Scientist, Entrepreneur, Mother | Dr. Jayeni Hitibandaralage (Plant Biotechnology)

#PlantBioTech #PhDAdvice #SriLanka #Research #Sinhala #Science #Engineering #ResearchAdvice
I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Jayeni Hitibandaralage. She specialized in Plant Biotechnology (PBT) at the University of Colombo. She has worked in the industry prior to going for her a PhD at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her PhD was groundbreaking! Titled: PhD for Developing World’s First Meristem Based Commercial Tissue Culture Platform for Avocado. She also has her Bio Tech Lab setup in Sri Lanka and while doing research in Australia, she is running her company in Sri Lanka. I personally found this inspirational because while balancing the role of a parent she was able to accomplish these ventures. I hope this talk gives inspiration to many out there! Please check the timecodes in the discussion section so you get an overview of the topics discussed.
00:00 Intro
00:48 Where does your story start?
06:56 Your first venture after graduation (Tissue Culture Lab)
14:18 From where did you learn all these skills?
17:10 What is the demand for Plant Biotechnology in Sri Lanka?
25:14 Let’s talk about your Undergraduate Research
29:40 Your second venture
32:04 Starting from scratch
37:42 Motherhood, Management and Migration
39:15 What made me go for a PhD
40:54 PhD Research – The breakthrough
51:23 The story of your company
55:12 Dealing with uncertainty in PhD
57:12 Your company – financing, management STC Bio Tech (pvt) limited
1:04:03 Attitudes of Sri Lankans Vs other countries (in University and Corporate world)
1:11:00 Plans for the future

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Video done by Fadil Iqbal. You may reach out to him via email: [email protected]

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