Wayamba University Students Chandira and Pathirana Win Gold at ACCEL 7.0 for AI-Powered App Spendly

Wayamba University Students Chandira and Pathirana Win Gold at ACCEL 7.0 for AI-Powered App Spendly

Mr. H. P. S. Chandira and Mr. O. P. T. P. Pathirana with their award certificates at ACCEL 7.0. Photograph courtesy of the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka Faculty of Applied Sciences.

Two special degree students from the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka have earned first place and the Gold Medal in the Student Innovation Zone at ACCEL 7.0 – Sustainability & Digital Transformation Expo 2026, with a mobile application designed to make everyday expense tracking simpler.

Mr. H. P. S. Chandira and Mr. O. P. T. P. Pathirana, from the Department of Computing and Information Systems in the university’s Faculty of Applied Sciences, received the award for Spendly, an AI-powered application that assists with personal expense management. The Faculty of Applied Sciences announced their achievement on 30 October 2026.

The result recognises the students’ work in applying computing knowledge to a familiar practical need: keeping track of personal spending without having to enter every purchase detail manually. It also offers an encouraging example of university coursework developing into an idea with potential relevance beyond the classroom.

A practical idea for everyday spending

Spendly is designed to help users record and monitor their expenses. As described by the Faculty of Applied Sciences, users can upload photographs of bills, after which the application automatically identifies expense categories and records relevant details.

That process is intended to reduce manual data entry. Once expenses are recorded, users can monitor their monthly spending and gain a clearer picture of where their money is going. The concept addresses a routine challenge: receipts and bills can accumulate, while the effort of sorting and entering each item may make consistent record-keeping difficult.

The faculty announcement does not describe Spendly as a banking service or provide details about its technical architecture, data safeguards or commercial availability. Its stated purpose is more focused: to simplify personal expense management by using AI to assist with the capture and organisation of bill information.

AI-generated illustration for this article. The displayed screens are illustrative and do not represent Spendly’s actual interface.

The idea’s value lies in turning an ordinary financial task into a manageable digital process. A record of expenses, maintained regularly, can help individuals review monthly patterns and make more informed decisions about their budgets. Spendly’s reported features are directed towards supporting that habit, rather than replacing the user’s judgement about how money should be spent.

Gold at ACCEL 7.0

The Student Innovation Zone formed part of ACCEL 7.0 – Sustainability & Digital Transformation Expo 2026, an exhibition and competition organised by the Department of Business Management at SLIIT Kandy. The event was held on 24 and 25 September 2026 at the SLIIT Kandy premises.

Spendly secured first place and the Gold Medal. Students from SLIIT were awarded second place, while third place was secured by students from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Peradeniya. The results brought together student work from different higher education institutions, with the competition providing a setting in which projects could be presented and assessed beyond their home faculties.

The award therefore marks both a specific achievement for the Wayamba students and a wider expression of student innovation across Sri Lankan universities. Projects addressing practical needs can demonstrate how academic learning may be translated into applications that are relevant to people’s everyday lives.

The award certificate recognises Spendly as the winning entry at ACCEL 7.0. Photograph courtesy of the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka Faculty of Applied Sciences.

Coursework with an applied purpose

Spendly was developed as part of CMIS 3222 – Rapid Application Development, under the direction of Ms. RPTH Gunesekara, a Senior Lecturer. The connection to the course is significant: the project demonstrates how a student assignment can be shaped around a defined user need and developed into a working application concept.

Rapid application development places emphasis on building and refining software within a structured development process. In Spendly’s case, the stated purpose is readily understood: users need a simpler way to capture expense information and organise it for later review. The students’ work brought that need into a computing project, linking the design of a mobile application with a practical problem.

The faculty announcement described the achievement as demonstrating the students’ creativity, technical capabilities and ability to apply computing knowledge to practical needs. Such qualities are important in a field where technical skill is most meaningful when it is paired with an understanding of the people expected to use a product.

An award presentation during ACCEL 7.0. Photograph courtesy of the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka Faculty of Applied Sciences.

An encouraging example for young developers

A student innovation competition can serve several purposes: it gives participants an opportunity to present their work, places projects in conversation with ideas from other institutions, and offers recognition for careful effort. For Chandira and Pathirana, the Gold Medal at ACCEL 7.0 provides a notable milestone within their academic journey.

The achievement also offers encouragement to young developers in Sri Lanka and to Sri Lankan students studying abroad. It shows how a project grounded in coursework can focus on a clear, everyday challenge and be presented as an innovation with practical relevance. The key lesson is not that every student project must become a commercial product, but that disciplined problem-solving can give academic work meaning beyond assessment.

For young people considering computing and software development, Spendly is a useful illustration of how a focused idea may be approached: identify a task that people find time-consuming, consider how digital tools could make it easier, and develop a solution within an appropriate academic framework. In this case, the Faculty of Applied Sciences credits Chandira and Pathirana with bringing creativity and technical capability to that process.

The Faculty of Applied Sciences congratulated Mr. Chandira and Mr. Pathirana on their outstanding achievement and wished them continued success in their academic and professional pursuits. Their award adds a positive milestone to the record of student innovation at Wayamba University and highlights the potential of Sri Lankan undergraduates to apply computing knowledge to practical needs.

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Source: https://fas.wyb.ac.lk/students-win-gold-medal-in-the-student-innovation-zone-at-accel-7-0/

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