded Cutting Edge exhibition at IIT. Following are excerpts of comments made by the three Cutting Edge winners;
Savani Kavishka De Silva
What was your experience at Cutting Edge?
The experiences with Cutting Edge have been remarkable from my first year itself at IIT. The worthwhile experience and exposure gained throughout the competition helped prepare me for more challenges and inspired me to bring forth effective project ideas to address some of the timely problems which exist in our country. The final year project I conducted was awarded with the Gold award for business innovation as the best project from the Level 6 Business Information Systems batch at Cutting Edge 2019.
How has IIT helped you become an innovator?
IIT over the years has played a key role in my success and has encouraged me to make consistent progress towards my goals. The culture and innovative environment has enabled me to unleash my potential and sharpen my skills with the immense support and guidance provided by the staff including the lecturers. The all-rounder personality I have been building with outstanding academics, extracurricular achievements along with entrepreneur skills has helped build my journey towards achieving great heights in terms of my career. Winning a number of national and international awards such as Global Student Entrepreneur Award 2018, NBQSA 2017, International ICT Innovative Services Awards 2017, HackLN 2017, HLM3 Asia Pacific Youth Innovation Challenge organized by UNICEF 2016 and many more, bringing glory to IIT as well as Sri Lanka has proven the success that one can achieved with great self-determination, enthusiasm along with a prompt guidance from a well-disciplined institutes like IIT.
Gayakshika Gimhani
Describe you project in short and explain how it’s useful?
Speech and Language impairments has been a growing concern among the children where stammering emerges as a common fluency disorder affecting millions of people worldwide across all boundaries. However, Sri Lanka as a nation has fallen behind in terms of leveraging the advanced techniques and technologies which have emerged in the speech therapy field due to various limitations. Based on the gravity of the problem, project ‘Speakopedia’ introduce a novel approach to address the issues by incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as natural language processing, image processing, cloud computing etc. The proposed solution, includes an array of features for parents and speech therapists to collaboratively treat the stammering child.
Why would you recommend IIT to others who wish to become all-round graduates?
IIT is not a typical higher education institute focused only on the academic qualification of its students. It is a place which produces well-rounded graduates with outstanding skills laying the path for them to shine as future leaders in the industry. Given the fact that, with the dynamic evolution of the industry the expectations from graduates are very high. Having said that, IIT is undoubtedly the best institute for any student who is willing to become an all-rounder, and a true leader with strong and dynamic interpersonal skills.
Gayakshika Gimhani
What was you experience at Cutting Edge?
Cutting Edge is the place where we showcase our innovative ideas to the society. It helps us grow our ideas and grab opportunities for our career development. This year’s award I won has helped me move forward in my academic life as well as my career.
How has IIT helped you become an innovator?
Having Cutting Edge annually has made us innovators. Because of the thirst we have to showcase our innovative ideas and to deliver the best projects at competitions has eventually helped us innovate something new every year
Describe your project in short and explain how it’s useful?
Dementia is a major disorder in which the patient looses the cognitive functioning and behavioral abilities to some extent. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, and there are other diseases which can be converted into dementia such as epilepsy. Currently, there are 50 million people worldwide and this will be 82 million in 10 years. The cure for dementia is yet to be found, hence, recognizing it in the early stages and delaying the progress is highly important. Therefore, a machine learning-based prediction helper tool for doctors is introduced to diagnose the disease of the patients at an early stage. The system has been developed using the jinja2 framework as a web application and REST API has been built using the Flask framework. Once the doctor inputs the EEG record of a patient, this system will check and display the dementia stage and epilepsy status of the patient along with the precautions. A dashboard, patient management and examine options are available with this system.
Why would you recommend IIT to others wish to become all-round graduates?
IIT is a place where not only we can learn the syllabus, but it makes us innovators by having Cutting Edge annually. The annual Stagecraft talent competitions gives us the opportunity to show our singing, dancing, acting skills to the world. And also by having sports meets and various sport competitions. Having all these events has helped us to eventually become all-rounders.
Lakshana Vadivalagan
Lakshana Vadivalagan
What was you experience at Cutting Edge?
Sharing knowledge with other students and showcasing my projects has been a great experience at Cutting Edge. Cutting Edge has also helped me get to know about new ideas and technologies.
How has IIT helped you become an innovator?
By providing the support, guidance, and the necessary facilities, IIT has helped us grow into becoming innovators.
Describe your project in short and explain how it’s useful?
Depression care mainly focuses on working people who have the responsibility to take care of their family members and loved ones who are suffering from depression. Depression Care with the integration of a technological aspect can provide a solution for depression and help fight it.
Why would you recommend IIT to others wish to become all-round graduates?
Friendly relationships between students and lecturers, internship opportunities, learning new technologies and participation in competitions have helped build our skills in becoming all-round graduates.
IIT conducts internal postgraduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Westminster (UOW), UK and Robert Gordon University. The University of Westminster degrees offered at IIT are Software Engineering, Business Information System, Business Management and Computer Science with specialization pathways in gaming and computer graphics development, mobile and web computing and multimedia computing.
IIT is an award winning campus, which has bagged many accolades for innovation in local and international competitions such as Microsoft Imagine Cup, National Best Quality Software Awards (NBQSA), APICTA, British Council-HSBC Youth Enterprise Award and e-Swabhimani.
With its strong international affiliations, outstanding resources and focus on quality higher education, IIT is without a doubt an ideal place for students to follow world renowned IT and Business degrees.
For further information, e-mail “admissions@iit.ac.lk” or call the hotline 0722 72 72 72 or visit IIT Main Campus at No. 57, Ramakrishna Rd, Colombo 06.