Institution news
Warnaka Dias Pannilaratne has been named as the global winner of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ inaugural global video competition for Young Members, beating off competition from 17 other entries.
International Strategy Board chair, Professor Alan Lau, who led the three-person-strong judging panel, says the winning entry showed great levels of skill and knowledge in delivering its message.
“The winning entry was very skilled in using multimedia tools and focused in on one specific topic, in this case risk assessment,” he says. “Risk assessment is a very difficult topic to talk about, but he was successful in exploring this complex topic in a deep and meaningful way.
“We were looking for our entrants to really bring out what engineering means to them in the modern world in their videos, and that is how the highest scores were achieved.”
Warnaka says the win was unexpected, but that he was grateful to share his message of what engineering means for him in the 21st century.
“I was really hyped to win the competition and couldn't believe it. I never expected to win the overall competition globally, but I had some innocent hopes for the regional win.
“I believe that not every invention is of equal value, and an invention can only add real benefits to society if it serves the whole world, not just humans. Given that belief, it was not hard to come up with the idea for my video.”
Ying Wan Loh was the global runner-up in the competition; she was surprised and pleased to be recognised by the judges,
“I wasn’t expecting to do so well in the competition, but I was pleasantly surprised and it is great to be recognised in this way. I was really using the competition as a starting point for making videos, but it was also a great way to combine my creative side with engineering, because that is very relevant to the industry, but you don't always see that being expressed.”
“Engineering is about solving problems, and you need both the creative and the logical side of things to be able to do that,” she added.
Looking to the competition’s second year, lead judge Professor Alan Lau says he is looking forward to seeing next year’s entries,
“The International Young Member Committee was instrumental in making this competition work, and I want to thank them for their hard work,” he said. “This competition is very meaningful, because it helps bring the engineering community together on a global scale without the costs and difficulties of bringing everyone to one place.
“I want to see entries on topics that are showing real impetus in the engineering community, and bring those topics to life in an engaging and informative way.”
Full 2018 competition results:
Global winner: Warnaka Dias Pannilaratne, South Asia Region
Global runner-up: Ying Wan Loh, United Kingdom & Ireland
Europe Regional Winner: Pambinos Charalambous, Europe Region
South Asia Regional Winner: Warnaka Dias Pannilaratne, South Asia Region
Details of how to enter the 2019 competition will be announced in Spring 2019.
For questions about next years competition, contact the Video Competition team at videocomp@imechenearyou.org