Meet Sri Lankan Researcher- Ravihansa Rajapakse.

What are you currently working on or worked on before?

Understanding the Role of Social Partners when Designing with People with Cognitive or Sensory Impairment.

What encouraged you to pursue your research topic?

Helping underprivileged people to gain equal power.

Where do you find your best inspiration for your work?

In people. I see challenges, motivations, and opportunities when working with people.

Can you share with us some of your publications?

Yes, you can find them on my Researchgate profile.

What’s one of your biggest personal achievements so far?

Honourable Mention in Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2018 (DIS 2018) for the paper “Design artifacts to support people with a disability to build personal infrastructures”.

What lessons would you share with a budding researcher?

To be always respectful with research participants and attempt to engage them in solution development as much as possible.

What motivated you to be a researcher?

Drive to help society. I want to find what causes certain people to be marginalized and to explore sustainable solutions with the help of different communities.

If there is a chance, will you help build research in Sri Lanka?

Without a doubt.

According to your opinion, what are the changes that the Sri Lankan education system needs to do, in order to meet the requirement of the international industry and academia?

It should be made more open so that students could choose their desired path without hesitation. Providing a chance to engage in open-ended projects would be a good start. We need to include aspects such as values, and ethics (especially in the school system) in the curricula so that we produce responsible human beings.