Suranga Nanayakkara
Suranga Nanayakkara (born 1981) is a Sri Lankan born computer scientist and inventor. , he was the director of Augmented Human Lab and associate professor at Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland. Before moving to Auckland, he was an assistant professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design. He is best known for his work on FingerReader and Haptic Chair. His research interests include Wearable Computing, Assistive Technology, Ubiquitous computing, AI, Collective intelligence and Robotics. "MIT Technology Review" honored Nanayakkara as one of the Innovators Under 35 for Asia Pacific Region 2014. Education and research. Suranga is from Piliyandala , in Colombo District, Sri Lanka. Having received his secondary education from Royal College, Colombo, he completed bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the National University of Singapore in Singapore. He holds a PhD in Engineering from National University of Singapore. Suranga spent half a year at University of Birmingham and half a year at University of Southern California under student exchange program. Later he was a postdoctoral researcher with Pattie Maes's Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab. Inventions. Suranga is best known for his work EyeRing - A finger-worn interface for seamless interactions Haptic Chair  - Audio visual system to provide a more satisfying musical experience to deaf people and StickEars – a sound-based sticky note like device to make everyday objects more accessible. Among some of his other work, Suranga has invented SPARSH – a way to copy-paste data between digital devices; FingerDraw - way to extract colours and textures from nature and bring them into digital drawings.