Since the inception of the Faculty of Engineering in University of Jaffna, the Department of Civil Engineering continued to grow in strength. Being the first choice for students as a specialization degree in the first years and the strength of academic staff were a testament. Since joining the Department of Civil Engineering in August 2015 when the first batch of students (E13) had just started their 4th semester (beginning of specialization), it was my privilege to have formed and continued to serve as the Senior Treasurer of Civil and Environmental Engineering Society (CEES).
The digest, ‘The Nail – An Engineers’ Digest’, was a concept I initiated together with two undergraduate students, who had not even embarked on Specialization (were in Semester 2, general programme). The launch of the magazine had two primary objectives. The first is to disseminate the state of the art research conducted globally and published in popular Science Magazines such as Scientific American, Science, Science Illustrated, New Scientist, Scientist etc, which are seldom circulated among the student community in Sri Lanka due to high cost of subscription. The inaccessibility to those documents I felt, disadvantaged our student community to be aligned to international technological advancement, which is crucial for their career. Hence, the first objective is to disseminate the knowledge among the student community. Simultaneously, the reading habit continues to dwindle among students in Sri Lanka, which hinders their progression in the academics in University education. Again, the skill of writing and the lack thereof, further restricts their ability to express and converse their concepts and ideas efficiently. The second objective of launching the magazine is to rekindle the habit of reading and writing with interest among our students.
While the first objective is attained to a greater success rate, the second objective is still in the crawling stage. However, the interest of some students to make contribution paints a hopeful future, which would sustain the magazine at large. Although the approval from the Council of University of Jaffna was obtained in 2019/June, the launch was delayed until 2023/February, due to the pandemic and the economic crisis that followed. The magazine would evolve in character and content with generous contributions from our reader community and we hereby encourage all who are interested (irrespective of age and position) to contribute, shall turn in your submissions through an email. Your contributions shall be anything from Perspectives, Concept Notes, Discussions, Articles, News, Creative works and Reviews. And we strongly believe in multi-disciplinary approach, and hence the articles shall be from any field of study, and not just Science and Technology.