Speakers, Bios & Abstracts

Big data in life sciences, from theory to applications

Abstract

Progress in life sciences is often the result of collecting huge, well-organized, high quality datasets and then applying data science methods to understand their hidden messages. In this talk, Prof. Ceri will report some of the results of his last ten years of research, when he discovered a strong interest in life sciences. He will argue that data must be initially mastered at a conceptual level, i.e. abstracted and simplified so as to become more manageable – and he will explain three data models, first one for patient care targeted upon COVID-19, then two models respectively addressing the human and viral genome. Prof. Ceri will then describe the process of integrating human and viral genomic data sources so as to build huge data repositories, thereby facilitating and improving research projects. Finally, he will discuss some new approaches, purely based upon big data and statistical methods of data science, recently developed for the finding variants and recombinations in the SARS-CoV-2 genome; he will also report some interesting results in other scientific domains. Most of reported work is the outcome of the ERC-AdG grant “data-driven Genomic Computing” (GeCo, 2016-2021), and some follow-up projects.

Short Bio

Stefano Ceri is professor of Data Managenent at Politecnico di Milano, he was visiting professor at Stanford University between 1983 and 1992. He designed and then directed the Alta Scuola Politecnica. His main research interests were concerned with extending data management - by giving foundational contributions in distributed, deductive, active, object-oriented and bio-informatic data technologies - and then acting as data scientists in numerous domains - including social analytics, fake news detection, genomics for biology and for precision medicine, and recently the study of the SARS-CoV-2 viral genome.

With an H-Index 83 and about 35K citations on Google Scholar, he authored over 450 articles on international venues, receiving Best Paper and 10-Years awards at VLDB; he co-authored many books, including “Distributed Databases: Principles and Systems”, “Logic Programming and Databases”, “Conceptual Database Design: an Entity-Relationship Approach”, “Active Database Systems”.

In 1988 he was Endowment founder and first General Chair of the “Extending Database Technology” Conference. He is co-founder and shareholder of WebRatio, a development platform for Web applications based on patented technology, currently employing about 50 people. He is the recipient of two ERC AdG, “Search Computing” (2008-2013) and “data-driven Genomic Computing” (2016-2021). He received the ACM-SIGMOD "Edward T. Codd Innovation Award" (June 2013). He is an ACM Fellow, member of Academia Europeae and of Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere.

Finding the Quantum Advantage

Abstract

Quantum computing will revolutionise problem-solving for our economy and society. To fulfil this potential, quantum resources must be discovered, exploited, and implemented meticulously. The UK has trailblazed this new quantum era through the National Quantum Technologies Programme covering the whole spectrum of quantum technologies. It is now upon us informaticians to unlock the true quantum economy by enabling application discovery to fuel the development of the field accordingly. In this talk, Elham presents the mission of the recently launched NQCC Quantum Software Lab to turn industry pain points into quantum research problems, through a systematic specification of desired mathematical properties, to guide the design of necessary algorithmic modules, with their implementation on hardware accompanied by performance benchmarking, to enable researchers to investigate the enhancements necessary for current or future hardware/software platforms in a certifiable and verifiable way.

Short Bio

Elham Kashefi is a CNRS Director of Research at the Sorbonne University and Professor of Computer Science at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. She has pioneered transdisciplinary research investigating the structure, behaviour, and interactions of quantum technology; from theoretical experimentation to implementation of real-world use-cases (co-founder of VeriQloud Startup in France). Kashefi is the co-founder of the fields of secure quantum cloud computing and practical verification of quantum computing. She has been recently elected as the UK NQCC Chief Scientist and leads the NQCC Quantum Software Lab at University of Edinburgh, the largest quantum software group of its kind in the UK innovating across a broad range of platforms (photonic, superconducting, ion trap) with an integrated software research programme (simulation, modelling and verification) delivering impact in quantum computing (machine learning learning, cryptanalysis) and quantum networks (quantum cryptography, quantum cloud computing) in a certifiable way (provable security, practical benchmarking, verification of computation). She is a recipient of several UK, EU, and US fellowships for research in quantum computing, software, communication, and applications and was the recipient of the Les Margaret Intrapraneur prize (France, 2021).

