How 'IT' changed my life - III :

From doctor to IT whiz

Ashan KUMAR

"I peeked through our living room entrance to see my father, deep in concentration, in front of him was a TV with a type writer, I stood there for a while to see what he was doing, but I didn't understand anything.

I swiftly ran to my mother who was preparing dinner and asked what exactly is dad doing"? She grinned, lifted me from the ground, looked into my eyes and said, "Your dad is working on a commodore 64 computer." For me this was amusement and I burst out laughing," said Nayana Somaratne presently the Chairman of Paradox Software, recollecting his initial experience with a computer.

Chairman of Paradox Software, Dr. Nayana Pubudu Somaratna

He went on describing how he generated his affection towards computers and IT, "later on, my mother noticed that I had an interest in the IT direction and bought me computer books even though she herself had little knowledge of the subject as she been a nurse. Fortuitously enough, one of them was on programming in Basic, and it was by reading it that I started on the pathway to become a proper programmer. From my earliest childhood, I have wished to be a programmer. At first, I wanted to be a games programmer later on as I started using the internet, I decided that I wanted to program websites.

He described his school days, "When I was doing my O/Ls at Royal College, Colombo in 1998, one of my friends in the computer society sought me out and asked me to take part in the National Schools Software Competition (NSSC) - a programming competition for students under 17 years of age. Despite my misgivings due to lack of experience, I participated and surprised everyone, including my self by becoming the first.

Despite my interest in computing, my parents wanted me to do Biology for the A/Ls as they had always wanted me to be a doctor. I some how managed to survive those three years of A/L classes and actually entered the Medical College of Sri Lanka, where I obtained my degree in 2007, graduating with upper second class honors. However, I did not wish to give up IT entirely and I managed to enrol myself in the BIT (Bachelor of Information Technology) external degree program conducted by the University of Colombo. I graduated as the first in the batch, with first class honors in 2006.

He went on explaining his commitment towards making Sri Lanka an IT giant in the global map.

"I then attended the 1998 International Schools Software Competition (ISSC) in Australia and the following year, became second at the NSSC 1999 and took part in the ISSC 1999 in Singapore, where my team was placed fourth out of 22 teams from 13 countries from South and South-East Asia.

During this time, I also came to learn about the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) - the computing equivalent of the Olympics. After much intensive practicing, I managed to get selected to the Sri Lankan team four times - from 1999 to 2002. I am proud to say that I managed to win a gold medal in 2001 and a bronze medal in 2002. Given that contestants from over 80 countries take part in the IOI, this is one of my proudest achievements.

After completing my career as a contestant at the IOI, I took over duties as the chief trainer in 2003, and continue in this position to date. Although it was extremely hard to balance this with my medical and IT studies, I gained a lot as I was exposed to some remarkably talented people during this time - so much so that at sometimes I learnt almost as much as I taught!

While I was in the third year at Medical College, a lecturer at the University of Colombo told me about the APITCA (Asia-Pacific ICT Association) software competition conducted by the BCS. I, along with some of my friends at the IOI, created a Sinhala search engine (a totally novel concept at that time) and submitted it in the Research and Development category. We were overjoyed when we won the bronze award - coming ahead of some of the largest software development companies in Sri Lanka.

Buoyed by our success, our next step was to form a company and set up business. As you can imagine, we had an extremely tough time initially - all of us were still students, but we were undertaking large and complex development projects, so much so that we ended up working nearly 18 to 20 hours a day at times.

However, we have been amply repaid for our efforts - our company which was started with no capital and just some old equipment scavenged from our parents now has 10 employees and is expanding rapidly - especially since some of us have now finished our studies and are working full time."

I asked Nayana why he chose Information Technology as his future, he promptly replied "I think the key reason was because I liked it a lot.

You can't do much better than getting a job where you actually like the work. The fact that I'd accumulated the skills and knowledge to start my own company was also a big incentive, as was the fact that I'd be associating and working with clever and skilled people, some of whom are the best programmers in the country".

I asked him what he gained from IT. "The most tangible benefit is that I am my own master now, free to think and act as I like. My knowledge, both related to IT and also of other fields, has also been immeasurably enriched by associating my co-workers, many of whom are extremely clever and erudite.

The structured and disciplined thinking patterns I gained from doing programming were very useful when studying medicine. Despite spending a minimal time studying, I was able to pass my exams easily, as I was able to organise the vast amount of medical knowledge into a structured and easy to remember form.

I asked him what his advice is for the youth, he said "Information technology is a very flexible field where a person has great leverage in choosing what to do. A person who is hard working and clever can easily find a good position in a company or even start his own. The founders of Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Yahoo became billionaires within a few years - there is no other field where this would have been possible."