Prepared by: Thisari Gunawardena, Coordinator for IEEE UCSC Student Branch
Established in 2011 under the guidance of the IEEE Sri Lanka Section, the IEEE University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) Student Branch has been providing a platform for professional development for all undergraduates of UCSC. Going beyond technical exposure, interpersonal skills such as leadership, dedication, organization could also be developed and nurtured by engaging in the events organized by the Student Branch. Even during the global pandemic with new challenges and obstacles, the Student Branch was able to pull off another successful and eventful year.
MadHack 2021 was organized with the intention of giving undergraduates around the country an extensive introduction to the world of Mobile Application Development. It consisted of a workshop series that was designed to give all the participants a comprehensive introduction to mobile application development followed by the final hackathon. It was successfully concluded in July 2021 with the contribution of over 600 participants and three winning teams. RevolUX is a UI/UX designathon organized by the IEEE UCSC Student Branch in collaboration with AIESEC in University of Colombo. The major objective of this event was to unleash the creative and artistic minds of Sri Lankan undergraduates and schoolers while giving them indispensable exposure to different trends in User Interface and User Experience Design, and related fields. It consisted of two workshops conducted by industry experts followed by the 12-hour designathon. The event was a resounding success with over 1000 delegates and three winning teams.
Apart from the above, “Cloud Skill Challenge 2021”, a series of challenges aimed at enriching undergraduates with much sought out cloud computing skills; “7 Lines of Code”, a 7-day workshop series for the freshers to kickstart their academia; “UCSC IEEE Day 2021” a virtual celebration to celebrate the IEEE Day 2021; “ReidXtreme 2021”, a hackathon to build up the competitive programming skills of our undergraduates to successfully compete in IEEEXtreme 15.0, were also organized.
The silent giants behind all these success stories are a group of young, committed, dedicated, and enthusiastic individuals led by the Executive Committee of the IEEE UCSC Student Branch. Striving for excellence, the IEEE UCSC Student Branch has won several awards and accolades with the most recent being: