Skip to main content

The mind behind open-source technology: Sanjiva Weerawarana


Sanjiva Weerawarana

WSO2, Ballerina, Lanka Software Foundation

The United States to Sri Lanka, the man behind the world of open-source technology, and a brain behind how the world's technology came to what it is today!

Creating technologies that can change the world, Sanjiva Weerawarana's latest creation Ballerina is Sri Lanka's first programming language and the world's first cloud-native programming language.

At the age of 15, one day I picked up my phone and called Sanjiva, now it has to be made clear that Sanjiva didn't know who I was, and I got his contact number from an [undisclosed method]. I dialled to his number, and talked to him for a good 10 minutes, introducing myself, and giving a good (don't know whether it was really good) pitch about a new project that I was working on. He's a really good listener and he made it clear after the pitch, that he's not the right person to the project, that was understandable because he actually had nothing to do with the education industry in Sri Lanka. But he didn't stop there, he told me then, that there is a good friend of his who might actually be very interested in my project, and he didn't hesitate to intro me to that person. 

Weerawarana studied Applied Mathematics / Computer Science at Kent State University before completing her PhD at Purdue University. He then joined IBM Research in Hawthorne, New York, until he left to create the startup WSO2. Currently lives in Colombo. 
 Weerawarana has been working at the Apache Software Foundation since 2000, when he was working on the original Apache SOAP project. Weerawarana is an elected member of the foundation and an affidavit for various projects. A complete and up-to-date list of the Apache projects he has participated in can be found here: Apache Committers. 
 In 2004, he established the Lanka Software Foundation to encourage open source activities in Sri Lanka. He is the director there.






Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The LOLC empire: Ishara Nanayakkara

Ishara Nanayakkara Son of Rajah Nanayakkara, is a business magnate and a Sri Lankan entrepreneur, and the richest man in Sri Lanka as of (2020).  Ishara Nanayakkara's father is Rajah Nanayakkara, founder and CEO of Ishara Traders (Pvt) Ltd. The company is leading the way in importing and selling new and reconditioned cars. Thirty years later, the organization is still a leader in the industry.   Ishara turned into financial services and started investing in financial companies like LOLC. He was also appointed to the LOLC Board of Directors in 2002. He also served as Vice President of Lanka Orix Finance from 2011 to 2018 and was appointed President of Browns Investments in 2013. In  , you resigned from the board of directors of Sairam Bank in September 2018. After serving as a member of the board of directors from 2002 to 2018, he was appointed as the president of LOLC in 2018. Under his leadership, as of December 2018, the total asset value of LOLC has reached 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creating the island's largest ecommerce company: Dulith Herath

Dulith Herath is the founder and CEO of Kapruka. Kapruka's business started with the simple idea of ​​helping immigrants buy things for their loved ones in Sri Lanka. By establishing a rose flower farm, Dulith allows foreign Sri Lankans to send flowers to their loved ones at home. The success of the flower delivery service allowed Dulith to expand its business into what is now known as Sri Lanka's largest e-commerce organization, with more than 10,000 products and more than 30 unique types of services. Additionally, Dulith opened Java Lounge, a coffee shop franchise, which is the first coffee shop in Sri Lanka to offer Starbucks coffee. Kapruka's success was inspired by the company's innovative spirit, which set the standard for Sri Lanka's online business strategy and web-based benchmarks. Mitra has worked with Dulith on multiple projects in the past (eg Leaf, an energy monitoring tool) and hopes to maintain this partnership in the future. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Creating a billion dollar Fortune 500 Company: Kumar Mahadeva

Kumar Mahadeva is the great-great-grandson to Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam who has been a notable Legislator, a leading government functionary, and a businessman in Sri Lanka in the 1980s.  Kumar's father, Baku Mahadeva, is also a well-known Sri Lankan government official who serves directly to the minister or secretary of the Ministry of Defense, Land, Agriculture and Food, Public Administration and Interior. Baku has served as chairman of several Sri Lankan banks and a member of the board of directors of leading Sri Lankan organizations.   Apart from all the history classes, the story of Kumar Mahadeva is also a commentary by Harvard Business School, a characteristic Harvard alumnus in the Harvard leadership portfolio. Before founding Cognizant, Kumar worked at the BBC, McKinsey, AT&T, and Dun & Bradstreet. His company Cognizant is an American digital company providing IT services with an estimated net worth of $ 16.8 billion. The company also has ...
Post a Comment
Read more