VirtusaPolaris summit showcases next-gen technology careers for tech graduates

From left: NishanthaHettiarachchi, senior architect – Technology; Chinthi Weerasinghe, Vice President – Delivery and Shiham Nawaz, Manager – Delivery sharing insights with the students. Bottom row (From Left) – Students responding to the speakers’ questions; the discussion on ‘Life at VirtusaPolaris’ and Dilshan Botheju, a final year student from Java Institute, collecting his prize

VirtusaPolaris, the market-facing brand of Virtusa Corporation and Polaris Consulting & Services, Ltd., recently hosted nearly 200 undergraduate tech students from 15 of the country’s leading universities and higher education institutions at the VirtusaPolaris Converse 2017 graduate meet up held at The British School in Colombo.
The event which was organized as part of the company’s ongoing Campus Reach initiative,offered students a glimpse of the diverse career paths in the IT services industry and the skills they need to focus on to avail these opportunities.
The event started with technical sessions on the work that VirtusaPolaris was doing at its development centers and offices around the world. Nishantha Hettiarachchi, senior architect - Technology, spoke about the company’s core technology practices, emerging trends and opportunities available in those areas. This was followed by a session on Business Process Management (BPM) and developing Pega based BPM solutions by Shiham Nawaz, Manager – Delivery. 
Chinthi Weerasinghe,Vice President - Delivery, highlighted the importance of software testing and quality assurance and how VirtusaPolaris was increasingly automating the test process and focusing on detecting possible flaws early in the development cycle. Anuradha Weeraman, Associate Director – Delivery, shed light on Internet of Things (IoT) and how VirtusaPolaris was working like a startup to develop critical IoT based solutions for its clients. The technical sessions were followed by a discussion on ‘Life at VirtusaPolaris’ where a panel comprising recently joinedas well as veteran team members from VirtusaPolaris shared personal stories of how their careers had progressed within the company, the learning and development opportunities they had received and many other exciting experiences. Showcasing some of the cutting-edge work VirtusaPolaris’ team members were doing for some of the leading, global companies and enabling them re-imagine their businesses, the sessions helped the students get a first-hand view on the various opportunities the technology space was offering them to pursue and grow their career. VirtusaPolaris also apprised the students on some of the career opportunities available at the company.
Later, the students visited the information booths outside the auditorium and sought guidance from the speakers on their individual areas of interest. Several final year students in the audience also took part in the primary evaluation examination that was conducted on site for job openings at the company.
A live contest held during the course of the event saw over 40 students proposing IoT-based solutions developed using the Microservices architecture to improve public services in the country. An expert panel from VirtusaPolaris evaluatedthese solutions which the students had posted on the VirtusaPolaris Converse 2017 event page on Facebook. Dilshan Botheju, a final year student from Java Institute,proposed a solution which uses micro server technology to connect public services in the country for providingefficient services to citizens was adjudged the winner of the contest and awarded a tablet computer.