I had the pleasure of speaking for the Undergrads at University of Kelaniya. I shared what I knew about applying for scholarships, preparing for them and how to look for them. If you like to invite me to speak at your event, please use this contact form:http://iqlabs.edu.lk/contact/
In this podcast we will talking about Dr. Himesh Jayasinghe’s incredible journey of switching fields from Engineering to Plant Science. He is the author of the book "DISCOVERY: Additions to the Flora of Ceylon" where shares the discovery of more than 200 new native plant species from Sri Lanka. Dr. Jayasinghe received his undergraduate degree from the University of Moratuwa where he specialized in Civil Engineering. He was always passionate about studying nature and would always choose projects that took him close to the natural habitats of Sri Lanka. With mentoring of Dr. Syril Wijesundara he embarked on his PhD at the National Institutes of Fundamental Studies in Sri Lanka.
Time stamps
00:00 About Guest
01:13 Himesh’s story
02:09 Ambitions as a school boy
03:36 Importance of Plant Science
06:40 Changing from Engineering to Plant Science
09:56 Do Environmental people ruin Civil engineering projects
15:13 Inspiration behind the book: “Discovery”
18:55 Training the eye to identify plants
20:29 Purpose behind the book
21:34 How to classify plants?
29:59 Opportunities for Plant Science in Sri Lanka
34:16 Advice for future students
37:16 Fieldwork pictures
56:24 How to contact Dr. Himesh
In this Science Talks episode, I invited my dad to discuss some of the Popular Science books he has read. My dad is Dr. M.C.M. Iqbal and he is a retired scientist from the National Institute of Fundamental Studies, Kandy. List of books can be found here:
ජනප්රිය විද්යා පොත්
Books and authors mentioned:
1. Isaac Asimov
2. Bill Bryson
a. A brief history of nearly everything
b. The body
3. Siddhartha Mukherjee
a. The emperor of all maledies
b. The gene
c. The song of the cell
4. David Deutsch – The beginning of infinity
5. Steven Strogatz
a. Infinite Powers
b. The joy of finding “x”
6. Manjit Kumar – Quantum
7. Sean Carroll – The particle at the end of the universe
8. Richard Thaler - Nudge
9. Renee Engeln – Beauty Sick
Time stamps
00:00 About Podcast
02:19 Why should we read these books?
04:32 How my dad got interested
05:38 Isaac Asimov
08:09 Bill Bryson
11:19 Siddhartha Mukherjee
19:33 Use metaphors to simply things
23:30 Philosophy is essential to know Science
26:00 David Deutsch
27:07 Steven Strogatz
29:40 Alex Bellos
32:03 Manjit Kumar
37:54 Sean Carroll
38:50 Check for podcasts and lectures online
39:18 Richard Thaler
42:06 Renee Engeln
If you would like to support IQ Labs, please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee. It helps me cover up the running costs of this channel: https://buymeacoffee.com/iqlabs
In this talk we will dive into the field of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), its applications and how it will impact the world. Chameera De Silva obtained his bachelor’s from the University of Colombo School of Computing. He is a Doctoral Scholar in Artificial Intelligence from Australia and a Consultant in AI – Atos. Please go through the time stamps to get an idea about the topics that were discussed.
Time stamps
00:00 Recap
01:58 Introducing Chameera
04:10 Self studying AI
06:22 How did you foresee the future of AI?
09:57 What is Generative AI?
13:45 History of GenAI
30:45 How does it work?
37:48 Don’t study AI. Do this instead
43:07 Is unethical to use AI tools to refine my own grammar?
50:16 Can we find out if someone used AI?
50:59 Benefits of GenAI
57:22 Dark side of GenAI
1:06:28 Comparison: ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek
1:12:19 DeepSeek Vs ChatGPT
1:13:56 Chain of Thought (CoT) How prompts work
1:16:56 Example – how ChatGPT makes mistakes
1:21:52 Loss of jobs due to AI
You might remember Binura Perera from my DAAD scholarshipvideo. Today I invited him to share his views on what it takes to beuniversally ready. Initially, I wanted to talk about being “corporate ready” –things students should pay attention to before they enter the job market.However, Binura challenged my perspective and told me to look at the bigpicture, to take on the whole world instead of being the best in Sri Lanka. Binuracurrently works as a Sustainability Professional for a Multinational company inGermany. He received his Masters from Carl von Ossietzky University ofOldenburg through a DAAD scholarship. His undergraduate degree was inMechanical Engineering from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology(SLIIT).
