We are excited to announce that IFCYBER's Ishan Karunanayake has won the “NSW Outstanding Student Volunteer” Award (IEEE) for 2021

Congratulations to Ishan Karunanyake on his well-deserved award. Ishan also runs IFCYBER HDR reading group and was instrumental in running the IFCYBER conference student competition.

IEEE NSW Award Recognition: NSW Outstanding Student Volunteer – Ishan Kavinda Karunanayake for his contributions to the IEEE UNSW Student Branch, IEEE NSW Section, and IEEE Region 10

"Ishan served as the 2021 chair of IEEE UNSW Student Branch (SB), one of the most active SBs in NSW. He took this position in early 2021 and worked hard to improve the SB in various ways. Some of his main objectives were to improve students’ awareness of IEEE and increase the number of active volunteers in the SB. For this, he created several subcommittees, including a publicity subcommittee. The publicity subcommittee is responsible for managing the social media channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Additionally, he reactivated the EMBS/RAS joint student chapter with the help of new volunteers.

Additionally, Ishan has led his team of student volunteers in organising a number of events in 2021. These events include technical presentations on Brain-Machine Interfaces, Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and Lidar Technology, which are important topics in Bio-Medical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering etc. Some of the events focused on career development and industry opportunities as well. Due to the lockdowns and social distancing rules that have been in place due to Covid, it has been difficult for clubs and societies to work as usual in the last two years. However, Ishan has done an excellent job in keeping the club active during these past months.

In addition to his work as the chair of the IEEE UNSW Student branch, he worked as an ambassador to improve the awareness of the IEEE Computer Society Scholarships in the later part of 2020. He was also a member of the “unswcoffeeoncampus” team, which won 3rd place globally (1st place in Region 10 and Australia) in the IEEEXtreme 14.0 competition held in 2020.

Ishan is not new to volunteering as he has previously been an active IEEE Volunteer affiliated with the IEEE Sri Lankan Section and IEEE University of Moratuwa Student Branch for a few years. The experiences he obtained from his past volunteering activities helped him keep the UNSW student branch active and running amidst the challenges of COVID-19. Grooming a set of volunteers for the coming years has also been one of Ishan’s objectives since he took the position. He has managed to successfully achieve it as the number of active volunteers in their first and second years of the degree programmes have increased in the past year.

Volunteer Positions with the NSW section

1. IEEEXtreme Organising Team – UNSW Student Branch – Sep-Oct 2020
2. IEEE CS Scholarships Outreach Ambassador – IEEE CS SYP – Sep-Dec 2020
3. Student Branch Chair – IEEE UNSW SB – Jan 2021 – Dec 2021

 Past Volunteer Positions with the Sri Lanka Section

1. Secretary – IEEE RAS student chapter – IEEE University of Moratuwa SB – 2016/2017
2. Delegate – Sri Lanka Section - IEEE R10 SYWL Congress – Bangalore, India – 2016
3. Logistic Committee Member – IEEE SL Section SYW Congress – 2016
4. Active Volunteer – IEEE University of Moratuwa SB and Sri Lanka Section"