Sri Lankan engineer, entrepreneur & the CEO of iTelaSoft, Indaka Raigama, has been recognized and awarded in the Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL), New South Wales Chapter awards ceremony held in Australia recently. The award was given under the category of “Highly Commended Innovation” on a product developed by iTelaSoft under his guidance for the Telecommunication Industry. Dr. Marlene Kanga, the President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations expressed her pleasure in innovation and R&D contributions made by entrepreneurs in addition to academia while handing over the award to Mr. Indaka Raigama.
IESL is an apex body representing Sri Lankan engineering professionals, with its regional chapters in many countries. Since 1906, the organization is providing direction and momentum to the engineering community in Sri Lanka and abroad. IESL New South Wales Chapter is active in Australia for the last 10 years and its annual convention consists of a conference with a presentation of new innovations and contributions to the engineering practice. Each year, a series of scholars and engineers are recognized for their service and contribution to the industry. The 2019 convention was held under the leadership of Engineer Rohitha Silva, the Chair of IESL New South Wales Chapter, with the presence of Prof. T.M. Pallewatta, the President of the IESL, Sri Lanka. Speaking of the goals of the organization, Mr. Rohitha Silva mentioned that, “as a professional community force, we want to pass knowledge to the next generation and encourage young engineering practitioners to become active, prominent and influential. Promoting women in engineering is another key focus to increase diversity and growth in the industry”. The awarded product, “Mobile Network Performance Monitor” is a solution for monitoring & diagnosing various services & capabilities run on mobile networks to reduce effort & costs of monitoring, testing & diagnosing risks associated with SLA commitments. Speaking on the product, Eng. Indaka Raigama said “The mobile provider space is filled with multiple services (voice, messaging, broadband data, narrowband data, message brokers), standards (2G, 3G, 4G & 5G) & applications such as USSD, STK, IVR based apps, handset-based apps, and IoT apps. During the deployment period as well as in the service period, it takes a significant effort in testing an end to end capability for telecommunication operators. With this product, we essentially wanted to make it more practical and economical”.
The monitoring platform developed by iTelaSoft is a centrally managed, but distributed test execution framework for automatically testing multiple capabilities or services with many test scenarios. The platform was conceptualized, designed & fabricated completely by the iTelaSoft team in Australia & Sri Lanka. The product is currently been used in many countries & has been a clear value enhancer to its clients. iTelasoft IoT group consists of electronics & software engineers who create innovative solutions for their clients globally. “I’m really proud of our team who built this product and even leading us towards an award! I want to specifically mention a few names among the team, Manoj Fernando, Tharindu Hettiarachchi and Chrishmal Fernando who contributed in production line with ideas, engineering capacity and many other ways. I saw the sheer passion, dedication and can do attitude of the Sri Lankans in this endeavor”; Indaka Raigama further noted. Participating an interview by the Sinhala Service of SBS Radio Australia, Indaka Raigama mentioned that a large number of Sri Lankan engineers are making a significant contribution to the global economy from Sri Lanka and from overseas. He commended the efforts of IESL for recognizing those engineering professionals and making their efforts visible. Talking about the award, Indaka mentioned that it’s a reflection of capability and ingenuity of Sri Lankan engineers who transformed a concept into a commercial product. He also encouraged young engineering professionals to engage in innovations and commercialize their concepts.