The first-ever virtual IEEE Day celebration organized by IEEE Student Branch University of Moratuwa successfully concluded on 3rd of October, 2020 with over 40 participants via Zoom virtual platform, under the theme of “Leveraging Technology for a Better Tomorrow”. To celebrate this day in an extraordinary way, our student branch got this opportunity to join hands with IEEE Student Branch of Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. Griffith University is among the top ranked universities in Australia, having been placed 30th in the 2020 Times Higher Education Young University Rankings and 33rd in the 2021 QS World University Rankings Top 50 Under 50. It was the first time in history of the two Student Branches to collaborate with a Student Branch from a different section. As the IEEE Student Branch University of Moratuwa and as well as the main organizers of this first-ever virtual collaborative IEEE Day celebration, we consider this as a huge privilege for us to work with Griffith University and unleash the opportunities to share the knowledge between the two ends even under the unprecedented situation caused by Covid-19. 

Mr. Lakshitha Gunasekara, Treasurer at IEEE Young Professionals Sri Lanka and former president of IEEE IAS Sri Lanka Chapter attended the event as the guest speaker from IEEE Student Branch University of Moratuwa. He gave his insights on the IEEE Day celebration and acknowledged the audience with the importance of volunteering at IEEE along with a brief talk about his volunteering journey with IEEE. Student branch presentation from the University of Moratuwa was done by Ms. Awishka Thuduwage, Secretary of IEEE Student Branch University of Moratuwa and a brief introduction about the student branch followed by a quick glance at the events and the projects conducted annually by the SB were delivered to the audience. 

As the guest speaker from Griffith University Mr. Reza Akbarzadeh who is the former chairman and founding president of IEEE GUGC Student Branch attended the event. He delivered a fruitful speech on IEEE in industry as per his experiences as the project engineer at Laing O’Rourke. Guest speech was followed by the student branch presentation of Mr. Rory McGrady, Chairman of IEEE GUGC Student Branch where he talked about the events, workshops and initiations taken by their student branch during their term to provide their volunteer base with more opportunities to expand their knowledge on technical areas. 

The Kahoot session uplifted the knowledge of the students from both ends about IEEE and the winners of the Kahoot were rewarded with Amazon gift cards worth of Rs. 6000. 

Global level Recognitions for the event

● Our student branch won the 1st place in the Technical Category of the IEEE Day Video Contest held in parallel with IEEE Day 2020. IEEE Student Branch University of Moratuwa was the only student branch from Sri Lanka Section to win this contest surpassing all other entries from student branches across the globe and was able to receive $1000 as the cash prize. (Image credits:- IEEE Day Official Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/IEEEDay)

Welcome Address and Introduction by the Staff Advisor 

The Staff Advisor welcomed the Guest Speaker – Dr. Chamith Wijenayake a Senior Lecturer from School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of  Queensland, Australia, and all participants for the webinar session. He gave a brief  introduction about Dr. Chamith Wijenayake including his key research areas, and regarding  the focus of the webinar session. 

Webinar Session 

The session was conducted as an interactive session which covered the process of mapping DSP algorithms into a suitable FPGA architecture. Different implementation platforms were introduced and types of errors that can occur during implementation were also discussed with respect to non-recursive and recursive systems. The speaker continuously asked questions from the audience and they were given the chance to respond via an online poll to make the session very interactive and interesting, and the responses of the audience were discussed. Towards the end of the session, the audience was given the chance to ask questions and clarify subject matters presented by the speaker.