00:00 Intro
01:52 What is Universally ready and global citizen
06:10 Talking about migration in general
10:44 Migration has different reasons
16:58 Fundamental difference between developed countries andSri Lanka?
17:47 Binura’s analogy: Train Vs Helicopter
20:03 We are afraid to take risks
23:02 Age is not a barrier for education in Westerncountries
24:20 I don’t have to do the same degree was the rest of mylife
26:39 Sri Lankan’s don’t make useof our facilities
30:30 Politicians reflect us
32:18 Is migration all beautifulas they say?
35:59 How to align our values andtargets
44:22 Skills#1 Decision making
50:19 Skills#2 Time management
54:02 Skills#3 Networking
1:00:10 Skills#4 FinancialDiscipline
1:03:21 Skills#5 Teamwork
1:11:04 Suggestion to audience
1:12:46 Skills#6 Empathy andsympathy
1:18:25 Closing question: Whatmakes a man?
In this podcast we will explore the Science behind BusinessManagement with Dr. Isuru Koswatte. Dr. Koswatte is an Assistant Professor inBusiness and Management at University of the West of Scotland. He is also anAdjunct Senior Research Fellow at NSBM Green University. He also suervesas an external examiner at Northumbra University.
He completed his PhD from the University of Manchester in2020 at the age of 27 and is skilled in Mixed Method Research, StructureEquation Modelling and qualitative research. He holds a first class honours inMSc in International Business from the University of Manchester as well as donea BSc in Business and Management from the University of Birmingham.
Dr. Koswatte’s research interests are diverse and spans inthe areas of organizational resilince, crisis management, entrepnuership aswell SDG goals. He has published several international journals, book chaptersand taken part in conference as well as involved in funded internationalresearch collaborations.
He is also involved in several roles administrativelyholding responsibilities as the Deputy Programme Leader for the BA BusinessDegree programe at UWS as well as Co-Chairing the Staff Research Forum atUWS.
He is presently an associate member of National Centre forResilience, a cross sector partnership spanning Scottish universities,government and practice. He is also a member of the British Academy EarlyCareer Researcher Network in Scotland as well as a member of the Academy ofInternational Business (AIB).
Dr Koswatte is an experienced academic holding Fellowship inhigher Education (FHEA) as well as The Certified Management & BusinessEducator (CMBE) status for his recognition in the Business and Managementfield.
You can check about Dr. Isuru Koswatte’s work from theselinks:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drisurukoswatte/?originalSubdomain=uk
https://www.nsbm.ac.lk/staff/dr-isuru-koswatte/
00:00 Introducing Isuru
01:01 Isuru’s journey after school
05:49 About Business Management
09:47 Our understanding of a businessman is very negative
11:14 Research on crisis management and resilience building
16:01 Sri Lankan companies are well ahead with their CSR
17:08 Resilience comes from being hospitable
18:25 Why are we behind in job creation?
22:51 Business management and entrepreneurship is not asubject but a skill
24:45 Sri Lankans are good in subject knowledge but not inapplication
27:33 How can we create a culture which fosters this?
31:17 Lack of role models
38:46 Politicians make the best brands
41:43 American parents teach their kids to be leaders
50:44 Problem with falling for political ad campaigns
52:11 Developed Asian companies focus on systems, westernculture focusses on personalities
58:15 How to make a brand?
1:03:52 Sri Lankans making poor choices with migrations
In this podcast I invited my batchmate, Kaneru Vimantha Godagama from the Science Faculty of University of Colombo to talk about how a “Great Place to work” decides on screening the best companies in Sri Lanka. In this talk I wanted to highlight the science behind evaluating companies. Kaneru is the Head of Consulting Business Unit at Great Place to Work - Sri Lanka. When he was an undergraduate, he served as the Local Committee President - AIESEC in University of Colombo from 2015/16. He has an MBA from Cardiff Metropolitan University and is reading for his CMI UK Level 7 (Extended diploma is professional consulting). Kaneru is passionate about new experiences, love s traveling and roller-coaster rides (both literally and figuratively) and enjoys facilitating workshops and conducting trainings.
