Thrishantha

I am a Roboticist at Imperial College London with Sri Lankan origin. I am writing this on 9 th June 2020 with so much sadness about the death of George Floyd under police custody in broad daylight symbolising a general pattern of brutality against Black People. I am not generally categorised to be Black, but being South Asian, I may have few things to share with fellow Black academics. I must confess that I learnt about Black history in the past two weeks than I did in my whole life despite having lived in Baltimore when I was at Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore was a vivid example of how African-American communities are victimized from multiple fronts from within and outside their communities. If one walks just 200 meters from where the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins is located, one could imagine what it would mean to grow up as a child in those neighborhoods. Schools in those areas are traditionally under-funded and going to school is not just waking up, ...

Image courtesy of Moving Images, Moving People! One day in year 2005, Ray visited the University of Moratuwa as the chancellor. I think it was an official meeting to organize an innovations exhibition showcasing the work done by the students. After the meeting, Ray wanted to visit my laboratory located in the Sumanadasa building . I was a bit scared to show it to Ray, because it was full of junk material bought to make field robots. The research lab had no windows. So it was a bit damp and smelly too. He just smiled when I warned him of such possible disappointments. No sooner he entered; he grabbed a chair, sat, and kept looking at the work in progress of a legged robot like a child being mesmerised by a favourite toy. “Why legs? Why not wheels Thrish?” he asked. I knew that he was trying to test me. I said “simply because they have to move on soft terrains in a typical abandoned minefield”. “So you thought about how legs interact with soft soil to its advanta...

මානවයා ගෝත්‍රික සතෙකි. ශිශ්ටාචාර බිහි වන්නටත් කලින් මානවයා ගෝත්‍ර කන්ඩායම් වශයෙන් ජීවත් වූ බවට ශාක්‍ෂි තිබේ. තවමත් කන්ඩායම් හැගීම මිනිසුන්ට දෙන්නට ඉතා ලෙහෙසි දෙයකි. විටෙක ආගම තේමා කරගනත්, තවත් විටක හමේ වර්ණය මුල් කරගෙනත් මිනිසා යුධ වැදී තිබේ. එපමනක් නොව තම පාසල, පාසලේ පන්තිය​, හෝ පාසලේ නිවාසය මුල් කරගෙන අනුන්ට වද හින්සා කරන පාසල් සිසුන් අප දැක ඇත​. අරුමය වනුයේ තම ජීවිත කාලය තුල සාමාන්‍ය මිනිසෙක් තම ගෝත්‍ර හැගීම් ප්‍රකාශ කිරීමට නානා ප්‍රකාර ලේබල තම පිටේ අලවාගැනීමය්. එසේ අලවාගෙන තමාත් තැවෙන අතර අනුනද දුකට පත් කරය්. උතුරෙ මිනිස්සු, දකුනෙ මිනිස්සු, උඩරට​ මිනිස්සු, පහත රට මිනිස්සු, කලු මිනිස්සු, සුදු මිනිස්සු, උගත් මිනිස්සු, නූගත් මිනිස්සු, පොහොසත් මිනිස්සු, දුප්පත් මිනිස්සු, ගැහැනු, පිරිමි, කොකේශියන් මිනිස්සු, නීග්‍රෝ මිනිස්සු, මොංගෝලියන් මිනිස්සු, සිංහල මිනිස්සු, සිංහල බෞද්ධ මිනිස්සු, මුස්ලිම් මිනිස්සු, ...මෙහි කෙලවරක් නැත​. බුදු දහමට අනුව​, මෙය සක්කායධිට්ටියේ කොටසකි. මිනිසා සංසාරයට බැදී ඇති බඳන දහයෙන් ප්‍රතමය හා මහත් ප්‍රාතමික බඳනය වනුයේ මේ සක්කායධිට්ටිය නොහොත් සමාජය විසින් නිර්මානය ...

Last year, we were on Easter holidays in a peaceful Scotish countryside cottage when we heard the horrible news of a series of bomb blasts in Colombo mainly targeting churches and hotels. Bewildered, we were wondering who could scoop down to the level of killing innocent devotees of any religion on a sacred day. First, we looked around to see if our Christian friends were safe and were relieved that all of them were in different places at that time. Then we came to know that it was a series of suicide attacks by an extremist group linked to Daesh . In Sri Lanka, about 70% of the population are Buddhists with about 12% Hindus, 10% Muslims, and 6% Roman Catholics. But, if you visit Sri Lanka during Christmas time, you would not think that only 6% are Roman Catholics. The entire country takes a festive mood. Though there have been isolated conflicts and agitations between various extremist religious groups, there has never been a threat of this nature against any religion in peace...

COVID-19 taught us the value of proactive action against tiny things that can make widespread destruction across communities with different religious believes, tribal identities, and socio-political systems. This dawns upon us a new wisdom that will make us immune to a lot of other seemingly tiny ideas that can cause large scale destruction when there is large scale adoption. Therefore, next time we hear any of the following, pause and think: 1. My tribe is the most civilized, those in the other tribe are savages: COVID-19 exposed the inner generocity of all communities in different parts of the world ranging from cooking food for the vulnerable to volunteering in the respective health services. It also exposed how we behaved in supermarkets irrespective of tribe. It showed how much effort media had to take to teach us how to wash hands, and how to think about others even if we are not in a high risk group. Basically, none is more civilized than others, though there ...

By Thrishantha Nanayakkara It was around 1 am on 9th September 2019. I woke up hearing somebody banging on the door. It took a while to realize what was going on when I heard a faint fire alarm in the corridor. I alerted my wife and woke up my son and daughter. I could see a glare outside the window. It was a real fire in the building. I was in a sarong, but didn’t have the time to get into a jean. Just picked the mobile phone to call the police and ran out. I could see burning debris falling outside the front door, but ran through it. Outside, I could see a shocked community of 23 families from the Richmond house. Fear, despair, uncertainty, and helplessness were shaking us.  We walked round to the hill on the other side of the building and watched how police and fire service vehicles were ramming in. Soon it was a long line up of fire trucks. Two firefighters were squirting water into the building. But the fire grew in rage and engulfed one side of the building very fast...

When we write UK research grants, we have to write some facts relating our research goals to UK National priorities. I write this note because this section can force us to be narrow-minded and miss the whole point of why we should do research. There are 7 billion people in this world now. While some people see this large population to be a problem, some other people see this as a massive opportunity. For instance, if you manage to solve a common problem faced by lets say 4 billion people out of 7 billion, and pave the way to a commercial product that can make just 1-pence of profit per person per day on average, that product makes 365p * 4 billion per year. That is £14.6 billion of profit per year. However, these common problems that make such low profit margins are so mundane like making a self-sharpening pencil,  better box of matches, better soap, etc, and most people may not notice the fundamental research that can lead to such products. Even if they see it, they will give ...