‘Planet Hunters’ wins merit at the APICTA 2022

Three third year undergraduates of Informatics Institute of Technology, Sri Lanka (IIT), Hamdaan Mohideen (Isipathana College), Kanishka Hewageegana (Ananda College) and Praveen Thayalan (Lyceum, Wattala), won the second merit award at the APICTA 2022 Awards, in Islamabad, by competing with 17 countries of the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance.

The team of three named as ‘Planet Hunters’ participated in the National Best Quality Software Awards, Sri Lanka (NBQSA), and won the Gold award in the Student Tertiary category in the technology field.

They pitched a desktop-based exoplanet detection assistant application with integrated machine learning features to detect and analyse exoplanets far beyond our galaxy. The trio was mentored by Torin Wirasingha, a lecturer at IIT, Sri Lanka.