Beyond common Computing – Does Sustainability require new (and old) Alternatives to “classical” Digital Computing Machines?

Abstract

Current digital computers in use as servers, parallel supercomputers or GPU-based machines for AI applications share one common ground: requesting a lot of electrical energy for normal operation. Facing our global energy crisis with a growing world population and focusing on new sustainable technologies one could rise the question, whether there are any power saving alternatives to “classical” digital computers with von Neumann architecture available. From the perspective of computer history, the answer is “yes”. Until the early 1970s, analog electronical calculators were the power economic competitors of the rising digital computers for instance in scientific applications. Moreover, the idea of using quantum systems for effectively simulating processes on the atomic scale goes back to the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman and others in the early 1980s. Afterwards, several technical approaches to Quantum Computers have evolved. From the biological perspective, the answer is also “yes”, since the human brain provides incredible “computing power” out of 20…50 Watt.
The talk gives an overview on former and current research activities with analogue (non-digital), hybrid and quantum approaches to computation taking limited energy and raw materials for a more sustainable future into account.

Short Bio

Jochen Viehoff, born 1968, studied Physics at the Universities of Wuppertal, Salamanca and Pisa. In his PhD thesis in the field of theoretical elementary particle physics he was using numerical simulations of Quantum Chromodynamics on parallel supercomputers. From 2000 to 2005 he was working as artistic-scientific assistant at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, before he moved to the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn, the largest computer museum worldwide. Since 2013 he has been director and CEO of the Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum.

Large Language Models

Much research in artificial intelligence in the past two decades has focused on training neural networks to perform a single specific task (e.g., classifying whether an image contains a cat, summarizing a news article) given labeled training data. In recent years, a new paradigm has evolved around language models -- neural networks that simply predict the next word in a sentence given previous context. After being trained on a large unlabeled corpus using this objective, language models can be "prompted" to perform arbitrary tasks framed as next word prediction. This new paradigm represents a shift from task-specific to task-general models, which can perform many tasks.

In this talk Mirella will walk through the essential ideas of how large language models came to be, the learning process of a language model, and how Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback is used in an attempt to make these models more aligned with human values. She will also touch on the risks associated with this new technology, focusing on their carbon footprint, misinformation, and fairness.

Short Bio

Mirella Lapata is professor of natural language processing in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on getting computers to understand, reason with, and generate natural language. She is the first recipient (2009) of the British Computer Society and Information Retrieval Specialist Group (BCS/IRSG) Karen Sparck Jones award and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the ACL, and Academia Europaea. Mirella has also received best paper awards in leading NLP conferences and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, the Transactions of the ACL, and Computational Linguistics. She was president of SIGDAT (the group that organizes EMNLP) in 2018. She has been awarded an ERC consolidator grant, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, and a UKRI Turing AI World-Leading Researcher Fellowship.

Short Bio

Ewa Luger is Professor of Human-Data Interaction at the University of Edinburgh, Co-Director of the Institute of Design Informatics and co-Director of AHRC’s Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme. Her research explores the social, ethical and Design implications of Artificial Intelligence and data-driven innovation. She regularly advises government and industry and was previously a researcher at Microsoft Research and a fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.

Short Bio

Dr. Mira L. Wolf-Bauwens leads the Responsible Quantum Computing effort in the Responsible & Inclusive Technologies Team at IBM Research. Mira also is a IBM Quantum Technical Ambassador. She brings with her substantial experience in normative analysis in emerging technologies, strategy and business consulting, development corporation, start-up leadership and digitalisation. Mira holds a PhD in Political Philosophy on institutional recognition and normative evaluation of emerging technologies from University of Zurich with Visiting Research Fellowships at Columbia University and University of Oxford.

Mira is passionate about making technologies more responsible and inclusive through tangible insights from critical normative research. Specifically, in exploring what Responsible Quantum Computing entails, she is addressing the socio-ethical questions that arise with the development of useful Quantum Computing and Quantum-safe technologies. In bringing this work from theory to policy practice, Mira shared her expertise as co-lead author of the WEF Quantum Computing Governing Principles.

