IESL moves in new direction

The Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) launched a state-of-the-art online membership management system and a new integrated web front recently.

Tilak de Silva	Arjuna Manamperi

Being one of the pioneering professional bodies in the country (established in 1906) and the apex body for professional engineers (Chartered Engineers) in Sri Lanka, IESL has around 13,000 members worldwide. Managing its ever growing membership has been made easier by the implementation of this system and it allows members to overcome distance and time barriers when participating in many activities of the institution irrespective of where they are.

The new system is a software as a service (SaaS), cloud based application. It provides members a self-service portal, discussion fora and blogs, a library of multimedia lectures, public information on membership, engineering news and events, enabling the public to subscribe to the institution's e-Newsletter (Sri Lanka Engineering News) and events, a forum for the public to post engineering questions to be answered by practicing engineers and professional engineering directories. All these features can be accessed at www.iesl.lk.

All operational aspects of membership management are conducted through this online tool and all members have to register in the system. At the launch thousands of members received an email giving instructions on how to login.

"For the first time in the history of IESL, members at all levels can participate fully in IESL's affairs no matter where they are and to make a huge contribution to the engineering profession and education, society and country," said Chairman of the IESL, ICT Committee, Eng. Arjuna Manamperi.

The project team lead by Eng. Manamperi completed the task in five months, under the patronage of IESL President, Eng. Tilak de Silva and the Council. Dedicated staff at the IESL Secretariat and a small group of young IT developers from LakAruna (a CSR project of LakSaviya in Sydney, Australia and CodeGen in Colombo) made up the project team.