CAREER

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada — Associate Director, Systems at the Centre for Extended Learning

December 2018 – PRESENT

• I lead an innovative team of online technology consultants who build e-learning tech for the University of Waterloo.

 

Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, BC, Canada — Adviser: Open Educational Resources

JANUARY 2016 – December 2018

• I successfully completed the Open Educational Resources for Skills Development (USD600K) project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, USA. My mandate was to facilitate the development of OER policy frameworks at national, provincial and institutional levels while building capacity of teachers to develop good-quality OER learning materials.
• During the project, I developed 29 provincial OER policies and sensitized 649 policy makers in Cameroon, Botswana and Sri Lanka; 53 institutional policies in Kenya and India; 26 OER skills courses and toolkits with over 10 hours of instructional videos; and trained 272 teachers from 89 institutions in OER reuse and course development.
• I trained over 140 master trainers on Android mobile application development in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Bangladesh.    

The Open University of Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka — Director, International Academic Relations Division and Acting Director, National Online Distance Education Service (NODES)

OCTOBER 2014 – SEPTEMBER 2015

• The International Academic Relations Division acts as the interface between the University and the global academic community. I developed and implemented the institutional OER policy for the University; established the ‘Distinguished Lecture Series’ where scholarly lectures are live streamed monthly by eminent international academics to a global audience; signed MoUs with several international Universities; facilitated ten international workshops; and organized several international staff development attachments and student exchange programs.
• NODES is an entrepreneurial, self-sustaining, national agency established to coordinate the delivery of online distance education programs. I migrated the NODES data center to University premises working closely with national and international vendors who were selected through a comprehensive tender process; streamlined the NODES operations including the 26 access centers distributed across the country; developed business plans to achieve self-sustainability for NODES; designed technical plans to revamp the existing technology architecture; generated new business through public private partnerships; and designed action plans to deliver high quality distance education to the masses.

Wawasan Open University, Penang, Malaysia — Deputy Dean and Senior Lecturer, School of Science and Technology

AUGUST 2009 – AUGUST 2014

• During my one-year term (Jul 2013-Aug 2014) as Deputy Dean, I managed 17 academic staff; provided leadership in administrative and academic functions of the school; designed financial projections and operating budgets for the school; provided leadership in undergraduate and postgraduate affairs, course development and delivery, tutor assessment and examinations; established research clusters; and coordinated a total of 8-10 courses per year at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
• As a senior lecturer, I designed and developed 5 Bachelor of Technology (Hons) degrees in Software Engineering, Information Systems, Multimedia Design, Networks and Data Communication and Database Management; designed and developed the MBA in Manufacturing and Production Management program; successfully coordinated the program accreditations for BTech (Hons) in Electronic Commerce and BTech(Hons) in Information Systems by the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA); coordinated a total of 8-10 courses per year at undergraduate and postgraduate level – the courses taught are Advanced Manufacturing (PG), Enterprise Resource Planning (PG), Visual Programming, Human Computer Interaction, Electronic Commerce, Data Structures and Algorithms, Website Design and Development, Operating Systems, Intelligent Systems for Decision Support, Web Database Applications and Software Project Management; conducted research and development funded by foreign and local grants; and developed/co-authored ODL course material for UG and PG courses.

Veenus Group, Windsor, UK — Operations Director, IT Manager, IT Coordinator

SEPTEMBER 2006 – MARCH 2009

• V Designers Ltd. is a startup company which offered affordable, high quality web solutions for SMEs based in UK. As the Operations Director (Feb 2008 – Mar 2009), I managed all operations of the company including technology, project management, sales and marketing. I managed a technical team which included web designers, software developers, graphics designers and content developers who worked remotely from Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Mexico. In less than a year of operation, I managed to secure 15 portfolio clients with approximately 80% gross profit.
• As the IT Manager for the Veenus Group (Apr 2007 – Jan 2008), I developed new IT support strategies for staff development and streamlining operations; managed all software, hardware, networking, security strategy and implementation aspects.
• As the IT Coordinator (Sep 2006 – Mar 2007), I designed the system architecture and developed the company business process management solution “Veenus DEBI” in VB.NET and MS SQL Server 2000. This system drives the complete business including operations, administration, HRM, finance, reporting, and MIS for 3 travel trade companies.

Hayleys Infocarft Ltd., Colombo, Sri Lanka — Associate Software Engineer

AUGUST 2005 – MAY 2006

• Infocraft Ltd. Is an ISO 9001-2000 certified software/web Development company where I developed modules for ERP systems using C#.Net and MSSQL Server 2000; developed a script for distributed database synchronization over low bandwidth lines; developed a custom reporting module based on Crystal Reports; executed R&D in areas such as distributed database synchronization, mobile and wireless applications of ERP solutions, barcode recognition, OCR and document scanning techniques.