Prior to joining IBM, Mira worked on normative analysis of digital technologies in the context of democracies. Mira also worked as a Consultant in Development Corporation in Cambodia where she worked on a large-scale software re-design project with the national government in the social security sector. She has gained further experience with emerging technologies as the CEO of a blockchain-based political Start-up. In addition to her PhD, Mira also holds a MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford and an BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from the University of York.

Where do you draw the line?

Training Session Details

This 2-hour training session will be faciliated by Richard Boardman, with a focus on the behaviours necessary to create inclusive and engaging workplaces. A blend of presented content, facilitated discussion and exercises will engage and involve participants and enable them to surface any specific issues or questions they feel are pertinent or important for them or their team.

These are the key areas covered:

1. Rights & Entitlements Vs Wants & Preferences: A key underpinning principle when creating inclusive and engaging workplaces is understanding this key difference… if it’s the former, then this should be non-negotiable, we can’t build inclusive and engaging workplaces by denying people’s rights. So the session initially clarifies these rights and entitlements, what they are, how they manifest and key principles and definitions, specifically in relation to anti-discrimination laws and rights relating to workplace bullying.
2. Acceptability: Once outside of the realms of rights and entitlements, we have to navigate a huge area where people’s individual views, opinions, expectations, standards and personal beliefs determine our own view of acceptability. This part of the session is focused on how to navigate this grey area where individual opinion and perception are key.
3. Where Do You Draw The Line? Key exercise in the session where participants work in smaller groups with certain scenarios and discuss the behaviours they have been presented with, how acceptable they believe them to be and most importantly why?
4. What Can We Do? The final section focuses on the actions we can all take, individually and collectively. Specifically, there is a framework for ‘calling out’ bad behaviour, but perhaps more importantly, there is a focus on proactivity… acting before the issue arises rather than responding to the worst of behaviours. This is built around the concept of psychological safety and the steps that need to be taken to build a culture around these priniciples.

Short Bio

With over 25 years experience in HR and change management roles at all levels from hands-on practitioner to the board room, Richard brings a unique blend of strategic insight and straight-talking Rochdalian pragmatism. He is a skilled facilitator and an insightful coach, helping groups and individuals to get clarity on the things that really matter. Through the application of lean principles he encourages people to focus on what really does add value and helps clients to structure their businesses to best effect. He has particular expertise in conflict resolution and mediation.

Short Bio

Aurora Constantin is a Lecturer in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. She studied Physics at the University of Craiova, Romania, and she got a PhD in Physics from the same university. In 2008, she changed her career to Informatics, starting with an MSc in IT at the University of Glasgow, followed by a PhD in Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests are Human-Computer Interaction, educational technologies, assistive technologies, technology for autism, and participatory design. Aurora contributed to the design and evaluation of a free app (SOFA) to support writing stories to help autistic children. She is an advocate of the social model of disability, which suggests that society should take responsibility for creating inclusive environments and ensuring equitable opportunities for people with disabilities, where everyone can participate and pursue their goals. As a leader of the Accessibility and Inclusivity Working Group within the School of Informatics, she promotes various approaches to formally educating students about accessibility.
Aurora has obtained a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2022, she received a Knighthood, the National Order of Cultural Merit - section H scientific research, from Romania's President.

Short Bio

Jacques Fleuriot is Professor (Personal Chair) of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is an Academic Lead for the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Care Research Centre and was previously the Director of the Artificial Intelligence and its Applications Institute. His research focuses on AI-based modelling which spans the theory and application of AI to decision making in health, care and other complex domains, where safety and trust are paramount.

Short Bio

Jane Hillston is computer scientist who combines formal languages and mathematical models to study the behaviour of dynamic systems. Her original work focused on performance analysis of computer and communication systems, seeking to predict their use of resources and responsiveness to users.
Over the years the modelling languages that she designs have been adopted and adapted to a number of application domains ranging from adaptive transport systems to biochemical processes within cells. She has also worked on developing formal approaches to fluid approximations of discrete models and formal languages for machine learning.
She is a distinguished scientist with numerous awards and fellowships. She is also a strong advocate for Women in Computing and her in this are work was recognised by a Suffrage Science Award in 2018 and an MBE award in 2023.

