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The Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) 2015, for selecting the cream of creative and innovative among Sri Lankan school children for participation in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) 2015 to be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA was conducted at the Wimalasurendra Auditorium of the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka on 26th February 2015. The Intel ISEF is where the best of world’s best young scientists and inventors from over 60 countries come together each year to share their ideas, showcase their cutting edge science and engineering projects and win awards and scholarships.
The SLSEF is a joint effort where the Ministry of Education, National Science Foundation (NSF), Intel® EM Limited-Sri Lanka Liaison Office and the IESL had joined hands since year 2007 to promote creativity and innovation among the country’s younger generation. Every year 20 competitors are selected from two separate competitions, the Junior Inventor of the Year (JIY) competition conducted by the IESL and the Science Research Project Competition (SRPC) conducted by the NSF, to compete at the SLSEF to select three of the best among them to participate at an international level in the Intel ISEF held in USA.
Since beginning to participate in the Intel ISEF, student of Sri Lanka, who has been selected through Junior Inventor of the Year (JIY) competition organized by Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, has done the country proud by managing to win awards and recognition winning the 3rd place grand award in 2009 on their 2nd appearance and clinching the 1st place grand award in Computer Engineering at their 3rd appearance (2010). The latter achievement earned the distinction of a newly discovered planet being named after the winner who was also the Junior Inventor of the Year 2010 nominated to the Intel ISEF competition by the IESL. JIY finalists were able to won the IEEE Award and Intel Excellence award in computer science in Intel ISEF at 5th appearance (2012) and also won the 1st place grand award in category of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering and Special award from the Ashtavadhani Vidwan Ambati Subbaraya Chetty Foundation at 6th appearance (2013). At 7th appearance (2014), JIY winners won the 2nd place grand award in category of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering , 4th place grand award in category of Computer Science and two Special awards from the American Intellectual Property Law Association & U.S. Agency for International Development. The fame and recognition achieved so soon has led to a rapid rise in the popularity of the competition among school children all over the country.
Welcoming the participants to this year’s SLSEF the Vice President of the IESL, Eng. Jayavilal Meegoda pointed out the significant contributions JIY programme is making to the students and the country providing motivation to be creative and innovative. Also Eng. Jayavilal Meegoda said that the SLSEF is being held for the seventh time and that the country has to be proud of the way its school children have performed in the face of international competition. He pointed out the exhaustive preliminary selection process undertaken by the IESL in selecting 50 finalists from the nearly 1000 school children projects demonstrated to panel of judges at Colombo and all the provinces. He said that 20 of the finalists were given the opportunity to exhibit their inventions to the industry and the public at the National Engineering Exhibition (TECHNO) in October 2014 at the BMICH. The top 10 of these finalists have been nominated to the SLSEF 2015 he concluded.
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