Nipuna Ambanpola

Nipuna Ambanpola was born and raised in Sri Lanka. Since his childhood, Nipuna has enjoyed volunteering. In 2013, he was selected as the Head Prefect of Royal College where he provided leadership to a Prefects Council to manage operations of his 8,000-student body high school. In 2013, he was nominated and selected to serve as the District Interact Secretary of the District 3220, Sri Lanka & Maldives. While at his high school, Nipuna was awarded the Most Outstanding Royalist award, the highest accolade awarded to any Royalist, by his Excellency the President of Sri Lanka. Nipuna came to the United States in 2015 through the Georgia Rotary Student Program sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of Savannah South and West. He was admitted to Georgia Southern University - Armstrong Campus. Since at College, he has continued his passion for volunteering. He founded several clubs at Armstrong including the Resident Student Association, The Student Alumni Association, and the Armstrong Rotaract Club. In 2016, Nipuna was named as one of the Rotary Youth-All Stars by Rotary International. Nipuna then went on to charter the Rotaract District 6920 under the guidance of District Governor Hamsa Thota and Mr. Donald Fountain as the first ever District Rotaract Representative for District 6920. For the years 2017-18, Nipuna also served as the Student Government Association President of the Georgia Southern Armstrong & Liberty Campuses and was instrumental in bringing the two institutions together during the consolidation. Currently, while finishing his Bachelors of Science in Business Economics at Georgia Southern University, Nipuna also serves as the Co-Founder & Executive Director of IVolunteer International Inc, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the vision of creating a volunteer inside every single human being in the world. Nipuna found the organization in 2016 and they connect volunteers to volunteer projects around the world. With more than 2,000 volunteers connected, the organization hopes to expand to the next levels in 2019. In 2016 he was invited to speak about the organization at the Global Goals Summit that took place in the U.N. Headquarters in New York. He was also a TEDx Speaker in 2016 where he spoke about how volunteerism can unite the entire world. Nipuna was recognized for his work and was awarded a Will Watt Fellow and a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary Clubs in District 6920. During his free time, Nipuna writes about leadership, volunteering and youth engagement in his personal blog.