Dear Members,

In my first message of this year in the President’s Corner, I paid tribute to our members in the Provinces and overseas, who are carrying on their duties in all corners of the country and other parts of the world as well, contributing to the development activities from the wealth of knowledge they have acquired from their education and the training and experience in the field. In order to engage the engineers who are working in the provinces, this year Council decided to move some of our very important activities to the provinces, whenever possible.

As a step in this direction, we will be holding the National Engineering Conference, which has been a very glamorous national scale event of the IESL since it started in October 2013, in the North Western Province. After hosting the last four events in Colombo, we feel that it is time to take this national event to the provinces, keeping the same glamour and grandiose unabated. The Northwestern Provincial Chapter is working hand in hand with the Headquarters in making arrangements for the Fifth National Engineering Conference, which will be held on 31st August, at the Kshathriya Villa Hotel, Mawathagama, on the Kurunegala-Kandy Road. I hope that this will be taken to other provinces in the future years.

The theme for this year’s Conference is “Sri Lankan Engineering for National Development – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”. Six Sri Lankan engineers who are experts in their own fields will be delivering the presentations, and we are expecting a very useful discussion to follow the presentations, and an outcome which we hope to present to the government, to shape the future development of the country. Starting with the world renowned engineering heritage of our country and the lessons to be learnt for the future, we will be looking at the contribution to national development by the engineers at present and how modern engineering can and is being used here as well as in other parts of the world, and the futuristic vision for a technologically advanced Sri Lanka with a happy and contented population living in harmony with the environment. It will be a great opportunity to learn about how our profession has been the prime mover in the national development at all times, and how we can be justifiably proud of our profession.

The National Engineering Conference will be an event where engineers and other professionals from all parts of the country will get an opportunity to mingle and establish networks, in addition to listening to the presentations and participating in the discussions. The IESL Provincial and District Chapters have been informed about the arrangements in advance, and IESL has already written to the Heads of major engineering organizations in Colombo and their Provincial/District offices to release and sponsor the engineers for this event, which will be an opportunity for professional development of their staff.

IESL will be arranging transport for members who register to travel from central locations in the outstations and IESL headquarters, if there is a demand. We will be opening on-line registration on the 2nd August, and it is important that you register early, so that logistics could be arranged.

I hope to see many of our engineers working in all districts of the country as well as Colombo gathering in Mawathagama on the 31st August, to participate in this major professional event of the Engineers

Thank you.

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