India Centre Dinner,photo credit: Sushil K. Soni
WINNIPEG, MB – Over 400 community members with strong representation of the Indo-Canadian community attended a dinner this past Wednesday to honour Dr. Indira Samarasekera, with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the India Centre. Samarasekera recently retired as President of the University Alberta.
Dr. Annette Trimbee, UWinnipeg President and Vice-Chancellor and longtime friend of Samarasekera said, “Dr. Samarasekera’s impact as a visionary and a leader has made a tremendous impact on education, policy and research in her field of engineering. UWinnipeg looks forward to strengthening ties with the Indo-Canadian Community and with partners in India.”
Samarasekera was chosen to receive the inaugural award from UWinnipeg’s India Centre as an important role model to women, to cultural communities, to education, and to international relations.
During her keynote speech Samarasekera outlined the tremendous opportunities evolving from the growth in India and the importance of establishing bilateral relations between educational institutions in Canada and India.
“Canadian institutions must market its value to India”, said Samarasekera, “Each one of you here tonight can help to build strong links and work with institutions such as the University of Winnipeg to build a mutually beneficial super partnership between both countries.”
“These bilateral relations benefit our institution and our partners as our world shrinks and is more interconnected,” expressed Dr. Sylvie Albert, UWinnipeg Dean of Business and Economics and Chair of the India Centre. “These international collaborations are the way of the future.”
The India Centre was created by the University of Winnipeg and the India Association of Manitoba in 2013 and has been building relations between cultural communities in Manitoba and in India. The Centre has also partnered with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICCI) and the Winnipeg World Trade Centre to host business-to-business delegations from India. It also has organized several forums and social events to build understanding between cultural communities.
“More such activities are expected for the coming year”, commented the President of the India Association of Manitoba Hardev Sandhu. “The work of the India Centre is just beginning and we hope to establish more significant exchanges with India in education, business, and with cultural communities.”
