2020 – Department of Statistics

6Dec

Annual Report: 2018/2019

Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Statistics Society of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, the board of officials for the office year 2018/2019 assumed duties on the 27th of March, 2019 before the very eyes of the honourable staff of the Department of Statistics.

With the hope of conquering the office year 2018/2019, the board commenced their yearly projects by organizing a knowledge filled technical talk on “Capture-Recapture studies and integrated population modelling under Statistics in Ecology” which extended to a Q & A session on “Higher Studies in North American Universities” conducted by Dr. W.A. Lasantha Premarathna of the Department of Statistics, University of British Columbia, Canada. Being it the first event, concluded with utmost success with the presence of many students of different faculties interested in the topic of talk.

We understood that many students have a vague understanding of the hidden magics of a calculator! Thus, as the next event, to inculcate the secrets of the advanced features of the calculator to boost in examinations and day-to-day problem solving, a workshop on “Basics using the Calculator” was organized for the students of USJ on the 15th of August, 2019. To our amazement, we observed students pouring into the workshop which clearly showed their enthusiasm and motivation to learn novel technical matters.

Amidst all the unexpected hurdles in the year 2019, with much difficulty, we held our head high and organized the paramount event of the society, the Annual Statistics Convention, “ESTADISTICA 2020” for the 4th consecutive year on the 21st of November, 2019 themed Beyond the Orthodox.

The agenda mainly comprised of three interactive sessions which spread wings to make the students aware of the array of paths where Statistics is being used. Since agriculture plays a crucial role in any country, becoming the source of food, income and employment, thus being a potent force of a growing economy, specially in developing countries, we included an interactive session on “Statistics in Agriculture” which was conducted by Dr. Pramuditha Waidyarathne, Senior Biometrician at Coconut Research Institute, Sri Lanka. In align with that, the next session was about “Industry 4.0 and the importance of Statisticians to the process” which was conducted by Mr. Chathuranga Abeysinghe, Lead Data Evangelist of MAS Capital Pvt. Ltd. The final session discussed about the importance of Statistics in Sports through “Statistics and Sports Analytics” by Dr.Sankha Muthu Poruthotage, Co-founder and CEO of Linear Squared (pvt) ltd. As the next significant event, the inter-university quiz competition was carried out to pit the best among the best in testing their statistical knowledge.

The event would not have been a success if not for the institutions that partnered up to power the event. As the bronze partners, Vizuamatix (pvt) ltd and MAS Capital (pvt) ltd joined with us while ROGO collaborated as the clothing partner and VEVRA as the photography partner. Furthermore, Linear Squared (pvt) ltd, 99x Technology and the National Lotteries Board also were valuable partners for the event.

The next most awaited event of the society calendar, which is the department night organized by the society, “Tilasto 2019” was held on the 13th of February 2020, at hotel Green Court, Homagama. The evening was filled with fun activities, enchantments and the most awaited pageant “Mr and Miss Tilasto”, and it ended off with a grand dinner and an informal dance.

By mid March, the university temporarily ceased operations in its premises due to the Coronavirus global pandemic. However, the society did not halt its activities. An online discussion and a Q&A session was organized under the topic “Higher Education to Build a Brighter Career” from 9.30 AM onwards on Sunday, the 31st of May, 2020. The live session was graced virtually by five panelists from academia as well as industry. The first panelist was Dr. Rajitha Silva, who is a Ph.D. holder from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and a Senior Lecturer of the Department of Statistics, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Secondly, Dr. Harsha Perera, who is a Faculty member as well as a Ph.D. holder from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada joined us as another panelist from academia. As other panelists, Dr. D. K. Karunaratne, who is a Ph.D. holder from the University of South Florida, USA and an individual contributor in Intel Corporation USA, then Mr. Lasith Haputhanthri, a Master holder of the National University of Singapore, who currently works as a software engineer for Amazon joined us. The last panelist was Mr. Praneeth Weerasekara who is a Master Holder in Nanotechnology and currently works for Twinery in Sri Lanka.

The event was a very informative and successful session of two hours with more than 65 active participants.

Due to the pandemic situation prevailed in the country, the Annual General Meeting to appoint the new office had been postponed since March, 2019. Thus, concluding the responsibilities as the office bearers for the year 2018/2019, the new board of officials of the Statistics Society for the year 2020/2021 assumed duties in December 2020.

Vihanga Gunadasa – Secretary

Sachiki Chandradasa – Editor

18Sep

News

Senior Lecturer Mr. P. Dias contributed in the revision programme conducted by Ministry of Education – Sri Lanka

In support of preparing GCE Advanced Level students (of biological science and physical science streams) for their examination which is to be held in October 2020, a series of support seminars was conducted by the Education Ministry of Sri Lanka, powered by Nestomalt.

Department of Statistics of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura was felicitous to join hands with this colossal event. Our very own Senior Lecturer Mr. P. Dias, who is a virtuoso in Statistics volunteered in this revision session on 04th of September at BMICH. His eloquence in the subject was mesmerizing, which would undoubtedly result the best performance of the partakers on that day, in the future.

