IQ Labs

Indrajith Ekanayake is a Technical Trainer at Codification (based in the UK) and a visiting lecturer at the Open University of Sri Lanka. He obtained his Bachelors from the University of Plymouth in Computer Software Engineering. We wanted to talk about the difference in teaching at an Academic level and Industrial level. 

00:00 Intro

02:23 Academia Vs Industry

09:05 University Education Vs Industrial demand 

10:13 Importance of languages

20:37 Professionals teaching students

21:55 Khan Academy

24:22 How to teach in a fast changing world?

30:54 Issues with American High Education

32:55 LEAN Method

35:47 Reading books

40:12 Soft skills

42:57 Building a network/connections

46:13 Teaching children

50:54 Asking questions

58:33 Downside of technology

1:02:50 How to get people 'Hooked'

1:05:10 Plans for the future

Dr. Kasun Bandara is an aspiring Computer Scientist and researcher, keen on the disciplines of Data Science, Machine Learning, and time series forecasting. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) and worked as a Software Engineer for WSO2, later went to the Monash University in Australia for his PhD.  

0:00:00 Intro

0:00:16 What is Computer Science?

0:04:37 Software Developers/Engineers

0:07:36 IT - Information Technology 

0:09:41 CSE - Computer Science and Engineering

0:11:19 Current challenges

0:19:28 Kasun's Academic journey

0:27:37 Artificial Intelligence

0:46:12 Neural Network

0:50:13 Linear Vs Non-Linear problems

0:53:46 Activation Function

0:55:52 Importance of Mathematics

0:58:30 Supervised Vs Unsupervised Learning

1:00:07 Backpropagation

1:00:47 Cost function

1:05:09 Black box

1:11:42 Recommended courses

1:22:39 Plans for the future

Today's episode we will talk about the cross-section of biology and computer science. Warren Manuel and Prabath Meemaduma both obtained their Bachelors from the Faculty of Science at the University of Colombo, specializing in Bioinformatics. They are currently pursuing their PhDs in the same field. Warren is at the UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics (Houston, Texas) and Prabath is at the UMass Lowell Biochemistry Department. 

Recommended courses and resources from Prabath:

"This was a course I took previously. https://www.edx.org/course/statistics-and-r

And the other course I took was archived, it might go online again later: https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:USMx+BIF001x+2T2017_2/c3bfe5ce4b794049b72c99229551bf01/

And this is a really good molecular biology course: https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-biology-the-secret-of-life-3

These are some resources which I don't have a personal experience of:

1. https://bioinformatics.ca/workshops/

2. https://www.bioinformaticscareerguide.com/2018/01/get-bioinformatics-education-online-for.html

3. https://github.com/ossu/bioinformatics

If you want already have coding skills and want to practice skills needed bioinformatics this is a good resource to learn with real life applications": https://rosalind.info/problems/locations/

00:00 Intro

00:42 What is Bioinformatics

02:31 History of Bioinformatics

03:18 Structure of DNA

11:22 Human Genome Project

12:11 Where to learn this? 

13:42 Importance during the pandemic

15:17 How the Covid test works

18:15 Contact tracing

19:53 Skills required

21:37 Python Vs R

24:48 Research areas

29:10 Future of Bioinformatics

30:37 Causation Vs Correlation

37:20 Industrial demand

Dr. Channa De Silva is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Western Carolina University. Dr. De Silva teaches chemistry and carries out research in the areas of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computational chemistry. He is open for collaborations with Sri Lankan students. You can contact him via email: [email protected] Slides for this talk can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z4iDGi-noqIozOCMo5RZyHcYzbErinZa/view?usp=sharing

00:00 Channa's story

03:30 Computational Sciences

05:47 History

09:11 Protein folding, drug design

10:15 Resources to learn

12:15 Super computers

15:33 How to approach a problem

21:06 Sample simulation

23:51 Classical Vs Quantum mechanics

25:44 Programming languages

28:42 Advantage of Linux

29:30 Importance of Physics and Math

31:56 Demand in job market

32:46 Open projects

Let's dive into the history of imaginary numbers - what gave rise to them? 