Alice and Eve/Recommendations on Hiring and Promoting Women for CS Departments

Abstract

In this talk Marieke Huisman will discuss two different initiatives related to diveristy & inclusion, in which she has been involved over the last years.
In January 2020 her team organised the first Alice & Eve event at the University of Twente. Alice & Eve, a celebration of women in computing in the Netherlands, was organized as a one-day event open to everybody, from Bachelor's and Master's students up to full professors. The event featured a symposium with contributions from and about female computer scientists, a poster contest and an exhibition portraying the achievements of 25 women in computing. The exhibition was accompanied by a booklet with more in-depth information about these 25 women. Alice & Eve is now turning into an annual event. Moreover, they have made a digital version of the exhibition, and added information about another 5 female computer scientists.
In this talk, Marieke will discuss the activities related to Alice & Eve. In addition, she will also briefly touch upon other DE & I activities that they have done in the Netherlands.

Short Bio

Marieke Huisman is a professor in Software Reliability at the University of Twente. She is well-known for her work on program verification of concurrent software. In 2011, she obtained an ERC Starting Grant, which she used to start development of the VerCors verifier, a tool for the verification of concurrent software. Currently, as part of her NWO personal VICI grant Mercedes, she is working on further improving verification techniques, both by enabling the verification of a larger class of properties, and by making verification more automatic. Since 2019 she is SC chair of ETAPS. Besides her scientific work, she also actively works on topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as science policy. She is currently department chair, as well as a board member of the Dutch national computer science platform. She has been chairing the national working group on on equity, diversity, and inclusion in computer science, chaired the advisory board on diversity and inclusion at the University of Twente. Finally, she also is a member of the executive board of VERSEN, the Dutch assocation of software researchers, and chaired this association from 2018 until 2021.

Short Bio

Sara Shinton is the Director of the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network. Formed in 2021, the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network supports the leadership of over 500 UKRI fellows through a four-nation, eight-partner network. The Network has developed a bespoke leadership framework, 360 feedback and coaching, an award-winning mentoring programme, hundreds of online workshops, a fellow-led development fund and a unique research and innovation development strand. You can learn more at https://vimeo.com/820820736 and https://www.flfdevnet.com/
Previously, she was the Head of Researcher Development at the University of Edinburgh where she led on the University’s Concordat response (to support research staff careers) and has a particular interest in inclusive research cultures, collaboration and wellbeing, having secured funding from UKRI, Wellcome and the Scottish Government to explore these topics.

Short Bio

Marco Aiello is Professor of Computer Science and Head of the Service Computing Department at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He is active in the fields of Service Computing, Smart Energy Systems, Smart Grids, AI Planning, and Spatial Reasoning. Currently, he is particularly interested in how to use IoT technology to make buildings more sustainable. He has published over 180 papers in peer-reviewed venues and two books. He sits on the editorial board of Springer’s Energy Informatics and of the Journal on Service Oriented Computing and Applications; Marco is also the specialty Chief Editor in Frontiers in Internet of Things - IoT Architectures. In addition to his position in Stuttgart, he also holds a Global Affiliated Research Faculty position at Chang Gung University, Taipei, Taiwan and a honorary professorship of Distributed Systems at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where he was a faculty member from 2006 till 2018. He holds a PhD in Logic from the University of Amsterdam, the Habilitation in Applied Informatics from TU Wien, and a master degree in Engineering from La Sapienza University of Rome. His education and career have developed across four European countries: Italy, The Netherlands, Austria, and Germany.

Short Bio

Manuel Carro is an Associate Professor in the area of Computer Science, specifically programming and formal methods, at the Technical University of Madrid, and Director of the IMDEA Software Institute, a non-profit research foundation. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and his current research focus is on high-level (constraint- and logic-based) programming languages and their application to knowledge representation and reasoning. He is Area Editor of the journal "Theory and Practice of Logic Programming", representative of the IMDEA Software Institute in Informatics Europe, member of the Expert Network of Santander Bank, member of the Consulting Council for the President of the Regional Government, and representative of IMDEA Software in the Node Steering Committee of EIT Digital Spain.

