Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

B&S do Lanka proud
By Marisa de Silva
They’ve done it again. Popular singing sensations Bathiya and Santhush have done Sri Lanka proud being placed first runners up overall at the IV International Pop Music Festival held in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, from July 4-6. They also won the public voting category.

As Bathiya said before their departure, they would “give it their best shot” and despite having to battle it out with 42 other competitors from 24 countries at the semi finals, they successfully managed to make it through to the final where they faced tough competition from the final 21.

Being the first ever Sri Lankans or Asians to perform in Serbia, it makes their achievement that much greater. However, before their performance many people had been completely unaware of Sri Lanka, let alone the country’s music. Maybe they’re ‘singing a different tune’ now!

The competition was held in a suburban town called Zrenjanin, which is some distance away from Belgrade. Bathiya and Santhush found it like one of those fairy tale medieval towns with old orthodox churches. As for the competition, they had been the first to arrive and had had the chance of taking a sneak view of the impressive stage set.

The competition was split into two semi-finals with Bathiya and Santhush closing the show of the first semi held on July 4. Some of the other countries represented included Serbia, Romania, Cyprus, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, UK, Lithuania and Russia. The second semi final on July 5 saw participants from Malta, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Italy, Turkey, Latvia etc. from which 21 songs were selected to proceed onto the final.
The festival was well organised with a party atmosphere and lots of entertainment for the participants. The duo say that the music technology (live sound) in Belgrade was far more advanced than anything they could possibly imagine in Sri Lanka but recording studios were not. “Being a country having to deal with post war economic conditions just like us, we have a lot to learn from them because they are doing a much better job than us,” say the duo.

Hands-on training from Suntel
By Ishani Ranasinghe
An opportunity to learn the latest technologies in the field of telecommunication engineering: that’s what this group of under- grads gained. What’s more, they were given hands-on work experience and allowed to develop their skills by getting involved in various hardware and software projects.

Since its inception seven years ago, Suntel has run an In Plant Training Programme each year for undergraduates from the Universities of Moratuwa and Peradeniya. This year, 11 trainees from the University of Moratuwa and six trainees from the University of Peradeniya completed their four month In Plant Training Programme in mid-May.

They were assigned seven projects. The engineers of the company’s Network Operations Department supervised the projects and once completed successfully, the company plans on implementing them in their network in the near future.

The trainees made a presentation on these projects recently at the Suntel Head Office Training Centre. Meeting up with a few of the trainees, we gained an insight into the programme from their point of view.

Lal Wickramasekera is from the University of Moratuwa. His team’s project was to design a power supply that is compatible with the power service of Sri Lanka. Another big corporate firm had turned him down because they were looking for a girl. “It was the first time I was the subject of sexual discrimination,” he says laughing. Then he tried Suntel and was accepted. After being able to cover the objectives he had in mind when he joined, he says, “I am really glad I got in as I had a really nice time and also I liked how the company emphasised the importance of being responsible.”

Designing and implementation of a D. S. Meter; an instrument which measures the received signal level at the customer end is what Thushara Gunasekera from the University of Peradeniya along with his team members worked on as their project. Hoping to continue the project at the University, Thushara says this was an excellent programme. “The exposure we got was really good and we were able to get hands-on experience in this field,” he continued.

Another one of the trainees was Anjana Ratnayaka from the University of Moratuwa. His team was aiming to create an alarm extension for DART radio system. DART is a system given to corporate customers. The project included successful implementation of hardware and development of GUI. Admitting that this was a lot of hard work, he also said that the whole training programme was good fun. “We were given a comprehensive training that was well beyond my expectations.”

The other projects included developing a software tool that gives a complete mapping solution to Suntel (this software tool is immensely beneficial from system engineers to field technicians and sales staff as well), development of a database for corporate customers etc.

So what made these undergraduates choose Suntel? Everyone I spoke to had the same views to share. The image created by the trainees who had been through this programme at Suntel was good and therefore it was the best place to train.

So was there any room for improvement in the programme? “It would be better if the trainees were made familiar with the other aspects of the company,” says Lal while adding that overall there should be an interconnection between the engineering and the marketing as it would bring in great results. “It will be good if we were given more projects on the hardware level,” added Anjana Ratnayaka.

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