Dr. Kasun Fernando received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He did his Bachelors from the University of Colombo.  He is currently a junior visitor at Centro di Recerca Matematica Ennio De Giorgi, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He is primarily interested in the interplay among Dynamical Systems, Probability Theory and Statistics, and applying Machine Learning techniques to these areas of Mathematics. In particular, his research focuses on statistical properties of dynamical systems, the Bootstrap for dynamically generated data, and normalizing flows. 

00:00 Intro

00:15 Why do you like Mathematics?

02:18 Proof reading Sri Lankan text books

03:36 Teaching the applications of Mathematics

04:58 Aren't all numbers imaginary? 

07:05 On Noam Chomsky about languages

10:09 History behind imaginary numbers 

20:18 Are all numbers Complex? 

22:26 Quantum mechanics, Electronics 

33:48 Theories Vs Theorems

40:31 Philosophy of Science

Let's talk about Cyber Security (Information Security) with Shihan Annon. He started small in Sri Lanka from his boss' garage. Under the leadership of Nabhan Akeel they established a partnership with Eguardian from Singapore and expanded globally to other countries. He is an accomplished Technocrat and entrepreneur, playing a key role as Chief Visionary Officer defining and driving global strategy of LIMRA’s IT cluster.

00:58 What made you interested?

04:00 using Linux (IRC)

04:44 Story of your company

06:07 Starting from a garage

07:19 Your boss - Nabhan Akeel

09:04 Milestones

10:04 Importance of Cyber Security

12:43 Mindset of a hacker

15:37 Advice to School students

18:21 Formal education is limited

19:19 Job requirements

20:46 Bug bounty hunting

23:34 Cyber warfare

27:26 Cover your webcams

28:01 Why is my data important

29:31 Scamming people

30:28 Risk is more

31:11 How big is your company?

32:15 Future trends

34:10 Python is useful

34:30 Advice to youth 

Dr. Muditha Senarath -Yapa is the head of John Keells Research and the Vice President of John Keells Holdings. Let's take a look at his story from School to Undergraduate to Post Graduate and then entering the industry.   01:12 School Days 24:54 Coming back home 28:06 Switching Research Areas 30:53 Returning to Sri Lanka 34:42 John Keels investing in Nano Tech 38:48 Listening to Ravi Fernando 41:02 How Industry works 51:32 on humility

Today’s guest is Dr. Chandanamali Punchihewa. She is a Scientist with extensive experience in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Drug Discovery. Founded Genelabs Medical (Pvt) Ltd in order to perform high-complexity genetic tests that have not been available in Sri Lanka. She was one of the first batches of students who specialized in the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry program at the University of Colombo. She obtained her PhD from the University of Arizona, USA and did her postdoc at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. 00:00 Intro 00:29 Childhood and Family 05:48 First batch of Molecular Biology and Bio Chemistry 08:03 Dr. Maya Gunasekara - GeneTech 10:43 What is Molecular Biology 12:41 Covid-19 and Molecular Biology 14:19 After Bachelors 20:50 PhD Research 22:53 Post Doc at St. Jude's (Patent) 28:39 Next Generation Sequencing & Bio Informatics 31:17 Returning to Sri Lanka 37:16 At Lanka Hospitals 39:46 Getting used to working in Sri Lanka 42:38 Regrets coming back to Sri Lanka? 43:32 Starting GeneLabs Medical 48:58 Advice to the next Generation

Let's talk about the uses of Applied Mathematics with Sanjaya Ariyawansa. Sanjaya is currently following is Masters in Economics at Oxford University, UK. He graduated from the University of Colombo with a BSc in Mathematics (Hons).   00:00 About Sanjaya 01:23 Why Mathematics? 02:57 Economics/Social Science 05:43 Teaching to Commerce students 10:45 Maths in the private sector 16:55 Advice to Commerce/Arts/Tech students 21:54 Listening to discussions 24:09 Future jobs  27:00 Future plans 30:34 Game Theory

Jayathma Wickramanayake is a Sri Lankan born international civil servant who currently serves as the United Nations Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth. She did her undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo.  00:00 About Jayathma 00:25 Jayathma's work 01:35 What is youth? 03:30 What is the UN? 08:43 Countries similar to us 13:40 How countries develop 14:58 Definition of 'developed'  19:41 America is not developed yet 21:58 Issues with GDP 25:17 Types of opportunities 35:02 Migration/Brain Drain 38:06 Is Free Education bad? 45:57 Don't limit yourself 50:23 Be willing to learn 52:41 Your vision