STEM Link Networking Soirée
Around 80 students, mentors and industry guests joined us at Trace Expert City for our Networking Soirée. The evening featured a workshop led by Dulaj, Tech Lead at WSO2, followed by open networking where students met mentors and industry professionals face to face.
August 28, 2026
Inside the Room at Trace
Over 80 students, mentors, and industry professionals gathered to bridge the gap between classroom theory and industry reality.
A glimpse from the AI workshop
Dulaj, Tech Lead at WSO2, takes the stage before our STEMLink Networking Soirée to share a valuable session regarding AI
Real Questions, Real Answers: Inside the Soirée Q&A
Students took full advantage of the interactive Q&A session following the main workshop . Stepping up to the microphone, attendees drove the conversation by asking direct questions.This kind of active participation transformed the presentation into a highly valuable, unfiltered dialogue.
A Message from Our Founders
STEMLink CEO Dilshara and COO Udara took the stage to address the community directly. Their founders' speech reinforced the core mission of the Networking Soirée: building connections that extend far beyond a standard curriculum. By sharing their vision and the driving force behind the STEM Link, they set the perfect tone for the evening, encouraging students to step out of their comfort zones and engage meaningfully with the peers, mentors, and industry guests in the room.
From STEMLink Student to Industry
Kamalika took the stage as the compere for the evening, but her connection to the event goes much deeper. As a past STEMLink student, her journey reflects the very core of our mission she grew right alongside the programme itself. Today, she has successfully bridged the gap from student to professional, currently working as a Software Engineer at 99x. Having an alumni guide the Networking Soirée served as a powerful, real-time example for current students of what is possible when you build both your technical skills and your professional network.
Zone24x7 Externs Take the Stage
STEMLink externs placed at Zone24x7 stands at the TRACE podium to present the product they developed. This moment highlights the core value of the programme's exclusive career accelerator track: moving students beyond coursework to build and pitch real-world solutions. By completing externships with industry innovators like Zone24x7, these top-performing students gain hands-on experience and advanced technical coaching. Presenting directly to peers and mentors allows them to showcase both their technical capabilities and their readiness to enter the professional tech ecosystem.
Inivos Externs Take the Stage
STEMLink externs placed at Inivos steps up to the TRACE podium to pitch their newly developed product, the VMMS.
Emojot Externs Take the Stage
STEMLink externs placed at Emojot steps up to the TRACE podium to pitch their newly developed product.
Learners Engage with STEMLink Leadership
The unstructured portion of the evening provided STEMLink learners with the unique opportunity to connect directly with programme leadership, including CEO Dilshara. A simple handshake and a face-to-face conversation go a long way in building professional confidence
STEMLink Learners at the Photo Booth
STEMLink learners took a moment to capture the evening at our branded photo booth. Moments of camaraderie like this are at the heart of the STEMLink experience, serving as a great reminder that the community you build alongside your peers is just as important as the technical skills you master in the classroom.
Mentorship in Person
Our Cyber Security mentor, Tharaka, shares a moment with a few of his students at the Soirée photo booth. A major highlight of the evening was giving learners the opportunity to finally introduce themselves in person to the mentors they had previously only interacted with over video calls. These face-to-face connections are an essential part of the STEMLink experience, transforming online guidance into a tangible, supportive professional network that will help students confidently navigate the tech industry.
Powering Our Flagship Track
Sachith, a mentor for our highly popular AI Engineering bootcamp, connects with one of his students at the Soirée photo booth. Because AI Engineering is our most famous and highly sought-after track, the opportunity for these learners to step out from behind the screen and meet their mentors face-to-face is incredibly valuable.
From Student to Mentor
Vidula, our PM mentor and a Project Manager at IFS, reconnects with two of his past students at the STEMLink photo booth. This image highlights a true full-circle milestone for our community: one of these former students, who attended our very first PM & BA bootcamp, has now stepped up as an Assistant Mentor. Today, he helps Vidula conduct the exact sessions he once attended. It is a powerful testament to how the STEMLink ecosystem not only builds industry-ready skills but also fosters a continuous, supportive cycle of mentorship and professional growth
The Force Behind the STEMLink
They are the force behind the curriculum, the mentorship pairings, and the real-world events that bring this entire professional community together. Ensuring that students, mentors, and industry guests can connect seamlessly at venues like Trace Expert City takes immense behind-the-scenes effort, and this moment highlights the passionate group making it all happen.
On the evening of 28 August, around 80 students, mentors and industry guests gathered at Trace Expert City for our Networking Soirée, an evening built around bringing our programme community into the same room and connecting them with people already working in the industry they're training for.
Trace Expert City was a fitting venue. As one of Colombo's hubs for technology and innovation, it put students in the middle of the ecosystem many of them are hoping to join, and gave the evening the feel of a professional gathering rather than a classroom extension.
There was a workshop led by Dulaj, Tech Lead at WSO2. Speaking to a mixed room of students from across our tracks, he shared perspective drawn from his day to day work leading a technical team, the kind of practical, unfiltered insight that is difficult to get from coursework alone. Students used the Q&A that followed to ask about the realities of the job: how teams actually work, what is expected of someone joining the industry, and how to bridge the gap between what you learn and what you are asked to do on day one.
The evening also gave students the floor. Those who had been working on externship projects under Zone 24x7 , Inivos and Emojot presented their work to the room, walking everyone through the problems they set out to solve, the decisions they made along the way, and where each project currently stands. Presenting to a live audience of peers, mentors and industry guests is a different exercise from submitting work for review, and it showed. The questions that followed were sharp and often came from people looking at the projects with completely fresh eyes, which is exactly the kind of feedback that is hard to get from within your own team.
The rest of the evening was deliberately left unstructured, because that is where the value of an event like this really sits.
Students moved between groups, introduced themselves to mentors they had previously only met over video calls, compared notes on their ongoing projects, and spoke with industry guests about the paths that took them into their current roles. For many, it was the first time meeting peers from other tracks.
Engineering students talked to designers, designers talked to product side students, and the room filled with the kind of cross disciplinary conversation that mirrors how real teams are built.
Evenings like this are a reminder that a programme is more than its curriculum. The technical skills matter, but so does knowing who is in the room with you, and being comfortable walking up to someone and starting a conversation. Those are learned skills too, and they are best learned in person.
We are planning more in-person sessions over the coming weeks, including sessions that tie directly into the portfolio work students are building. We would encourage everyone to come along.