Short Bio

Victor Lomüller is Principal Software Engineer at Codeplay Software, he is currently working as a research engineer on compilation and programming models. He has worked on many SYCL related projects, principally on ComputeCPP and DPC++’s compiler. He is also a contributor to the SYCL and SPIR-V specifications. Prior to Codeplay, he received his Ph.D. in compiler from the University of Grenoble and the Commissariat aux Energie Atomique (CEA) in 2014 where he focused on low overhead runtime code specialization.

Short Bio

Dympna O'Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer and Assistant Head of School at the School of Computer Science at Technical University Dublin City Campus. Her research is in Applied Social Computing with a focus on Health Informatics and Digital Ethics.
In the area of Health Informatics, she is interested in the design, development and evaluation of Decision Support Systems to support clinician and patient decision making. This work involves research across many aspects of the domain including electronic and personal health records, machine learning and intelligent algorithms, explainable AI, sensors and smart home technologies, accessible user interfaces and theories of health behaviour change.
In terms of Digital Ethics, her work is focused on studying the societal impacts of various technologies and includes topics such as data ethics , data management, artificial intelligence, pervasive computing, social media platforms as well as relevant governance and legislation.

She is currently am PI of two large research projects. The first is an SFI Frontiers for the Future project titled Enabling Self-Care and Shared Decision Making for People Living with Dementia. The project is being undertaken in collaboration with Netwell Casala at DkIT and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland and is focused on the development of a new intelligent computer-based toolkit that will help and support people affected by dementia and in their daily living. Using a co-design approach, the toolkit will support self-management, empower participation in shared decision-making with relatives and carers and help people with dementia remain healthy and independent in their homes for longer.

Secondly, she leads a transnational Erasmus+ project titled Ethics4EU. Project partners include Telecom SudParis, Mälardalen University Sweden, the European Digital Learning Network and Informatics Europe. The Ethics4EU project is developing new curricula, best practices and learning resources for teaching Digital Ethics to computer science students. It follows a ‘train the trainer’ model for up-skilling computer science lecturers across Europe.

A Fresh Approach to Research Leadership

Abstract

Whatever your career plans, being able to demonstrate leadership will give you an advantage. But what does leadership mean? This interactive session will share what we’ve learnt about research and innovation leadership from the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Development Network. This multi-partner collaboration offers training, coaching and opportunities designed to support future generations and create a positive research and innovation culture.

During the session you’ll have a chance to think about your opportunities to lead and to learn from senior leaders in your network. You should leave with a plan to develop your own leadership, a range of ideas and insights from your sector and with a taste of the value of mentoring.

Short Bio

Sara Shinton is the Director of the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network. Formed in 2021, the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network supports the leadership of over 500 UKRI fellows through a four-nation, eight-partner network. The Network has developed a bespoke leadership framework, 360 feedback and coaching, an award-winning mentoring programme, hundreds of online workshops, a fellow-led development fund and a unique research and innovation development strand. You can learn more at https://vimeo.com/820820736 and https://www.flfdevnet.com/
Previously, she was the Head of Researcher Development at the University of Edinburgh where she led on the University’s Concordat response (to support research staff careers) and has a particular interest in inclusive research cultures, collaboration and wellbeing, having secured funding from UKRI, Wellcome and the Scottish Government to explore these topics.

Short Bio

Ambrish Rawat is a Research Scientist in the AI Security & Privacy team at IBM. His research interests are at the cross-sections of security, privacy and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Most recently, he has worked on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) like Federated Learning and Differential Privacy. He is passionate about building trustworthy AI systems with security and privacy guarantees within the regulatory demands of GDPR as well as EU AI and Digital Acts.

He holds a Master of Philosophy in Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Master of Technology in Mathematics and Computing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT Delhi). He joined IBM in 2016 and has since been leading and contributing to numerous efforts in AI and ML at the Dublin Research Lab.

His work has been published at top AI conferences and he's an active contributor to open source software projects. He have been recognised as Master Inventor at IBM for his contributions to IBM patent portfolio and has also received Research Division Award and several Outstanding Technical Accomplishment Awards for the contributions to the vast array of cutting-edge research at IBM.

