DEV Community: Binath Perera

Evolution Informed Design

Binath Perera — Mon, 25 May 2026 09:20:12 +0000

Recently I was researching if the environments that humans create for themselves have an effect on their evolution. As it turns out it does! There is a specific term for this called artificial selection. You might have heard the term natural selection which is the way nature chooses the evolution of a certain species. But in artificial selection, human activities determine the evolution of that species.

Effects of artificial selection can be seen in plants.

Wild Mustard (Brassica oleracea): This single wild weed was selectively bred into vastly different vegetables by targeting specific plant parts --Kale: Cultivated by focusing on large, leafy growth.Broccoli & --Cauliflower: Bred by suppressing flower development and altering buds. --Cabbage: Selected for short stems and tight, dense leaves.

-Corn (Maize): Modern sweet corn was bred from a wild, inedible grass called teosinte, which originally had tiny kernels and hard shells

Effects of artificial selection can be seen in animals as well.

Dog Breeds: All domesticated dogs originated from a common wolf ancestor. Humans bred them for specific tasks and appearances, ranging from tiny toy poodles to massive work dogs.
Dairy Cattle: Farmers systematically breed cows that produce higher milk yields with bulls from similar high-producing lineages, drastically increasing global dairy production.

How about the environments that we create like cities and lifestyle choices? The technology and environments that we have created will have direct influence. Too much reliance on technology might shrink human brain cognitive capabilities for example. Using medicine as a substitute to not fix the cause of ailment is another. This has to do with capitalism as well because you cannot make money by fixing the cause for the problem but you can make it by providing a solution to it. This doesn't mean that humans should get rid of all the root causes which is anger, greed and ignorance and become saints because that is not possible for most people. But we must collectively as a species establish standards and have a sustainable lifestyle.

Artificial selection driven by human preferences or economic utility rather than an organism’s natural fitness, selective breeding frequently introduces harmful mutations, reduces genetic diversity, and produces traits that would be fatal in the wild.

As with any society, individuals alone cannot influence this. Take for example circular economy that clearly requires government intervention to succeed. The government must step in to oversee evolution informed design as well. Circular economy itself is a hard problem to solve, and evolution informed design is even harder. But it's necessary we think about it.

The purpose for writing this article is to share the important message that we have to consider the evolutionary impact before developing and deploying whatever the solutions out to the world over narrow capitalist gains fueled by greed and ignorance.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

Edge Computing

Binath Perera — Mon, 25 May 2026 07:55:33 +0000

Edge computing is simply localized data processing. But is it still edge computing if it is not connected to the internet? The answer is yes, it is still considered edge computing even when disconnected from the cloud. Edge computing is defined by processing data locally at or near the source—such as on local devices, IoT gateways, or on-premises servers—rather than sending it entirely to a centralized cloud.

But edge computing is often utilized as part of a larger system containing fog computing and cloud computing.

Let's look at the Pros and Cons of processing your data at the edge compared to central cloud processing,

Pros,

Prevents network congestion while saving valuable bandwidth
Reduced response times
Ideal for real time technologies

Cons,

Requires more hardware components
Complex maintenance
Expanded attack surface

Faults system developers make

Taking security shortcuts: Anyone who has physical access to your edge devices can exploit it.
Over Engineering
Management Nightmare: Not designing with management in mind
Not testing in real world production environment
Not managing the limited resources effectively (Power, Memory etc)

End

AWS Student Community Day Sri Lanka 2026 - Event Recap

Binath Perera — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:04:39 +0000

AWS Student Community Days are one day, student led conferences, organized by AWS Student Builder Groups (Formerly AWS Cloud Clubs). It is a great way to bringing an AWS conference into your university.

On 16th May 2026 Sri Lanka had it's first AWS Student Community Day at the University of Kelaniya. The event was co-organized by the student builder groups at the University of Kelaniya and Institute of Technology University of Moratuwa. The event had 14 speakers and over 200 student attendees. It was a full day of community building and learning for the students.

I as the Builder Group Leader from the University of Kelaniya created this article to impart my learnings to you, based on my experience in organizing this awesome event on campus.

The approach that me and Naami (The builder group leader from ITUM) took was we first made an organizing committee of student enthusiasts who would like to take part in organizing this event. Based on my past experience hosting events, I learnt that each member in a team needs to know their responsibilities clearly. To ensure this, a document was made laying out the responsibilities of each role before calling in for applications to the organizing committee. In this way every team member was aware of their responsibilities. Once we received the applications, the OC members were selected. The first OC meeting for the exco members (THe VPs of each team) was taken 45 days before the event date.

Our Organizing Committee structure was designed as follows.

I realized later down the line that it Would have been better to call the marketing and communications team marketing and production. I missed out on specifying that the designing team is also responsible for event day production visuals and other content, not just marketing.

The 2 leaders and other exco members took meetings each week to catch up with the tasks done by each team and made a plan for the following week.

Here are some important requirements when hosting a conference event.

Web page
This is one of the first things you are going to need. It's up to you whether you create your own or use some template. We used a template from AWS Community Day China and asked lovable to generate a similar one. Then we customized it to our needs.

Registation
We used to local ticketing platform called MyTickets to track registrations and generate QR codes for attendees. Yes we did issue tickets. The community day organizers are always dealing with this one... and there is no right or wrong way. Both have pros and cons.

Paid Event - Even symbolic price can reduce the no-shows (ratio between registered and the ones that actually showed-up) and increase the budget you get. But there is a chance you have to pay taxes, as you are creating the profit.

Free Event - Prepare yourself for a no-shows... 😬 It's frustrating, but it is what is is.

We decided to go with paid.

Call for speakers and sponsors
We used two google forms, one to call for speakers and the other to call for sponsors. We also crafted a sponsorship prospectus and attached it in our call for sponsors form.

The sponsorship team worked hard in securing sponsorships and we found one sponsor, WSO2 and SLASSCOM as the ecosystem partner. You should reach out to companies way before the event. Do not wait until the last moment. We were lucky to get those partners at the last moment, but could have gotten more if we planed it well in advance.

The event was a great success, 14 speakers and over 200 students, connecting over cloud computing technology. It was a fun and educational day for the students. The support from the AWS community partners, AWS User Group Colombo and the community builders have been tremendous to make the event a success.

All being said, organizing AWS Student Community Day was a lot of fun, but also lots of hard work went into it. It took us 3 months of work, from idea that we are doing that, to the actual event.

If you are still thinking if to do it or not host such an event on campus, what are you waiting for?, go for it! 😉