Prof. V.K. Samaranayake passed away in June. Professor Samaranayake was the founding Director of the School of Computing (UCSC) at the University of Colombo, and Chairman of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka. He was an illustrious figure in the world of ICT for developement in Sri Lanka and was honoured twice by the national government for such merits. Professor Samaranayake was a close friend of ICTP, having been one of Abdus Salam's students at Imperial College. He visited ICTP several times in the 1960s and 1970s when he was still conducting research on strong interactions, and was Senior Associate from 1978 until 1995. In 1984, he helped organize the first College on Microprocessors that was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He lectured at ICTP on microprocessors and directed the College on Recent Developments and Applications in Mathematics and Computer Science in 1990.