The Cisco Networking Academy: Powering an Inclusive Future for All

Abstract

The Cisco Networking Academy is a global education and training programme that has reached over 20 million learners in 190 countries since inception 25 years ago. In this presentation, Elizabeth Barr, Head of the Cisco Networking Academy in the UK & Ireland, will dive into how the programme is powering an inclusive future for all through Higher Education and beyond.

Short Bio

Elizabeth leads the Cisco Networking Academy programme in the UK & Ireland, managing an ecosystem of 350+ organisations, including schools, charities, and prisons to drive high performance standards and grow the programme by exploring untapped market opportunities alongside Cisco and government entities. Elizabeth is passionate about making the tech industry a more diverse and inclusive space. She is a Board Member at Women of Cisco, where she leads STEM outreach activities, and is spearheading a number of initiatives through the Cisco Networking Academy to create more opportunities for underrepresented groups in the tech sector.

Creating and nurturing data science-based and AI-driven businesses

Abstract

The talk will be jointly presented by Laura Bernal and Katy Guthrie.

How can universities drive economic development and technology transfer through data-driven entrepreneurship support? The University of Edinburgh’s Venture Builder Incubator and AI Accelerator are two ground-breaking programmes which do just that – along with many other important support programmes. Targetting PhD students who are looking to commercialise their research, the Venture Builder Incubator offers a supportive environment for early-stage data-driven startups at the University of Edinburgh to ideate, experiment and refine their business concepts, offering guidance, workspace, and access to funding. The AI Accelerator, on the other hand, focuses on rapidly scaling businesses from both within the University and anywhere else, providing intensive mentorship, market exposure, and investor connections as well as the potential for academic collaboration for those companies pushing boundaries. Both models contribute significantly to the development of AI and data-driven enterprises, driving technological advancements and economic progress. It’s not all plain sailing though. Find out what has worked well and some of the challenges!

Short Bio

Laura Bernal is the Venture Builder Incubator Programme Manager at Edinburgh Innovations/Bayes Centre. She started her professional journey as the radio host of a program aimed at communicating research and innovations around the globe. Laura was account executive at one of the largest advertising agencies in the world where she learned more about creative thinking. She has a masters in Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship and upon completing she founded NetMinds. Since then, she has been involved in the start-up ecosystem both creating companies and supporting academics commercialise their research.

From start-up to scale-up and exit: lessons learned from 30 years of building and selling technology companies in transactions round the world

Short Bio

David joined Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) as CEO in November 2017. IGS is a Scottish-based agritech business, and David’s strategic appointment was made to raise investment through a Series A and subsequent Series B funding round, recruit a world-class management team and drive global expansion.
He is a seasoned technology entrepreneur, with a track record of driving shareholder value, based upon building an empowering, collaborative Culture as a Platform for growth. Most recently he was CEO of global SaaS vendor Workplace, leading the team through a hugely successful turnaround, transformation, growth and exit delivering a double-digit money multiple return in less than 3 years. In the past 27 years he has completed almost 30 transactions as a founder/CEO, angel investor and board director, including risk capital investments (PE, VC and angel), acquisitions and trade sales in Europe, North America and Asia.

From Research Lab to Startup: Navigating the Ethical AI Journey

Short Bio

Brian Hills is responsible for strategy, delivery and culture at The Data Lab, accountable to funding partners and The Data Lab Governance Board. A founding member of The Data Lab team, Brian has 25 years’ experience in analytics and software engineering, across domains including Telecoms, IT and Digital. During his 8 years at The Data Lab, Brian has been Head of Product, Head of Data Science and Deputy-CEO before moving to the CEO role in 2022. He has recently been recognised as a Top 5 Data Influencer in the UK, as part of the annual DataIQ top 100 people in data.

Innovate Through Science – Life-long Learning in Company Research

Abstract

The Honda Research Institute Europe is a fundamental research institute with a strong scientific focus as well as the goal to bring innovation into the company. Our work force is the backbone for these ambitious targets. In this presentation, we will introduce our company perspective of digital workforce transformation, life-long learning, and knowledge transfer. Further we will introduce several tools and measures that we implemented in order to support these goals.

