Lasith Gunawardena is a Professor and Head of the Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. The University of Sri Jayewardenepura is Sri Lanka's Largest University by undergraduate student intake. At present, he spearheads the University's Innovation Arm - Invention, Innovation and Venture Creation Council (IIVCC) as it's Co-Chair. He also serves in the Researcher Advisory Council of ORCID Inc. and Advisory Board of STEMUp Foundation. Beyond the University, he functions as the Consultant for the IT for Humanities Project of the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka (Funded by the AHEAD Project / World Bank for over LKR 300 Million) Previously, he has held the positions of Chairman, IEEE Computer Society Sri Lanka Chapter, Honorary secretary for BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Sri Lanka Section. and General Secretary, Sri Lankan Academy of Young Scientists. He has been involved in research grants from USJ, ERASMUS, ORCID Inc., Manchester Metropolitan University and Internet Society (Total exceeding EUR 1 million) He has delivered/lectured for courses at Masters/Undergraduate Level at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Colombo, and Plymoth University (UK). His Research Interests include Information and Communication Technologies, Information Systems, E-learning, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Networks, Information Security, and E-Governance. He has a patent in Japan for the invention of a gesture recognition device. Currently, he has been elected as a fellow of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, UK, and a Senior Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA as well as a Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, USA. He further holds memberships of The Computer Society of Sri Lanka and Internet Society among others. He has been involved in University Level, National (National ICT Awards - NBQSA / SLASSCOM / Sri Lanka Inventor's Commission), and International (APICTA) ICT/Innovation Awards Competitions as a Judge since 2006.