FITIS 20th YCS competition gears to produce exceptionally talented IT wizards

With information technology continuing to play a critical role in steering ahead local and global economies, the Software Chapter of the Federation of Information Technology Industry of Sri Lanka (FITIS) will take the lead to produce exceptionally talented IT wizards through its highly sought-after Young Computer Scientist (YCS) competition, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. 

Commanding a two-decade-long vibrant history, the YCS competition has gone onto create an important benchmark at not just helping complement the national agenda of ensuring highly skilled future ICT professionals but also paves the way for students to develop their ICT skills and competencies, which in turn results in them producing ICT products of exceptional precision, sophistication and innovation from a very young age. 

FITIS Chairman Dr. Prasad Samarasinghe said that the competition enjoys a firm footing as a key ICT competition at school level, aiming to discover and encourage the multi-talents of students, apart from encouraging and harnessing their skills as innovators.

“FITIS takes pride in being the apex body of the ICT industry in Sri Lanka and has ensured that this competition is not only restricted to Colombo but over the years, we have expanded this competition across Sri Lanka, in our efforts to discover innovators from all over Sri Lanka, immaterial whether they hail from urban cities or rural towns,” Dr. Samarasinghe said. 

The YCS competition is organised with the support of the Education Ministry and University of Colombo’s School of Computing. Applications for the 20th YCS competition commenced in April 2021. However, due to the overwhelming demand the organisers received from students from across Sri Lanka, the deadline to upload projects has been extended till August 31, 2021. 

The competition is open for students between the ages of 10 to 20, who are attending government, private and international schools. They can submit their entry projects on a variety of areas, including internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics, big data analytics as well as websites, mobile app, desktop app and computer game applications. More information can be obtained at https://www.ycs.lk/. 

FITIS Software Chapter President Fairooz Habeeb said that with the onset of the technological revolution, digital disruption and migration from industry 3.0 to 4.0, the industry has been evolving rapidly. As such, FITIS and Software Chapter is of the firm belief that developing highly skilled ICT professionals is imperative in helping Sri Lanka achieve its ambitious growth goals. 

“Students must be educated on the importance of ICT and the benefits of developing IT skills from a very early age, therefore I am certain that the YCS competition will no doubt change the status quo among students in Sri Lanka in an IT sense,” he said. 

Meanwhile, for the first time in its history, the competition will also include a new Open Category for students aged between 16 to 21 at the 20th YCS competition, in an effort to provide this age group also the opportunity to showcase their talents on a number of pertinent areas including, agro tech challenges, renewable energy challenges and smart city challenges.