Professor Wije Ariyaratne, The Humanitarian & Next Generation Educator

Wije Ariyaratne, The Humanitarian

Wije is an inspiring Australian, who has not only created an excellent legacy in the in engineering but also has contributed to several humanitarian and community projects.

He is a member of the Sri Lanka Association of NSW (SLA) which was set up in 1973 for the wellbeing of the Sri Lankan migrants and for their progressive integration to the Australian community. Wije has served the SLA since the inception as committee member, Treasurer, Vice-President, Public Officer, twice as President and a Trustee.

Sri Lanka was affected by the Tsunami that hit its shores on 26 December 2014, to an unprecedent extent in history with more than 50,000 people dead and 100,000 more displaced. At that time Wije was the President of the SLA and he immediately took a lead to work with 17 other Sri Lankan organisations in NSW. And the organisations elected Wije to lead the newly formed Sri Lanka Disaster Relief Fund (SLDRF) set up for helping the Tsunami victims. He and his committee successfully obtained the support from the Federal and State Governments, Business Leaders, the media and the community and with that support collected nearly $200,000. With the collect funds and the in-kind support received, the SLDRF shipped 4 container loads of food, clothing, bottled water and medical supplies. Then SLDRF over a period of 3 years built 50, 2-bedroom, houses for the affected people. In recognition of the dedicated work done by SLDRF headed by Wije, he was invited by the Premier of NSW to participate at the National Day of Mourning on 16 January 2005 held at the Bondi Beach to honour of the Tsunami Victims, see photo below.
Wije at the commemoration ceremony to honour the victims of the 2004 Tsunami.

Wije and his wife Manel have a son and a daughter. While their daughter is married and have two daughters, their son is Autistic and lives in a Group Home in Norton Road, North Ryde, NSW. Since 2007 Wije and the Parents & Friends Association for the disable people at Norton Road worked very hard with the NSW Government in establishing 10 purposely build Group Homes for the 50 disable clients who lived in the area. Being an engineer, Wije also worked closely with the NSW Public Works Department in the design of each of these houses for the individual needs of future 5 clients who would occupy each house. This set of Group Homes were completed in 2010, 50 clients have moved in and now these have become a model set of Group Homes for the disable people.

20 February 2019, Wije was elected as the Chairperson of the Parents and Fiends Association for the disable people in Norton Road Group Homes, North Ryde NSW. Wije now works collaboratively with Achieve Australia, the service provider for Norton Road Group Homes and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) to obtain best services and outcome for all 50 clients in these Group Homes.

Educating the Next Generation

Wije has a distinguished reputation in academia having presented 50 papers in bridge engineering and developing university bridge engineering teaching courses. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), teaching and collaborating on research projects to ensure his strong technical and strategic expertise is being passed on to the next generation of engineers, and inspiring his students to be able to take a challenge, to be able to work effectively in a team but also be able to self-motivate and to ask the right questions at the right time.

Wije’s work with universities including University of Technology Sydney, University of Western Sydney, Melbourne University and Sydney University has resulted in new and innovative ways to predict current condition and rates of deterioration in bridges; to resist extreme blast and impact loading in cable stay bridges; and to provide cost-effective assessments of bridge assets.

To pursue his ambition of passing his experience and knowledge to the next generation, he is currently writing an extensive book on Practical Bridge Engineering for the benefit of the practicing bridge engineers.

Because of Wije’s contribution to the profession, industry and the academia, Wije has been nominated by Engineers Australia for the inclusion in theEngineers Australia Centenary Book of Australian Engineering Heroes and on 29 March 2019, Wije has been invited by the University of Sydney to apply for the newly created position of Professor of Practice in Bridge Engineering(invitation email attached) and now he has been requested for an interview for this position on 6 June, email attached.

Recital at Meritorious NSW Service Award 18.12.2017

Message from the Chief Executive

Winner, winner!

I am both thrilled and proud to share with you this morning that our agency won two Premier’s Awards last night. Wije Ariyaratne (Ari) our Director Bridges and Structures, who I spoke about in my message on Tuesday , took out the Delivering Infrastructure individual award and Pacific Highway project took out the team award in the same category for the
final section of Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour.

Well done Ari and the Pacific Highway team on this incredibly
well deserved recognition.

I would also like to congratulate our other two finalists from last night – the Southern Region Regional Maintenance Delivery team nominated for their Apprenticeship Program and the Pacific Highway and Environment teams for Woolgoolga to Ballina Upgrade Project’s Rootball Program.

To reach finalist status in the Premier’s Awards is a significant achievement in itself.
These prestigious awards recognise excellence in the delivery of the government’s program of work and to have four finalists and two winners is yet another reminder of the trust the
Government has in our business and in our people to deliver great outcomes for the people of
NSW.
Ken Kanofski

Message from the Chief Executive
Outstanding work

Today I call out the incredible work and dedication of one of our most talented technical experts, Wije Ariyaratne (best known as Ari), Director Bridges and Structures.

In my message last week I mentioned how we are holding our own with the best in the world when it comes to our technical capabilities and thinking innovatively to deliver value for our customers. The work Ari delivers for us epitomises exactly what I was talking about.

For more than 45 years Ari has challenged the status quo and pioneered designs that have
driven countless operational and maintenance innovations. His efforts and those of his team have saved this agency hundreds of millions of dollars that we have been able to redirect to bring more projects online to benefit our customers.

It was no surprise to me that Ari is one of our finalists up for a Premier’s Award tomorrow night for his recent work to develop a means of assessing older bridges that he believed had
additional capacity. This is a smart initiative. Understanding where we have residual strength in some of our older bridges allows us to increase their lifecycle and also better target where our funding should go to make the most of our network.

Ari will be in good company tomorrow night with some fantastic nominations up for consideration including three other Roads and Maritime projects. The Pacific Highway team who are finalists in the Delivering Infrastructure and Keeping our Environment Clean categories and our Regional Maintenance Delivery team who have been nominated for the Diversity and Inclusion Award for delivering the largest and most successful Aboriginal recruitment drive in our agency’s history.

Good luck to all our Premier’s Awards finalists tomorrow. Outstanding work.
Ken Kanofski The Premier’s Awards for Public Service recognise excellence in the delivery of public services to the NSW community by the public sector, not-for-profit organisations and private businesses.

Read more about the 2018 finalists here.

Ari also recently won a NSW Service Medallion for over 40 years of service to the State of NSW and was featured in one of our Throwback Thursdays. Read more about his fascinating 40+ year career with us.