Ray Wijewardene website launch

The official Ray Wijewardene website will be launched at the British Council Colombo on September 28, 2011 at a gathering of Ray Wijewardene’s family, friends and associates. It is being organised by the Ray Wijewardene Charitable Trust (RWCT) in partnership with the British Council and TVE Asia Pacific.

The new website, www.raywijewardene.net, captures highlights of the late Dr Ray Wijewardene’s rich and colourful life that straddled many areas of human endeavour: agriculture, aviation, engineering design, renewable energy, transport and water sports. It promotes his vision for self-reliance, innovation and sustainable development in Sri Lanka and in the humid tropics.

The website introduces Ray Wijewardene as ‘a man for all elements’, and showcases his personal logo that symbolised the integration of the four elements in eastern philosophy: water, fire, air and matter or Earth. The logo has now been adopted by RWCT.

The website also carries first person narratives written by five individuals who knew Ray in different capacities: aviator Capt Elmo Jayawardena; renewable energy specialist P G Joseph; science writer Nalaka Gunawardene; conservationist Dr Ranjith Mahindapala; and biologist and water sports enthusiast Rohan Pethiyagoda.

The website has a photo gallery that includes many hitherto-unseen images drawn from the Wijewardene family albums and various institutional and media sources. These offer glimpses of Ray’s education, training, career and leisure activities that took him to the universities of Cambridge and Harvard, international service with the United Nations and the World Bank, the Olympics and Asian games and back to the grassroots in Sri Lanka.

A link to a Facebook page dedicated to Ray Wijewardene offers web visitors opportunity to interact and share. There are also external links to tributes that were published in the media following his death in August 2010.

The website was designed and built by the Colombo-based non-profit media foundation TVE Asia Pacific. It is an entirely voluntary effort that involved the collaboration of many individuals from different professional backgrounds and geographical locations. Material was sourced from Ray’s family members, friends and associates.

More information, photographs and videos are to be added as new material becomes available. The website actively seeks memories, anecdotes and images for the Ray biography compilation project that is now underway.

The Ray Wijewardene Charitable Trust (RWCT) was established in early 2011 to promote Ray’s vision and ideas in Sri Lanka. The Trust aims to support innovation in areas that were close to Ray’s heart. This website is the Trust’s first public activity to preserve Ray’s legacy.