Lankans shine at global inventions expo

Wins “Genius Award”, Gold and Silver medals

Sri Lanka won “Genius Award”, Gold and Silver medals at the 36th International Exhibition of Inventions, Techniques and Products of Geneva which was held at Geneva Palexpo (Hall 7) in Switzerland from 2nd to 6th April 2008.

This exhibition which was held under the patronage of the Swiss Federal Government and the State and the City of Geneva is considered to be the world’s largest market place for inventions. It hosts annually about 750 exhibitors from around 45 countries and displays about 1000 new exhibits. During this event, industrial and commercial companies, inventors, researchers, associations, private and state agencies and institutes present their inventions, the result of their research and their new products.

As is the practice since 1996, this year again, Sri Lanka participated in this exhibition held in Geneva. Three Sri Lankan inventors presented their unique inventions: a Multi-Purpose Visual Presenter, a Sensor-Based Motion Tracking System for Human-Computer Interaction (a Virtual Mouse) and a High-Current Switch-Mode Battery Charger.

Prior to the exhibition, the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission had selected these three inventions from among the Presidential Award winning inventions and Incubated Inventions. The three selected inventors, Mr. W. D. Wijithapala (Teacher and School Inspector) of Malsiripura, Mr. A. S. Dissanayake (Entrepreneur) of Kalagedihena and Mr. Isuru Godage (Engineer) of Galle (who represented a student group of inventors from the Department of electronics and telecommunication in the University of Moratuwa) attended the event with two officials of the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission: the Commissioner, Dr. K. Kapila K. C. Perera and the Assistant Programme Officer, Mrs. Deepika Kahatapitiya.

All three Sri Lankan participants, just like their predecessors at the last year’s 35th exhibition, were honoured for their inventions. While Mr. W. D. Wijithapala was awarded a Gold medal for his Multi-Purpose Visual Presenter under the category “Optics, Photography, Cinematography”, Mr. A. S. Dissanayake and Mr. Isuru Godage received Silver medals under the category of “Computer Sciences, Software, Electronics, Electricity, Methods of Communication”, respectively, for the High-Current Switch-Mode Battery Charger and the Virtual Mouse. The Sensor-Based Motion Tracking System for Human-Computer Interaction (the Virtual Mouse) also won the “Genius Award”, a special prize awarded by the Hungarian Inventors Association. In fact, the award ceremony, which was held at 20:00 hours on 4th April 2008, commenced with the presentation of this special prize to Isuru Godage. At this special moment, the name of Sri Lanka caught the attention of the entire audience and in spite of her limited participation at the exhibition-as opposed to that of countries such as USA, India, China, Russia, France who had brought inventors in large numbers, - the presence of Sri Lanka was felt by all on this special occasion.

The Commissioner, Dr. K. Kapila K. C. Perera and the Program Officer Mrs. Deepika Kahatapitiya of the SLIC (who accompanied the three inventors to the event) thanked the Sri Lanka Mission and the Sri Lankan community in Geneva, for the assistance and encouragement they had given to the three inventors in achieving success at this prestigious event.

Prior to the start of the exhibition, the Commissioner of the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission (SLIC), Dr. Kapila Perera talked to the lankamission.org about the SLIC, the exhibition and the inventors. His observations are as follows:

“Sri Lanka Inventors Commission functions under the Ministry of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion and has been participating at this International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products of Geneva since 1996. The SLIC had been established under the act number 53 of 1979 but had come into physical operation since 1989. The major function or the objective of SLIC is to promote and encourage inventiveness, inventive culture among all Sri Lankan citizens. The SLIC has to make arrangements to represent Sri Lankan Inventors at international competitions. As part of this exercise, we have been arranging to send Sri Lankan inventors who have won at national or international level or people with patented inventions to the International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products of Geneva. Every year, Sri Lanka sends three competitors to this exhibition.

Last year, at the 35th version of the exhibition, one of our three inventors won a Gold medal in one category. He had invented an Artificial Leg for handicapped people. Two silver medals were won by the other two participants who had invented a Selective Tea-Plucking Device and a Low cost Wheel Chair (this is now being further developed by the University of Moratuwa). Our inventors have been winning medals at this competition every year. The person who won the Gold medal last year is going to venture into his own enterprise with a 34 million Rupee investment in Sri Lanka. He will be producing artificial legs for handicapped people and people who have lost their legs due to the ongoing conflict. His factory will start in Kalutara under the patronage of Ministry of industries. He had been able to get funds for this venture with the intervention of His Excellency the President. The Sri Lanka Inventors Fund will provide partial funding for the commercialisation of his invention.

The SLIC is honoured to get an invitation for this 36th version of the Inventors Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products of Geneva. This time again, we have selected three inventors from a pool of 50 applicants who had applied from all over the island. These inventors will present three different inventions at this exhibition.

The first inventor, Mr. Wijithapala from Malsiripura of the Viamba province is a schoolteacher. He has invented a Multi-Purpose Visual Projector as a teaching aid to be used by school children. You can focus his device within a one-millimetre distance and project even the blood stream of a living animal or insect on to a projector or a TV screen.

The second invention is a Virtual Mouse: a student project done at the Department of electronics and telecommunication in the University of Moratuwa. Mr. Isuru Godage is here to represent his team at this exhibition. With this invention you replace the ordinary computer mouse with a virtual mouse. Unlike the conventional mouse, which is used on a flat surface, you would use and control the virtual mouse with simple hand movement in the virtual space. In this invention gyros are replaced by a series of software. Therefore, it will be less expensive than gyro-controlled mouse.

The third invention is a High Voltage, High-Current, Switch-Mode Battery Charger. Here you replace the mechanical version with an electronic version. This invention has a patent and is already commercialised in Sri Lanka. A Sri Lankan company called Spectra has introduced it into the Sri Lankan market. The salient features of this product are: one, you replace 12-13 kg of copper which are in the conventional battery charger with less than one or two kg of copper. Two, the charging time is very much less than the time needed for a conventional battery charger and this has been proven.

The Sri Lanka Inventors Commission is funded by Treasury funds. So, if we have more funds, we could send more inventors to this annual exhibition. The exhibition has more than 42 categories under which you can present your inventions.

The SLIC wants Sri Lankans to come up with nationally relevant inventions. By this I mean inventions which have a unique Sri Lankan identity and which cater to national, social needs. However, in order to be presented at international exhibitions, these inventions should also be up to international standards. Therefore, at this exhibition, we are not representing inventions coming from the school system.

Nevertheless, we have invested a lot in promoting inventive culture in the school system. I believe it is important to promote inventiveness at school level. If we change the mindset of school children and help them bring out their creativity, we could see the results in the future. In fact, since 1994, the Sri Lanka inventors Commission, with the collaboration of the Ministry of Education, has created 6000 inventors clubs in the Sri Lankan school system which has 10,000 schools. From this year, we have started inter-house inventors meets in schools. Some of these meets were very successful: for example in one of the very remote schools (Usgalathissa) in the Viamba district where there is not even a science stream, the 300 students in the upper school had made 179 exhibits. Although these may not be real inventions as such, these youngsters have used their time to create something useful. Later when they grow up, that would help them to be innovative in their respective professions, be it as labourers, clerks, engineers or doctors. At the Sri Lanka Inventors Commission, we want to promote this inventive culture among all the people of Sri Lanka.”

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