….yet another milestone in reaching out to the Sri Lankan community with a practical workshop on IT/Computers…
By Rohan de Alwis
The Association of Professional Sri Lankans in the UK (“APSL UK”) has been holding practical workshops and knowledge cascading sessions using its vast ‘gene pool’ of intellectual experts to the Sri Lankan community for more than a year now. The latest of their “ASK THE EXPERT” Series was the “IT Guru” Event held at the Sri Lanka High Commission in London on Saturday 7th March 2009.
There was an impressive line up of six Speakers consisting of Mr Lasantha de Alwis, Corporate Secretary of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation; Rev Dr Prem Fernando of the University of Warwick; Dr Anura Perera of Ansys UK Ltd; Mr Mohan Siriwardena, Lecturer at the University of Salford; Mr Sisira Maddumage of Magni Arts and APSL UK’s General Secretary Mr Mervyn Silva, IT Management Consultant to the NHS.
Mr Lasantha de Alwis opened the forum with a very useful presentation for beginners and those operating PC’s without training. Lasantha showed those present how to open files and manage a PC. Many beginners found this very useful and practically relevant to them. For those who were veterans in IT also found the presentation a quick reminder of the basics they had forgotten or taken for granted.
Rev Dr Prem Fernando took the audience beyond “surfing for pleasure” with an in-depth analysis into search engines for work and information/research purposes. Rev Fernando showed the audience how to meta-search and go beyond the normal searches to obtain information.
How to create personalised mail/letters was Mr Mohan Siriwardena’s topic, again very essential for the “Home Office” worker, as well as for those who run their own businesses. Producing professional personalised letters using a single document and an address list, printing address labels and promoting your business or association with a personalised mailer were some of the hands-on practical matters on which Mohan engaged the audience.
Mr Sisira Maddumage, a well known photographer, gave an insight into digital photography and the use of your computer to enhance the final product, - the photo. With digital cameras being widely available now at affordable prices, Sisira showed those present how to use shutter speeds, lighting, exposure, angles etc to get the best ever photo.
Mr Mervyn Silva dealt in detail as to how one could organise one’s Diary on the PC, thus getting to appointments/meetings on time with pre-meeting reminders, noting birthdays and important dates, using contact lists on the PC and also how to use the “BCC” column on emails when confidentiality of the email addresses had to be maintained.
The final Speaker, Dr Anura Perera showed the audience how to make an impact by making PowerPoint Presentations and also how to make the best PowerPoint Presentations. Anura gave some helpful hints and tips on how to save time by using existing text and charts, increasing the impact by adding photos and livening up the presentations using animation.
There were many questions and inter-action from the audience, which included participants working for multi-nationals such as BT, NHS and British Airways and of course those self-employed IT entrepreneurs. Most importantly, the majority who benefitted from the IT Guru Event were the private individuals who use personal computers on a day to day basis.
Mr Ron Perera in his vote of thanks noted with appreciation the High Commissioner’s commitment to APSL by making available the large auditorium/meeting room, the dedication of the executive committee of APSL in ensuring the Ask the Expert Series has continued into the second year in succession. The next in the “Ask the Expert” Series would be “Surviving the Credit Crunch and the opportunities it presents” full details of which will be published on the APSL website www.apsl.org.uk and in the Sri Lankans newspapers.