Institution news
It is important to celebrate people who go above and beyond because these are the people that can and will inspire us and others to do great things.
Volunteers frequently invest a lot of time and effort simply because they feel passionately about what they do and believe in the cause they are supporting. Most volunteers aren’t after recognition but it’s always nice to show appreciation. Engineering excellence is also vitally important. We need great role models who will inspire others to choose engineering and will demonstrate to those already in the profession just what is possible with hard work and effort. Winning an award can help young members to get recognition and opportunities that will help them develop themselves and their careers.
We are delighted to announce the winners of our 2019 awards:
Sri Lanka: Dr. Janaka Ranganath Gamage
Dr Janaka Ranganath Gamage started volunteering as a chapter counsellor for UOM chapter in June 2017 and has organised many student events since then. He initiated IMechE Student Awards to UOM Students in 2017 which are now in their third consecutive year. He has been a key volunteer for Young Member activities across Sri Lanka and promoting the benefits of volunteering.
He has been the project coordinator of TeamSHARK, the first and only IMechE Formula Student Project team from Sri Lanka, since 2017. He also gave leadership and guidance for the ‘Mora Avions’, the first and only team to participate from Sri Lanka in the IMechE UAS Challenge 2018. As the chapter counsellor he helped to coach and produce two Speak Out for Engineering (SOfE) Sri Lankan finalists from the UOM chapter on 2018 and 2019 consecutively. He has written referee reports for many IMechE grant applicants and secured four grants so far for the UOM Chapter.
India: Piyush Sethi
Piyush has been volunteering with the Institution since 2013. He is the Young Member Chair of India, known for his dynamic and enthusiastic management skills, handling huge events with great ease.
In six years with IMechE, he has enthusiastically taken many initiatives to conduct various national as well as international events like Speak out for Engineering (SOfE), Global Engineering Debate, AGMs and other major Young Member events in India. He has brought together all the student chapters of north India on a same platform to increase number of events and exchange of new ideas. His efforts for organising the SOfE Global Final 2018 in April 2019 were commendable and appreciated by all the committee members. He has brought a great push in India in terms of increasing membership engagement and involvement, adding new members and organising various events all through 2019.
Bangladesh: Moaz Ebon Zabal
Moaz organised the Freshers' Reception and ‘Membership Drive’ in February 2019 with a gathering of almost 450 people. The Freshers' Reception encourages the soon to be engineers to take on engineering challenges and motivates them to join IMechE. He conducted a two-week long workshop on SOfE. He was instrumental in partnering with Team IUT Mars Rover for IRC 2019. He also merged IMechE IUT Student Chapter as a partner with Mecceleration 2019, one of the biggest mechanical festivals of Bangladesh.
Moaz also formed IUT’s very first Formula Student team ‘Formula IUT’ and conducted a four-week long workshop on 'Robotics, UAS Challenge, RC Communication'.
Moaz helped form the very first UAS Challenge team from IUT. The team has already completed registration for IMechE UAS Challenge 2020 and will be flying to the venue in July 2020.