Open General's Solutions Architect, Nirosha Munasinghe, was awarded with the 2010 ARBS 'Young Achiever of the Year'
ARBS Congratulates Young Achiever of the Year
30 April 2010: Nirosha Munasinghe has become the first recipient of the ARBS Industry Awards Young Achiever of the Year. Nirosha was the architect of the first Australian-made BACnet open protocol smart control system – a solution that controls heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems more efficiently than conventional analog control systems.
The smart control system results in significant energy savings and a reduction in a facility’s carbon footprint – a necessity today given that over 50% of electricity bills for commercial buildings is for heating and cooling.
Nirosha has a string of achievements to his bow, which are even more impressive given his tender age of 29. He has a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering (First Class Honours), a Bachelor in Computer Science, Certificate in Building Automation and Sustainability, and in 2007 graduated in the top 10% of students in The Melbourne University’s Master in Business and Information Technology.
His career began when, aged 23, he commenced working for the parent company of Open General as a Software Engineer, analysing the possibility of developing a software and hardware building management system.
For the next three years, he worked on proof of concept, built an R&D team, and designed, developed and tested powerful web based BACnet user interface and fully programmable digital direct controllers.
With wisdom and maturity beyond his years, Nirosha managed to overcome the initial skeptics – both locally and overseas – about the concept of designing and manufacturing a BACnet open protocol building management system in Australia.
“With clear vision, planning, feature rich design and dedication we were able to prove the critics wrong,” he said.
Today, the products are in use across the commercial, retail, education, health, hotel and government sectors, boasting clients such as the Grand Hyatt, Crowne Plaza, Nissan Headquarters, Target, Myer, Centrelink and Monash University. Nirosha’s focus now is to set up international distribution channels, and recently attended the Air-conditioning, Heating Refrigeration Expo in Chicago, USA.
“It is a great honor for me to win this award. I believe Australia is far behind in terms of knowledge compared to our North American and European counterparts. I hope to use this achievement to promote and assist the industry to better educate and transfer knowledge in particular areas of open systems and energy management using building management systems,” he said.
