Empowering aspiring Benedictine and Shepherdian Software Engineers

On the 4th of January 2025, 22 Advanced Level students from St Benedict’s College and Good Shepherd Convent, Colombo, Sri Lanka along with four ICT teachers, will participate in a full-day software certification program. The program will be held at the new ICT lab at St Benedict’s College.

The program is jointly offered by Umbraco HQ in Denmark and Luminary Digital in Melbourne, Australia. Old Ben Emmanuel Tissera who is the Technical Director at Luminary and an Umbraco MVP (Most Valuable Person) organised this training with the support of St Benedict’s College Old Boys Union (OBU), Victoria; Good Shepherd Convent Past Pupils Association (PPA), Victoria; St Benedict’s College OBU, Colombo; and Good Shepherd Convent PPA, Colombo.

Umbraco is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) that powers over 700,000 websites worldwide making certified Umbraco professionals highly sought-after. The Umbraco fundamentals training course and certification exam costs almost 2,500 AUD or 0.5 Million LKR per participant. These two schools will get this package worth over 6 Million LKR free of charge courtesy of Umbraco HQ.

As a Platinum Umbraco Partner, Luminary has invested over 7,000 AUD to deliver this program. Emmanuel and Luminary Digital Producer, Adi Selva, based in Melbourne will be on-site in Sri Lanka to deliver the training. 

The students for this program were chosen through a combination of nominations from the respective School Principals and evaluation of applications by Luminary’s CEO, Marty Drill, CTO, Andy Thompson and Emmanuel. The selected students were studying ICT as a subject and are aspiring to be software engineers or digital practitioners in the future.

The Old Boys' Union of St Benedict’s College in Victoria has generously undertaken the printing of the course workbooks, while their Colombo counterpart will be providing refreshments. The Past Pupils' Association of Good Shepherd Convent in Victoria has graciously sponsored a buffet lunch for all participants, with the coordination on the ground being managed by their Colombo branch. Furthermore, both alumni associations in Colombo have committed to providing logistical support both prior to and during the program. All four alumni associations have worked closely with Luminary, demonstrating unwavering dedication in the planning of this initiative. 

After attending this program and passing the certification exam, the participants will become “Certified Umbraco Professionals”. It will be a foundation for their aspirations to become software engineers and digital practitioners of the future. This job-ready qualification will allow the students of St Benedict’s College and Good Shepherd Convent, Colombo to venture out of school as 21st century citizens.