InsightX - Beyond the Model
InsightX: Beyond the Model, powered by IFS and organized by IEEE LETs talk in collaboration with IEEE Young Professionals Sri Lanka, is a premier Data Science and Machine Learning workshop designed to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world industry practice. The workshop aims to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of how data-driven technologies are applied across the industry, while exposing them to modern Data Science and Machine Learning workflows, emerging technologies, and real-world AI applications. Through a combination of expert-led sessions, industry discussions, and practical learning, participants will gain insight into the complete AI lifecycle, from identifying business problems and preparing data to developing, evaluating, and deploying Machine Learning solutions.
The workshop brings together experienced industry professionals and technology leaders to provide participants with both technical knowledge and career-focused insights. Sessions will explore how organizations integrate Data Science and Machine Learning into business operations, the collaboration between different technical roles, emerging industry practices, and the skills employers seek in aspiring data professionals. An interactive career panel will further guide participants on career pathways, portfolio development, internships, certifications, technical interviews, and successfully transitioning from university to industry. The workshop will culminate in a hands-on, end-to-end Machine Learning session where participants will work with a real-world, industry-inspired use case, gaining practical experience in dataset preparation, feature engineering, model development, performance evaluation, and deployment considerations. By the end of the workshop, participants will have strengthened their technical and professional capabilities while developing a practical, portfolio-ready Machine Learning project.
Date and Time
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- Starts 18 August 2026 01:30 PM UTC
- Ends 10 September 2026 06:30 PM UTC
- No Admission Charge
Speakers
Mr. Tharindu Sankalpa
From Data to Decisions: The Future of Data Science & Machine Learning (Keynote Session)
Biography:
Tharindu Sankalpa is a Lead Machine Learning Engineer at IFS with over six years of experience building production AI infrastructure at enterprise scale. His expertise spans GPU-based model inference, vector databases, agentic systems, MCP, and GraphRAG, along with Kubernetes and multi-cloud deployments across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Mr. Ramindu Walgama
The Data Science Career Playbook (Panel Discussion)
Biography:
Ramindu Walgama is a Data Scientist at IFS with over three years of experience building Machine Learning solutions and Operations. His expertise spans across academia as well as industry, including generative models, computer vision, large language models, and vision-language models. He holds first-class honours degrees from UCSC and IIT.
Ms. Nishakya Ranasinghe
The Data Science Career Playbook (Panel Discussion)
Biography:
Nishakya Ranasinghe is a Lead – Sales & Marketing, Data & AI at OCTAVE, John Keells Group, with around 6 years of experience across analytics, investment research, and consumer insights. She has worked across data science delivery, commercial strategy, and FemTech innovation, driving go-to-market efforts for analytics and AI solutions. She is passionate about data-driven decision-making and building products that address real consumer needs, particularly in the women's health space. Nishakya holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Industrial Organisation from the University of Warwick, UK, graduating with First Class honours on her final year dissertation.
Mr. Keshan Sodimana
From Data to Deployment: An End to End ML Solution (Hands-on session )
Biography:
Keshan Sodimana is an Associate Architect in Machine Learning at LSEG, with over a decade of experience in AI, Machine Learning, and Language Technologies. A former Google Country Engineering Consultant, he worked on Sinhala speech technologies and Google products. He is also the Founder of GDG Sri Lanka and a Google Developer Expert in Machine Learning. Keshan holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Colombo.
Mr. Isuru Wijesiri
The Data Science Career Playbook
Biography:
Isuru Wijesiri is an AI researcher and Associate Technical Lead at WSO2, where he works on AI R&D for enterprise integration. He actively publishes research on natural language processing, agentic AI, and graph machine learning, with his latest work on automatic post-editing for low-resource languages appearing in the Findings of EMNLP 2026.
Agenda
9:00 AM - 9:05 AM : Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:05 AM - 9:50 AM : Session 01: From Data to Decisions: The Future of Data Science & AI (Keynote session)
9:50 AM - 10:10 AM : Kahoot Quiz
10:10 AM - 11:10 AM : Session 02- The Data Science Career Playbook (Panel Discussion with Q&A)
11:10 AM - 11:30 AM : Networking Session and Refreshments
11:30 AM - 1:30 PM : Session 03- From Data to Deployment: An End to End ML Solution (Hands on practical session)
1:30 PM - 1:40 PM : Closing Remarks and Group Photograph
