How I Ended Up Here

One imagines a fair few people have wondered how on earth I ended up here: a student at SLIIT university in Kandy, all while nursing a pre-revenue startup. And, perhaps, what I intend to do next. I am quite sure I shall not be sharing too much about that last point, but I can certainly share the story of the journey and a few things I learned along the way.

So, as you may know by now, I am Kesaru (මම Kesaru). You may call me whatever you please. And if you’ve happened upon a previous article of mine, you might even know the story behind my name.

I was educated at Mahinda Rajapaksha College in Homagama. I completed my O/Levels and then, as one does, moved directly onto my A/Levels. It was during that time I was faced with that rather enormous question, a huge career decision. I hadn’t the faintest idea what the world would look like, but I felt quite strongly that selecting my A/Level stream deserved some serious thought.

When I posed the question to my father, he didn't so much give me an answer, and he certainly didn't push me towards anything. He did, however, point out the various benefits of the Engineering or Science fields. Instead of advising me directly, he suggested I place a call to my Aunt, his sister, who happens to have a science major. Well, I expected a perfectly illuminating answer from her, too, but as it happens, one wasn't forthcoming.

But for better or worse, back then I was following a chap on YouTube named Ali Abdaal, who spoke about a Japanese concept called Ikigai.

Somehow, I had a good deal of time on my hands, and, it must be said, a rather good ability to pirate things. I also had an old tablet that could be used for little else but reading. So, I 'acquired' a digital copy of the Ikigai book and found myself falling completely in love with the idea. If you’re curious about my pirating websites or sources, you are more than welcome to send me a message on Instagram or X. In the near future, I plan to have a Discord group and a Reddit page for precisely these sorts of queries, which will all be announced on my website.

You can, of course, find a summary of the book anywhere on the internet. But for me, it was transformative. I found a passion and a reason for living; something that brings meaning and joy, and is, one is told, the key to a happier, longer life. It taught me that finding your 'why' is the only way to have the passion to stick with it, and that a happy life comes from finding where your passion, mission, vocation, and profession all meet.

This passion, I learned, is quite different from a mere dream. It took me some time to grasp the distinction, but I was lucky. I had this wonderful, driving passion for Artificial Intelligence. I simply had to learn about it. Back then, AI wasn't quite the 'thing' it is today. ChatGPT and its cousins hadn't yet arrived.

What motivated me, then? Funnily enough, it was Sophia the Robot. I was so utterly intrigued by the idea of building such an intellectual, responsive creation. I thought to myself, 'I should very much like to be one of the people who helped build that. I'd like to be the chap who developed it behind the doors.'

To do that, I questioned what I needed to become. I began learning everything I could about machine learning and artificial intelligence. During my A/Levels, I read a book called Hello World by Professor Hannah Fry. My goodness, I absolutely adore her. I suppose one could say I have rather a crush on her. Her book talked about AI and its applications. Back then, these 'large language models' weren't really a topic of conversation. Google DeepMind was the frontier, and they were focused on several different fields. Then I heard about OpenAI, co-founded by Elon Musk, and so I looked into it. Their projects were fascinating, but I never expected a large language model to be released by them. In truth, they had one even then, but it wasn't famous, nor was it the familiar, chat-like tool we know today.

In Sri Lanka, there really were only two options for mastering AI. There was the newly introduced AI faculty at Moratuwa, and Data Science at SLIIT. Sometime later, SLIIT introduced an IT Specialisation in AI.

So, after my A/Levels, I had two choices. I knew my results were not going to be quite good enough. I knew that to study AI at Moratuwa, I would need to do a 'second shy' and re-sit my exams, and even then, I would need crazily good results.

And then, for some reason, after studying for a couple of months for that second attempt, I applied for a job. By some stroke of good fortune, I was selected by a company involved in networking. I truly enjoyed it. I mean, I really did.

I loved it so much, in fact, that I ended up automating most of my own tasks. It reached a point where I could simply execute one script and let it run quietly in the background. It was then that I fell properly in love with automation, and I knew my main target must be to create effective automation systems.

Then I applied for this thing called the Interest-Free Student Loan Scheme. It was a complete game changer. I never expected to be selected. At the beginning of 2025, I was incredibly stressed and felt I couldn't work things out. But, lo and behold, I was selected, and I got into SLIIT Kandy. At the time, I considered this a rather bad result. But now, I find I am genuinely enjoying it.

As soon as I was accepted, I quit my job. I had about four to six months of 'in-between' time before university began. During that period, I was trying to build an automation system. I met my friend Danidu Nanayakkara and joined a few startup communities.

I applied with the project I'd been building on the side, an automation agent called AutoPost. This project became my startup (you can find our main site at Tekkeys.com), and it was then selected for Neo Ventures, a national incubator program cohort session. Through that, I was able to go to so many places and meet so many people. I spent time at Trace, joined Disrupt Asia, and got a chance to join the Fintech Summit.

Honestly, the biggest thing I learned from all that was that the 'big, scary' startup world is just people. It's not as hard or as intimidating as everyone makes out, and scaling up isn't as frightening as it sounds. It just taught me that you just have to be consistent, work constantly on what you're passionate about, and simply do the work. I'll be updating my blog on all those events, so do stay tuned for that.

So, Where Am I Now?

So, I'm finally at SLIIT Kandy.

And a funny thing happened. After all the chaos of incubators and networking, I've found I really enjoy the student life. It's not just the lectures. There's something... clean about coming back to the books, to the quiet, honest work of solving a couple of equations. It wakes up my brain in a way the startup world can't.

That's what I meant about 'breaking stupid rules.'

My passion isn't really for breaking rules; it's for 'reducing the noise.' In the startup world, 'noise' is anything that stops you from building. But here, I'm finding the 'rules' of mathematics and engineering aren't noise at all. They're the foundation.

Juggling two lives? Honestly, it's not a huge deal. I've been on this path before, so I know the terrain.

So that's me, right now. A founder, back in a classroom. Finding the same quiet satisfaction in a solved equation as I do in a working script. Both are just different ways of deleting the noise, trying to find the one, best path forward.