As a university, our intention is to create proud products to the nation. Nonetheless, as a department, we would be extremely grateful to Mr. P. Dias, for humbly sharing his complete knowledge with no gap.

Find the video here.

30Jul

News

Statistical Consulting Service – University of Sri Jayewardenepura

The Department of Statistics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura provides a free statistical consulting service to university researchers and industrial organizations*. The service is provided subject to the availability of consultants. We provide assistance in areas such as:

1. Experimental design

2. Data visualization

3. Statistical modelling

4. Time series forecasting

5. Data analysis and interpretation of results6. Assistance with statistical software and programming

For more information visit our website at: https://scs-fas-sjp.netlify.app/* Terms and conditions apply.

14Jun

News

Panel Discussion and Q&A Session on “ Higher Education to Build a Brighter Career”

All of us have received well wishes throughout our life for various special occasions.”May all your dreams come true” is one of the most popular greetings of all time. As the French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: “A dream without a plan is just a wish”. Thus, receiving hundreds of well-wishes or praying to God is not going to “make your dreams come true” unless you know your game. Pursuing higher education and/or a well-paid career is indeed a “dream” of all the graduates. With the aim of playing our role in contributing to the planning and preparation for those dreams, the Statistics Society of Department of Statistics in the University of Sri Jayewardenepura held an online panel discussion and a Q&A session themed “Higher Education to Build a Brighter Career” from 9.30 AM onwards on Sunday, the 31st of May 2020.

The live session was graced virtually by five panelists from academia as well as industry. The first panelist was our very own, Dr. Rajitha Silva who is a Ph.D. holder from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and a Senior Lecturer of the Department of Statistics, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Despite the differences of time zones Dr. Harsha Perera, who is a Faculty member as well as a Ph.D. holder from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada joined us as another panelist from academia. Dr. D. K. Karunaratne, who is a Ph.D. holder from the University of South Florida, USA, and an individual contributor in Intel Corporation also joined us all the way from the USA. Another panelist who has had a sound exposure to the industry as an R&D Engineer in Singapore and France, Mr. Lasith Haputhanthri also joined us all the way from Canada. He is a Master holder of the National University of Singapore and currently works as a Software Engineer for Amazon. Last but not least, our final panelist was yet another individual with significant industrial exposure in Sri Lanka as well as abroad, Mr. Praneeth Weerasekara who is a Master Holder in Nanotechnology and currently works for Twinery in Sri Lanka.

The panel discussion had 65 active participants who were either students or graduates from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and other Universities coming from various study areas in STEM. Even Though the panel discussion was organized in such short notice, we were truly astonished by the number of participants from all over Sri Lanka.

We are humbled to say that we had quite an interactive as well as informative 2 hour-long session. Firstly, we discussed different stages of the application process for graduate studies in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. Every panelist added information and opinions from their perspective. A few of the students raised questions relating to that matter and the session turned out to be a very friendly casual discussion without even realizing it. Some conflicts of ideas and misconceptions of our students were smoothly and effectively clarified by the panelists. They elaborated more about different fields of study which would lead to prosperous career paths through the eyes of both academia and industry. Moreover, we discussed different aspects to consider when pursuing graduate studies abroad such as scholarships, financial situation, moving with dependents, pathways to obtaining permanent residency (PR) which eventually lead to obtaining citizenship, applying for vacancies after graduate studies and many more timely topics beneficial for our students to plan ahead. Panelists were humble enough to share their personal experiences of the mistakes they made along the way and how they overcame them. I am pretty sure it made a huge impact on fellow students including me.

We said our goodbyes after a successful online panel discussion and Q&A session. For the formalities, we distributed a feedback form among the participants and were truly astonished by the positive feedback and constructive criticism directed by them. Each and every feedback exemplified that the effort and time we put together were not in vain and gave us immense self-satisfaction for initiating this event as the Statistics Society of Department of Statistics at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

As the co-organizers of the event, I (Ms. Uthmani Ambawattage) and my fellow batchmate Ms. Kalpani Perera had quite a hustle in promoting the event, structuring questions to be discussed covering all areas of interest, responding to potential participants and collecting their own questions to be added, formally keeping in touch with panelists and participants through email and many more. Our team spirit and fulfilling shared responsibilities effectively made the organizing process less stressful for both of us. It was truly a privilege to work with Ms. Kalpani Perera as co-organizers of the event. We must remind our beloved Faculty member Dr. Rajitha Silva who is also the Senior Treasurer of the Statistics Society with gratitude for being the most supportive and friendly mentor he was. His guidance and volunteering to take the responsibility of communicating with the other panelists indeed made it possible to organize this timely event in such a short period of time. Last but not least, Mr. Janith Wanniarachchi who contributed as the presenter of the session.

On behalf of the Statistics Society, I thank all the participants and well wishes for reminding us about the importance of organizing such events as a student-lead society. We hope we did our part in making your “dreams” come true.