Thrishantha

    Instead of simply wishing a Happy New Year, I wanted to share some insights from recent experience. After all, years don’t bring happiness on their own—happiness comes from how thoughtfully we navigate them. First, reflect on the accomplishments in the past year or two. For me, one of the most personal highlights was moving back into our rebuilt flat in Worcester Park, five years after the devastating fire . As I write this note, I’m gazing out from the living room at the beautifully designed countryside view—a tranquil scene that almost makes you forget we’re just a 30-minute train ride from London Waterloo. Professionally, much of 2024 was dedicated to my sabbatical at Imperial, which proved to be a deeply fulfilling time. I focused on completing the world's first Handbook on Soft Robotics , began an exciting new research collaboration with some fantastic colleagues at NASA JPL, and laid extensive groundwork to launch a startup based on over eight ...

April 2024 is a memorable month in my sabbatical. Not only did I have the privilege of reconnecting with numerous collaborators, friends, and colleagues across the East and West Coasts of the US, but I also dipped myself in nostalgia of revisiting locations that hold a special place in my heart. Baltimore On 5 th April, the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) celebrated the 60 th anniversary. I arrived a day early to visit the Reza Shadmehr lab where I did my postdoc 22 years ago. I also made this an opportunity to visit the Thread initiative founded by my friend Sarah Hemminger, who was a PhD student at Shadmehr lab when I was a postdoc. Walking around the School of Medicine with Reza brought back so many memories about this amazing bastion of intellectual exploration. Reza came to the lab on a Saturday to show me some new experiments. His explanations on the blackboard transported me back to my postdoctoral days, bringing back fond me...

  I was invited to give a talk on “Trends in Robotics and AI – How Sri Lanka can prepare to ride the economic wave” to the senior policy staffers of the honourable members of the Sri Lankan parliament (225 MPs in Sri Lankan parliament). In the Youtube video below, I talked in Sinhalese but kept the slides in English as a compromise to make maximum impact. I am not sure how far my final recommendations would go, but I think any developing country can benefit from the formula I proposed. Here is the essence: Economic development cannot be spoon-fed. People should be challenged to stand on their own feet, and they should be rewarded for trying. Just like making origami, kirigami, and other crafts is a household habit in Japan, playing football is a street thing in Brazil, playing Cricket is part of life in Sri Lanka, any country who wants to be a leader in any field, it should be cultivated at a grassroots level. The next waves of AI and Robotics will be the same.  How do we make...