Imagine Cup team off to St. Petersburg

Mohamed Shehan, Stephan Udumalagala, Amal Gunatilake and Kishore Kumar the ‘Firebirds’ team from Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT), who won the local Microsoft Imagine Cup in April this year set off to St Petersburg, Russia last Sunday to compete in the World Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition.

The make up of this winning team is not unusual in itself, taking into consideration, the ethnic diversity of Sri Lanka. However, what is worthy of celebration is the unity of our very diversity in the four young men representing 4 ethno-religious groups who were able to synergize their talents and work closely together in harmony for over five months to produce a winning project that may win international accolades. Of the Firebirds team, Amal is a Sinhala Buddhist, Stephan a Sinhala Roman Catholic, Kishore a Tamil Hindu and the team leader Shehan is a Muslim.

What is unique about them is that they came together in total harmony to achieve a common goal using their expertise in the various areas of IT and commerce, without giving any thought to, or even realizing their different ethnic or religious origins. The team who worked closely together for over a period of 5 months despite their final year work load at IIT said that it was Kishore who laughingly pointed out their different ethno-religious origins on the day they presented their project at the local awards function.

Their project I-Chum which is Shehan’s invention is a visual aid for the blind. The team had thought of every aspect of its success with Software Engineering students Stephan and Amal with Kishore who is a Business Management student planning the marketing aspects of the project.