To get intouch with Kaneru you can connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaneru-vimantha-godagama
00:00 About Kaneru
02:59 Kaneru as a project manager
03:53 Importance of clubs and societies: AIESEC Club
07:01 Kaneru’s awakening – introvert to extrovert
08:16 Try different clubs
12:44 AIESEC is like a kitchen – not like a restaurant
16:28 Origins of “Great place to work”
23:25 What makes a great place to work? What are the factors?
26:19 Employees and management is like the neck of the company
34:11 How important is statistics to your company?
45:27 Statistics is not enough – expert knowledge is needed
52:57 Mistakes Sri Lankan companies make
59:03 Importance of wellbeing
1:00:52 Advice to undergrads who enter the job market
1:10:24 Extracurricular activities and Emotional intelligence
Dr. Muditha Bandara is a senior lecturer at the Department of Nuclear Science at the University of Colombo. In this talk we will explore the field of Nuclear science, Medical Physics and his research in those areas. He received his PhD in Bio-Medical Imaging Physics from the University of Colombo under the supervision of Dr. Janaka Wansapura. For his post-doctoral training he has worked in the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Texas, USA. He has also served as visiting lecturer at General Sir John Kothalawala Defense University.
00:00 Muditha’s journey
02:24 Negative impression of Nuclear science Department
05:00 Medical Physics and Nuclear Science overlap
06:09 Meeting Dr. Janaka Wansapura
08:15 Paper qualifications can’t judge a person
09:43 People bloom in different times
11:16 Starting FOS blog and media unit and hobbies
15:36 Differences in students across generations
18:28 Differences in American students
19:55 American students like asking questions
23:00 Doing PhD in Sri Lanka – positives and negatives
30:26 Muditha’s research
39:58 Inter-disciplinary research
42:45 Post Doctoral experience in USA at UT Southwestern Medical Center
45:30 Did you doubt yourself when you came to the USA?
46:07 How broad is Medical Physics?
49:39 Last comments
You might remember Dr. Muditha Senarath-Yapa from my previous podcast. He was the head of John Keells Research and the Vice President of John Keells Holdings. This time I invited him to talk about innovation, how to foster it from a young age and how it can benefit Sri Lanka in the years to come. Muditha is a seasoned New Technology Development Consultant and thrives in managing cross-functional research teams and driving groundbreaking projects at the forefront of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and advanced technologies. His passion lies in fusing scientific exploration with business acumen to deliver transformative solutions that propel companies to the forefront of their industries.
00:00 What is Innovation?
07:06 Science/innovation brought prosperity examples
13:43 What National plan would you propose to achieve this?
24:11 How can we foster this mindset from the school level
28:33 American kids selling candy in the park
30:54 We lack people’s skills
33:34 Is spending money on R&D is a waste?
46:03 Can small scale businesses do R&D?
54:50 Things you can do in your home/garage
01:01:19 Encourage hobbies among people
01:03:38 Challenges in taking product to market
01:09:54 Information at our fingertips
01:10:40 Allocate time to develop knowledge
01:13:43 Time to make change in our country
You might remember Dr. Nirma Jayawardena from my PhD advice video series. Today I invited her to talk about her research area – Marketing.
A short bio/description about Nirma
Dr. Nirma Sadamali Jayawardena is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the University of Bradford, United Kingdom. She completed PhD in Marketing and Graduate Diploma of Business Research from Griffith University, Australia. She pursued a BSc in Business Management with a first-class honours from NSBM Green University, Sri Lanka, and MBA in International Business from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has published her work in prestigious journals and has been the recipient of several national and international awards, grants, and scholarships.
Links about her work, where people can reach out to her
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nirma-jayawardena-711502214/
University Website: https://www.bradford.ac.uk/staff/njayawardena/
00:00 Intro Dr. Nirma Jayawardena
01:05 About Nirma’s journey
05:08 Advice to those who enter Private Universities
06:36 Passion for teaching
08:14 Why did you choose Marketing?
09:38 How important is Marketing?
