ශාකුන්තල.com

A Sri Lankan blogger, FOSS enthusiast and a wannabe hacker...



        It's going to be a long story... starting from the year 1992...... But I'll try to be brief as much as possible. :-)

Education

Early Life

        In 1992, I started schooling at Sripathi Maha Vidyalaya (haven't heard of it? no worries :-) ). It is a small school located in Southern Province of Sri Lanka.
        As there was no resources (no resources at all!) to study electronics for GCE Ordinary Level, I transfered to Karandeniya Central College in the year 2000. At that school I finished my GCE Ordinary and then Advanced Level examinations.
        In 2005 I took my A/L examination in Science stream. My subjects were Biology, Chemistry and Physics. In my first shy I ranked 325 (Galle District). My results were very slightly enough for university admission, but not my preferred university. So I sat A/L examination for my second attempt in 2006. In my second shy I was able to rank 112, amazingly! And that results granted me to enter University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) for academic year 2006/2007.

Undocumented Past

        I started learning computer technology when I was 8 years old (year 1994). My hometown, Ambalangoda is quite far away from the capital and at that time there were no computers in our area. Information sources were just newspapers, books and fewer magazines. Most of the people had never seen a computer. I was very lucky to find a series of computer lesson articles for beginners that went on Wijeya Kids' Newspaper. As I can remember, a series of articles on electronics also went on separately. I read through those articles because usually I read everything. Indeed my sincere thank goes to Wijeya Newpaper Ltd. for their unforgettable impact on my career. Honestly I did understand nothing other than the computer history. I was too young. My mother kept each piece of these paper articles preserved in a bag till I grow up. So when I was 12, I was able to read those through again. This time, I did understand lots of things including computer arithmatics, how to use MS-DOS (but never seen it! ;)), I/O devices introduction and many more.

        In 1996, I saw a computer for the very first time in my life, at the Divisional Computer Resources Centre at Karandeniya Central College. I was amazed to see the screen with colours, menus and icons all over the screen, because the image of a computer drawn in my mind so far is a some sort of machine with white letters and numbers on a black screen.

        When I was 15 it's been a usual habit going to the public library and copying source code from books onto paper. The next day, at school I might compile and test them. That's how things went on. I'm a fast learner of course, but the problem was less resources and less learning materials. Alhough I got the skill, I had never received any certification so far. Because that, to get certified by a recognized government body I followed the basic computer certification course at the Divisional Computer Resources Centre mentioned, in 2003. However, till my university admission I have never attended any computer programming classes nor any programming courses.

        But now, that kid has grown up to a well known g33k! :-)

University Life

        During the time that I was waiting for my second shy A/L examination results in 2006, I registered at College of Chemical Sciences - Rajagiriya as an undergraduate. But, as I've got excellent results for my second shy, I got the opportunity to enter University of Colombo School of Computing as an internal undergraduate. This bought up some difficulties with two academic streams (chemistry and IT). Finally I left College of Chemical Sciences in 2008 for the sake of better continuation of my studies at university. Currently I'm spending my 6th semester as an intern.
        So, I'm not just the usual computer geek that I'm supposed to be; I have some skill/ knowledge in chemistry-related stuff too!
        During my university career, I have been able to contribute to some of the Sri Lankan mass media with my technological knowledge. (Scroll down to see)

Internship

        Currently I am an intern at ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, an agency under the President's Office. I'm involved in both Telecentre and Lanka Government Network projects. While developing my professional skills, I do make my best efforts to serve Sri Lankan Government and the general public.

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Future Expectations

        I look forward to work with an organization that enables me to develop my professional career, gain lot of experiences through challenges and be expertized in System and Network Administration area. Or else, I would be happy to be working as a software engineer, security consultant, or in any other satisfactory position, where it enables me to gain lot of experience and knowledge, and to face fresh challenges throughout my work, with my due nature of analytical thinking.

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Achievements

        In October, 2008 I started blogging in my native language. There was no specific reason, I just started for fun. But my Sinhala blog took me a remarkable journey through the Internet journalism. Nowadays I write mostly technology oriented stuff, but rarely personal and fun stuff too.
        In 2009, a contest for Sinhala Blogging was held by Sinhala Language and Literature unit of Royal College of Colombo. My Sinahla blog "ශාකුන්තලගේ සටහන් පොත" (Shaakunthala's Notebook) was awarded the best Sinhala Blog in the contest [watch video]. Also, it was nominated to be the best Sinhala tech-blog -- a close hit. :-)

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Other Stuff

        I have contributed to the "ඉන්ටර්නෙට් සම්පත් භාවිතය" (Let us make use of Internet Resources) radio programme held on Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, sponsored and conducted by CompSoc, University of Colombo. I have been able to participate in several episodes representing the CompSoc.
        I have been contributing to the "තක්සලාව" (Thaksalawa) supplement of Dinamina newspaper, representing UCSC.
        I am an active contributor of diGIT and cPlus e-magazines.

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Okey,... that's it! That is the summary of me, the so called Sri Lankan individual, Sameera Shaakunthala.