SLIIT conference focuses on developing research culture in Sri Lanka
SLIIT hosted the National Conference on Technology and Management (NCTM) on the 27th January at the institutes Malabe Campus. The event, considered to be the successor to the SLIIT Research Symposium which was held for the last six years consecutively, ventured into the spheres of Management and Technology, thus broadening the breadth and depth of research areas covered by this event.
Professor Lalith Gamage, President and CEO of SLIIT stated that “there is a profound research culture at SLIIT, and the institute is committed to the relevant disciplines towards the economic and social development of Sri Lanka. We hope that the National Conference on Technology and Management will trigger further research and technology initiatives in the years to come”.
“All researchers who submitted their papers received more than two peer review reports which can be of value to improve their research work in the future” explained Professor S. Karunaratne, Chairman of SLIIT. These proceedings of NCTM have undergone a careful process of selection where more than 100 reviewers from local and foreign universities and other research institutions participated in the reviewing process. Out of the 78 manuscripts submitted, 25 research papers were selected to be featured in the publication of the conference proceedings.
SLIIT organised NCTM in collaboration with IFS as the principal industry sponsor and Shef f ield Hallam University ( SHU) – UK as principal aca- demic sponsor. The National Science Foundation sponsored the publication of the events proceedings, and IEEE Sri Lanka Section provided the technical cosponsorship for the NCTM 2012.
The event saw academics and industry experts convene to engage in strategic research areas. Keynote addresses were delivered by Professor Ajith de Alwis, Professor of the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at University of Moratuwa, Professor Sunanda Degamboda – Senior academic of the Sri Lankan State University system, and Professor Marcos Rodriguez, Professor of Computer Science at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) – UK.
“Intellectual capital is vital to propel the nation to progress and development. It is the intellectual capitalist who provides the momentum towards this progress” elaborates Professor Ajith de Alwis. Professor Sunanda Degomboda spoke of “the socio economic environment of the recent past, present, and the future which is most difficult to forecast using conventional methods” in his speech. Professor Marcos Rodriguez spoke about the “First 3D reconstruction with single shot technology”
During the course of the event there were five parallel sessions and in each session five research papers were presented. The conference concluded with the award ceremony, where “Detection of Hard Exudates from Diabetic Retinopathy Images using Fuzzy Logic” by R. H. N. G. Ranamuka and R. G. N. Meegama from the Department of Statistics and Computer Science, Faculty of Applied Science - University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka was awarded the best paper of the conference.
Dr. Pradeep Abeygunawardhana, general chair of NCTM 2012 elaborated that “research needs reliable and scholarly resources, and conferences of this nature provide platforms where the work reviewed enters the collective of reliable and scholarly resources”.