13:01 Visual memory on advertisements
14:44 Negative publicity is good publicity
15:33 We use marketing everyday: Job interview
16:23 Applying a marketing theory (Case study)
18:33 Lipton tea advertisement
24:04 Metaphorical framework on human judgement
25:56 What is Marketing? Nirma’s definition
28:05 Marketing after the rise of social media
30:46 Common misconceptions about this field
31:54 Tools and skills needed for Marketing
33:23 Nirma’s publication
42:10 Misuses of marketing: social engineering, political campaigns, racism
47:18 Can a company recover after losing its reputation?
48:24 Future of marketing – interesting questions worth pursuing
Sahitha Karapitiya was selected to present his work at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) for their Annual International Meeting in 2023. He is the only participant from Sri Lanka. He received his undergraduate degree in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Peradeniya. The title of his research is "Simulation of the Temperature Profile of Coffee Beans Roasted Under Far-Infrared Radiation" done under the supervision of Professor K. S. P. Amaratunga (Sanath Amaratunga).
If you want to help Sahitha or get in touch with him:
Website sahitha.super.site
Email: slk.pdn@gmail.com
Facebook Sahitha Karapitiya
Linkedin Sahitha Karapitiya
00:00 About Sahitha
01:24 Sahitha's story
04:07 What were your dreams?
06:48 Entering Faculty of Agriculture at Peradeniya
11:25 What is the potential of Agriculture faculty
15:02 Versatile degree programs
16:22 About Sahitha's research
19:46 Model development
22:26 Experimental Setup
25:15 About ASABE
26:35 Prof. Sanath Amaratunga
28:45 Side business
31:23 Time management
37:41 Plans for the future
Ayodhya Sovis Wickramasooriya is doing her Post Graduuate studies in Agricultural economics at the University of Goettingen, Germany. She is a graduate from the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka and she completed her bachelors in Agriculture Business Management.
Agricultural economics is a branch of economics that focuses on the study of agricultural production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services related to agriculture. The field of agricultural economics is concerned with understanding the complex interactions between farmers, consumers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector.
00:00 About Ayodhya
03:49 Potential of Agriculture
04:27 About International Agriculture
05:55 Economics in Agriculture
13:10 Undergraduate research
16:24 Agriculture in the North
17:55 Banning of chemical fertilizers
20:29 Organic Farming
22:13 Sustainable Agriculture
26:23 New technologies
27:24 Will Sri Lanka continue with agriculture
31:52 Challenges of learning economics
32:53 Future plans
I invited Kethmi Hettige to talk about the Z-score. For those who did A/Ls in Sri Lanka - this is a life deciding equation. Kethmi received her Bachelors in Industrial Statistics and Mathematical Finance from the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. She is currently doing her PhD in Singapore.
00:00 About Z-score
00:59 Origins of the equation
01:52 Statistical measure
04:30 Mean,SD can be subjective
05:33 Why use it for A/Ls?
06:46 How to calculate it?
10:35 Problem with 2011 A/Ls
11:49 Bell curves
14:03 Biggest assumption with Z-score
16:09 Is it a good method?
20:22 Representative samples
21:35 What determines cutoff marks?
රසායනික බන්ධන විවිධ පරිමාණ වලින් - Computational ව්යාපෘතියක් කරමු
Let's do a computational chemistry project using OpenMM (39:42)
How do chemists understand a chemical bond? Molecular orbital theory helps us understand this.
If you haven't watched the previous videos you can check it out here:
1. Quantum Vs Classical mechanics - https://youtu.be/EsRlDKCi2EM
2. What is a chemical bond? https://youtu.be/oERFHqewf_A
Many thanks to Dulitha Prasanna for joining the podcast to talk about Quantum Mechanics.
