There are maps and map makers too

There are maps once drawn. Maps once lived. Some drawn and torn. Some marked wrong. And some maps renewed. There were maps to study, maps to frown over. They meant something.  Sometimes life is land surveying or cartography.  Hearts wait for people and places like maps that wait for countries yet to come.

Even our bodies are mapped. We don’t let blood vessels to run wherever they like. Their ways are carefully identified. Every artery and vein will have their   right turns, left turns, bumpers, slopes up, slopes down and some with one ways. Some will be lucky. They will have their byroads, so that they can avoid blockades and traffic. Hearts too have roads, packed with places they‘ve seen, things they want to forget, things they’ve left and things they don’t want to stray into.

Everything is marked and mapped.

We are regular mappers. Formulators. Cartographers by birth.  ‘When a map maker learns a place isn’t identified, he will soon start positioning it. That becomes very regular for them, ‘he says. Maps are precise. Map makers won’t confuse you.

Akshika Wijesundara is a product of Royal College and is currently a third year student studying Computer Science Engineering at the University of Moratuwa. He has always liked computers.  He is a gamer since he was three years old. ‘I got my first computer when I was in Grade two. There onwards I tried learning things by myself. Was pretty much addicted to it’ he interjected. He took A/Ls in math stream.

He is a map maker by habit. He teaches how to make maps. He creates maps all day and night. He helps Google to develop maps for Sri Lanka. Technically, he is making things easy for travelers around Sri Lanka and even for the foreigners who come down to our country. He maps restaurants, HOTELS, byroads, streets and every visitor attraction with reviews.

‘Later, when I watched the movie titled ‘The Social Network’, it inspired me a lot to take up my carrier as a computer science engineer’ he said. Akshika is definitely closer to his dream. Not just being a computer science student . He is far beyond. He is a Google Student Ambassador representing Sri Lanka.  For him it’s a very rare chance, having competed with a large number of South East Asians coming from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan who are far ahead in technology and almost techies by nature. He isn’t just creating maps or developing them, but also organizes map making sessions island wide bringing university students together.

Akshika  works with a team consisting  four namely, Alagarasan Mahalingam from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Dulshani Gunawardane from University of Moratuwa, Madhaw Perera from Colombo School of Computing and Kasun Gunasekara from Informatics Institute of Technology. Thus Akshika is the liaison for Google Inc in the USA.

‘We have initiated Google Student Communities in almost every university. There’s a lot of effort put to spread IT and knowledge across Sri Lanka. I got to travel long distances to hold workshops. It’s no easy task. But I’m happy because there is a large crowd in thirst of these’. This was his story.

Akshika is running the second batch of Sri Lanka’s Google Student Ambassadors and is helping promote IT among Sri Lankans. He says that University of Moratuwa having won the Summer of Code for the seventh consecutive year conducted by Google globally, this country has hope for a better future in IT and technology.

Being a Google liaison, Akshika says that it is a life changing experience to travel other countries to facilitate and participate in Google trainings. It has given him the opportunity to reach out to people in Google, to talk with Directors and other heads and work cooperatively.  Akshika had just been to Philippines to represent Sri Lanka at the Google Ambassador Summit. He will be also going to Singapore this month for an Internship in International Design Center offered by Research Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA.

He likes to thank his  parents, a few friends like Dinal, Vimukthi,  Saranee, his  boarding mates and almost every lecturer in University, Department Heads and school teachers who  have helped him come this way .Akshika has been a notorious school boy, even then managed to get in to Computer  Science Engineering with the idea of doing ‘awesome stuff’.  He is doing his own startup company providing innovative software and hardware solutions with a few friends and has won awards and honors in many IT competitions.

Akshika has mapped a long way. He isn’t just a Google Map Maker. He is a maker in many computer-related things. Let these lines in maps take him far more, form bridges and connect  rivers, streams and everything else here and there.


(Featured in "The Nation FREE" on 5th October 2014)