SLIIT International Conference on Engineering and Technology 2023 offers unique platform to discuss new front

The SLIIT International Conference on Engineering and Technology 2023, SICET 2023, scheduled for March 2023 is set to offer a unique platform for participants to discuss emerging trends in the fields of Engineering, and its allied branches.

Organised by the Faculty of Engineering, SICET 2023 will be in hybrid mode, with both physical and online sessions. Held for the second consecutive year, SICET 2023 aims to foster a multidisciplinary approach to engaging in innovation and research as well as provide a unique opportunity for academics, student researchers as well as industry member to showcase their pioneering ideas. Participants will also interact with peers from a wide spectrum of engineering disciplines.

In conversation, Prof. Saman Thilakasiri, Dean - Engineering and Senior Professor, Faculty of Engineering elaborated on the conference. He said, “This is the second time we are conducting the conference. The conference will take place on 25th of March 2023 and two eminent keynote speakers; Professor Lain Murray from Curtin University, Australia and Professor Tissa Illangasekara from Colarado School of Mines, USA are scheduled to physically attend. Professor Lain Murray is a John Curtin Distinguished Professor in Computer Systems Engineering while Professor Tissa Illangaseka is an AMAX Distinguished Chair Professor of Environmental Sciences and the Director of the Center for the Experimental study of subsurface environmental processes. They will colour the conference with their immense experience in research and engineering industry.

“SICET 2023 theme is ‘Sustainability in Engineering and Technology’ and compared to last year we have enhanced the content and have organised pre-conference workshops for industry participants. We have also invited our own academics, MSc students and PhD students, as well as the final year research students in addition, to other research organisations (local & foreign) and industry (local & foreign) organisations to participate in the event. Therefore, this conference will provide the unique platform for academics, student researchers as well as industry members to showcase their pioneering ideas and to interact with peers from a wide spectrum of engineering disciplines.”

Explaining how SICET 2023 differs from last year, Prof. Rahula Attalage, Pro Vice - Chancellor (Academic) said, “Both for SLIIT’s and the faculty’s strategic action, nurturing research and innovation and elevating the standards of research and innovation is important. This conference will help to disseminate the findings with global relevance as many contributions have international origins.”

He noted the importance of a conference as a common platform where everybody can contribute at the same time and then together with partners can come to a common platform to interact with each other.

Commenting on the international importance of SICET 2023, he noted that “As it is an international conference, participation includes a wider spectrum covering several geographical areas and offers us the ability in networking and positioning our research in that platform - an opportunity to get together at the same time. It will also serve as a most efficient vehicle towards visibility and communicating information.”

Encouraging participation in SICET 2023, Prof. Rahula Attalage said, “Engineering technology covers multiple domains. Advances in engineering technology is very important, especially after the COVID period where innovations and providing solutions to typical problems, local problems which can be benchmarked in a normal context and ability to apply homegrown research under these conditions. As we enter the 4.0 Industrial revolution our research can bring certain solutions to local problems and will be important for local industry to partner entities relevant to engineering and technology, including government and private organisations. The conference will also support healthy collaborations and a healthy platform to help our students to find postgraduate opportunities and for researchers to conduct joint research.”

Prof. Upaka Ratnayake added, “We wanted to have broader areas for the SICET 2023 conference. We were extremely successful with SICET 2022 and received more than 100 papers of which about 50 were selected for the final presentation. Importantly, they were not just from Sri Lanka, but also from countries like India, Australia. Moving from that experience, we have tried to reach international academics and faculties to review papers for the 2023 conference and we have been successful. To-date, we have received papers from Australia, Philippines and other higher educational institutes in the country such as Universities of Peradeniya, Jaffna, etc. We are also hoping to receive more papers from our collaborators such as the Liverpool John Moores University, UK and Curtin University Australia and we are hoping to have their research and inputs for the conference as well. We believe, for SICET 2023, we can have more diversified research inputs. Ultimately some of them will be selected for the SICET Journal published by the Faculty of Engineering.”

Dr. Lakmini Malasinghe and Prof. Anuruddha Puswewala, Co-Chairs of SICET2023 Dr. Lakmini:

shared their views.

Last year we had the conference in hybrid mode and participation was less due to the ongoing problems in the country. SICET 2023 will also be in hybrid mode but we believe there will be more physical participation and also vibrant key speakers visiting. We also expect more than 200 papers.

Our pre-conference workshops will cover all five departments in the Faculty of Engineering – Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Mechatronics, and Quantity Surveying and these workshops will be conducted in physical mode which will be extremely interesting for participants. The conference will also offer good research exposure as many reviewers from the international arena and top universities are expected. The reviewers will be experts from different areas and industries, and participants can even discuss collaborations and possible future research paths. For a researcher that is very constructive, and they can use the comments to improve their work.

Prof. Anuruddha: The 2023 conference platform is hybrid – physical and virtual. We are covering a lot of scope and are inviting papers from different areas in order to capture basic and applied research, and international collaboration, in addition to various multiple fields of engineering. Importantly, there are very rapid advances in engineering and technology. For example, in Mechatronics, within one year there are a lot of new findings, innovative solutions etc. We are trying to capture them and provide an affordable platform for many participants to present their research outcomes enabling further research or even proceed to implementation, commercialization where industries can benefit from new ideas.

As there will be an impressive exchange of ideas and knowledge sharing in this conference it is important for research students, academics and persons from various research institutes to attend and, gain new ideas and awareness of current trends.