00:00 Mathematics of molecular orbital theory
03:39 Molecular orbital diagrams
05:09 Contribution of each orbitals
06:46 Intro to GAMESS (Practical example)
09:42 Input file (for Nitrogen)
18:30 Visualizing molecular orbitals
22:24 Our understanding of bonding
23:18 Calculations and output file
25:41 Anti-bonding orbitals
27:40 Benzene rings
29:02 Dipeptide hydrolysis
30:51 Computational range/length
33:31 Classical mechanics
36:31 Experiments Vs Simulations
39:06 Course-grained, mesoscale
39:42 OpenMM Python package
45:30 Interaction in solvent box
47:11 Using super computing clusters
49:43 Future projects (Fundraiser)
This is the second video about Quantum Mechanics. We will be talking about chemical bonding - what is the physical understanding of a chemical bond? If you haven't watched the first video you can check it out here: Quantum Vs Classical mechanics - https://youtu.be/EsRlDKCi2EM
Many thanks to Dulitha Prasanna for joining the podcast to talk about Quantum Mechanics. Stay tuned for more videos.
00:00 Second video
01:36 Hatree-Fock Theory
03:06 Joint probability
10:10 Wave functions as Gaussian functions
15:56 Different molecular scales
16:31 Explanation of bonding
17:59 Paper: Physical nature of chemical bond
23:00 Molecular orbital theory
Many thanks to Dulitha Prasanna for joining the podcast to talk about Quantum Mechanics. Stay tuned for more videos.
00:00 Our definition of "Quantum"
01:01 Dulitha's story
04:24 Classical Vs Quantum Mechanics
06:31 Newton's Vs Coulomb's law
07:39 Newton's law has its problems
09:29 Problems with Rutherford's theory
13:20 Need of Quantum theory
21:23 Wavefunctions
30:59 Density
37:50 Is electron cloud true?
39:42 Computational Quantum Chemistry
40:45 From one electron to two
Chaturanga Wengappuliarachchi did Biological Sciences for his A/Ls and decided to go to the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL).He completed the Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Physics and conducted research in the following topic: “PVA/(2-Propanol) based bee-honey (core) and povidone-iodine (sheath) coaxial electrospun beads on string nanofibrous scaffold for controlled drug release" at the research labs of OUSL and NIFS (National Institute of Fundamental Studies). He will be starting his PhD at Virginia Tech (USA) in the Physics Department.
The purpose of this podcast was to give students the idea that they can re-invent themselves into different fields without sticking to the decisions they made before.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaturanga-wengappuliarachchi-7563681a1/
01:28 Hoping to do Medicine
05:22 Curiosity driven
08:56 Deciding on Open University
11:29 Open University Education system
18:03 Mathematics for Biologists
22:12 Biologists think differently
26:36 Undergraduate research
32:27 Nano fibers vs particles
37:32 Research facilities in OUSL
41:53 Favourite Physics areas
47:26 History of Science
51:34 Recommended books and Channels
59:56 Time to read books
1:04:26 Future plans
Many thanks to Indrajith for accepting my invitation again. Here we wanted to talk about the advantages of using LinkedIn to make connections and decide where your next career should be.
00:39 LinkedIn with other social media apps
02:29 Benefits of making connections
09:25 What makes you stand out
11:00 Building trust and accountability
13:48 How to present yourself?
17:06 Content creation on LinkedIn
18:27 Profile picture is necessary
19:57 Header
24:39 Contact information
26:00 Personal branding
27:42 LinkedIn top voices
29:22 Posting in Sinhala or English?
31:23 Personal stories
33:54 Write keywords first
35:22 Experiences and referrels
38:21 Alumni Groups
39:58 Connection requests
48:51 Search your Degree
51:06 Informational Interviews
54:11 Messaging
56:13 Talk about your dreams
Hasitha Eranda is a Theoretical Physicist at UC Irvine, California. He did his bachelors at the Department of Physics in the University of Colombo. He is currently working on searching for relic galaxy candidates in N-body cosmological simulations.
You can find more details about his work from this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.09720.pdf
00:00 About Hasitha
02:01 Final year project in UOC
03:07 PhD thesis - Cosmological simulations
05:07 How to be a Theoretical Physicist?
09:09 Thought experiments
12:30 Astronomy Vs Astro-Physics
15:59 Cosmology
18:19 Problems with Science
19:10 importance of LIGO
19:52 About Black Holes
21:58 Problem with models
25:31 Gravity models
32:03 Problems with model fitting
35:36 Quantum gravity
41:06 Science is political
42:01 Numerical simulations
45:50 Big Bang Vs Inflation theory
53:38 Same data, different theories