Dear Members,

As I pen these words, I realize that three months of the 2017/18 session is now complete. Months of November and December saw the Annual General Meetings of all Provincial Chapters of IESL, and I was happy to participate in the AGM’s of Southern, Eastern, Sabaragamuwa, Wayamba and Kandurata Chapters as the President of IESL. I do apologize for not being able to participate in the Uva, Rajarata and Vadakkin chapters, and will make it a point to visit the Chapters during my tenure as President.

I also attended the Qatar Chapter AGM which took place on Friday 26th January 2018. It is very heartening to note the enthusiasm of our members in the Provincial and Overseas Chapters in organizing these events to a very high standard, and making sure to include dissemination of knowledge by inviting high caliber engineers and educationists in their regions to address these gatherings of engineers, in addition to the formalities of the AGM’s, cultural shows and fellowship. The time, effort and money that goes into organizing these events can only be imagined, as I can see the attention to detail and striving for perfection in the final product – the events themselves, all of which ran so smoothly. I applaud all those who were involved in the organization of these events.

We also had the Meeting of the Provincial Chapters at the Head Quarters on the 6th of January, which was attended by the new chairpersons and executive committee members of the Provincial Chapters and District Centers, where the Council members met the Chapter Officials for exchange of ideas and reporting back on the Chapter activities. The value of such exchange of experiences among our members cannot be underestimated. While there are many new Construction Projects taking place in the Western Province, particularly in Colombo, the main focus of engineering works that provides water for food production, transport for goods and people, power generation and distribution to satisfy the demand for energy, telecommunication for connectivity among the people, healthcare and education for the urban and rural population, all has to happen in all the Provinces. The Provincial Chapters provide the platform for meeting and discussing issues that spring up during the performing of our official duties in an informal manner. We must make use of this opportunity provided to our optimum advantage. The concept of ‘Planning Circles’ initiated a few years ago is one such example, where the engineers in one region involved from the different organizations can discuss the implications of upcoming projects from their own perspectives, and try to find compromise solutions that are technically, environmentally and socially sound. This kind of discussions may not be feasible in the office environments. Resource sharing among different competing uses is another area where the networking among all engineers will provide a common ground where informal discussions, trying to understand the issues involved, would lead to the common good.

Our engineers in the provinces and overseas have such a wealth of knowledge and experiences that needs to be shared liberally among the membership. That is why it is very important that news, technical articles, and other articles are very important to come from the Provinces and Overseas Chapters. Please do keep those articles flowing in, to make the SLEN interesting to the members. Particularly, the junior engineers and engineering students would benefit immensely by reading about the Projects that you are involved in. They need not be large scale Projects – innovative technologies that are palm sized, that can make a positive impact on the people’s lifestyle, health or education, sometimes may be much more important than a luxury apartment building or hotel that appears to be a huge deal! We will only know if you talk or write about it – so please communicate your ideas! SLEN is there for that purpose.

Thank you.

Eng. (Prof.) Mrs. Niranjanie Ratnayake
President, Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka
2017/2018