In the field of Information technology studies in Sri Lanka, the current trend is diverting to specialization of a carefully selected single subject. In Sri Lanka, few years back this specialization towards one strong subject was limited to a few number of rich students. They selected a special subject in IT to specialize after the graduation. For them to specialize or master a selected special subject they had to undergo overseas training.

Asanka Madavi Wisidagama, the CEO of the Java Institute of Sri Lanka

During the BSc. programme, students learnt the basics of a number of subjects and later they selected one field to master. Now this trend is dynamically changing with the availability of training in Java Technology in Sri Lanka. Today the majority of the Information Technology interested students' community in Sri Lanka is waiting to finish their Advance Level examination to learn Java Technology, prior to their undergraduate studies.

There is no argument about Java Technology, that it is the best high-tech programming language currently available in the world. It is a privilege for a student to master Java Technology even after the graduation, as Java Technology facilitates a Java Professional to enter into the high end job market meeting the knowledge and skill level up to the international requirements and with high scale salaries.

IJTS - The Institute of Java and Technological Studies Sri Lanka is the organization which revolutionized the traditional IT education mechanism in Sri Lanka. The technically skilled staff of IJTS managed to introduce highly advance soft technologies to students prior to their graduate studies even just after advanced level. IJTS train students for international standards certifying them with internationally recognized professional examinations from USA. Students are trained both practically and theoretically, giving industrial experiences as major parts of the training programmes.

The purpose of this interview is to make the Sri Lankan youth and parents aware as to how to get the maximum benefits out of the IJTS's training process. Asanka Madavi Wisidagama, the CEO of the Java Institute of Sri Lanka further explained about this new trend.

Can you explain what the primary objective to start IJTS was?

IJTS was started in mid of 2005. The primary focus of starting IJTS was to change the IT training mechanism in Sri Lanka. As we all know, even though the many IT Degree programmes were available since 1985 in Sri Lanka, there is not at least a single eCommerce application being developed and achieved world ranks for the past decade. But, this is not true for other countries. Certain Internet applications developed by young professionals overseas, even before they were just 22 years of age have been able to achieve high world ranks. One of the best examples is www.facebook.com.

The owner of this site (Mark Zuckerberg) is still just 25 years old. He started the website when he was just 22. Today he is a dollar billionaire. We have identified the fact that that in our own country, there are such talented students. Also, we found that the major drawback they have is the inaccessibility to learn high end soft technologies to develop skills, apart from the academic studies which just lead to further studies. So the primary objective of IJTS was to train such high-tech specialists just after the A/L Examination.

Have you achieved that objective?

Yes of course. Also I can explain a few major world class achievements achieved by IJTS just within a period of 3 ½ years.

n IJTS could manage to certify the world's youngest internationally qualified JavaSE certified student from Sri Lanka. He was a 11 year old student from Sri Sumangala Vidyalaya, Panadura.

n We managed to produce the world's youngest Java Mobile Technology certified student from Sri Lanka, who was Kasun Gamage from Ananda college, Colombo. He was just 14 years old when he kept the world record.

n www. navathena.com is another achievement of one 17 year old Sri Lankan student; Nishan Karunarathne.

The site is a very popular application which contains some facilities better than Google applications. For instance, you can get 14Gb email space free of charge where as Google gives only 7Gb.

IJTS - Revolutionizing...

You can attach 100Mb file with navathena email system while gmail allows only 10 Mb. Visit navathena and see all other classy facilities provided with that application.

Visit www.colombotoday.com which was developed and managed by one of the IJTS students, Udana Ariyawanssa, just 22 years old. This achieved an Alexa rank better than www.Aljazeera.com. Further, the high-tech version of the Colombo today site consists of user rich features than www.bbc.com .

IJTS has sponsored for the Java Sri Lanka exhibition held in Sri Lanka recently at BMICH, which was the first ever software exhibition held in Sri Lanka. Here, IJTS students sold over 1000 software applications for the Sri Lankan business community.

These are just a few achievements for the last few years of IJTS. There are many more similar achievements. So I believe that we are on our way to achieving our main objective of arming young professionals with high-tech soft technology.