Short Bio

Michael Gienger received the diploma degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in 1998. From 1998 to 2003, he was research assistant at the Institute of Applied Mechanics of the TUM, and received his PhD degree with a dissertation on ``Design and Realization of a Biped Walking Robot''. After this, Michael Gienger joined the Honda Research Institute Europe in Germany in 2003. Currently he works as a Chief Scientist and Competence Group Leader in the field of robotics. His research interests include mechatronics, robotics, whole-body control, imitation learning and human-robot interaction.

Creating and nurturing data science-based and AI-driven businesses

Abstract

The talk will be jointly presented by Laura Bernal and Katy Guthrie.

How can universities drive economic development and technology transfer through data-driven entrepreneurship support? The University of Edinburgh’s Venture Builder Incubator and AI Accelerator are two ground-breaking programmes which do just that – along with many other important support programmes. Targetting PhD students who are looking to commercialise their research, the Venture Builder Incubator offers a supportive environment for early-stage data-driven startups at the University of Edinburgh to ideate, experiment and refine their business concepts, offering guidance, workspace, and access to funding. The AI Accelerator, on the other hand, focuses on rapidly scaling businesses from both within the University and anywhere else, providing intensive mentorship, market exposure, and investor connections as well as the potential for academic collaboration for those companies pushing boundaries. Both models contribute significantly to the development of AI and data-driven enterprises, driving technological advancements and economic progress. It’s not all plain sailing though. Find out what has worked well and some of the challenges!

Short Bio

Katy Guthrie leads the University of Edinburgh’s AI Accelerator Programme which is designed to scale early stage AI-driven businesses across the themes of Climate, Health and AI for Good. She got interested in supporting early stage businesses when working as Head of Data with ScotlandIS, the industry body for digital technology in Scotland. Previously, Katy worked in data practitioner and data leadership roles within Financial Services.

Industry and Academia Collaboration - from a Sony Perspective

Abstract

Sony is a global brand that believes in open innovation and partnering up with innovative people around the globe. There is significant effort put to ensure that Sony establishes partnerships and opportunities to engage actively and maintain close relations with academia. In this pursuit, various programs and outlets have been established allowing for fruitful collaboration. This talk will highlights Sony’s vision, industry academia partnership approach, key areas of research, engagement styles, opportunities and what connects them together.

Short Bio

Faisal, holds a PhD in Photonics, opto-mechanical design expert, business strategist and certified expert in "Circular Economy and Sustainable Business Strategy" from Cambridge, currently working as Principal Technology Analyst in Sony's Technology Partnerships Europe team. He bridges academia and industry, fostering collaborations with startups, SMEs, and major corporations. With a career encompassing leading roles at Optocap, Lumentum, and Optoscribe, alongside international strategic consulting work spanning Europe, the USA, and Canada, Faisal brings a wealth of experience. He's a dedicated mentor in startup acceleration programs and a public speaker, delivering keynote addresses, on various topics from fostering partnerships to Quantum Tech and sustainable adoption. Leveraging his technical expertise and commercial insights, Faisal currently plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between R&D and the consumer product market.

The Entrepreneurship Journey at TUM

Abstract

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) ranks among Europe’s most outstanding universities in research and innovation – an achievement powered by its distinctive character as the Entrepreneurial University. Together with UnternehmerTUM, the leading center for innovation and business creation in Europe, more than 50 high-growth technology start-ups come out of the ecosystem every year - including Celonis, Konux, inveox, and Isar Aerospace.

In this talk you will gain insights on how UnternehmerTUM turns visions into value by empowering innovative people to take entrepreneurial action. Follow the journey at UnternehmerTUM, where we drive tech ventures forward - from first idea to market leadership. A special focus will be given on how to build a successful innovation ecosystem, a key ingredient when it comes to securing a safe, prosper and progressive society in Europe.

Short Bio

Marisa Schneider manages international partnerships and activities at UnternehmerTUM in Munich, Germany. She connects Europe’s leading center for business creation with like-minded institutions and stakeholders from abroad and therewith fosters the international dialogue in the world of innovation. While Munich is continuously developing into one of Europe’s entrepreneurship hotspots, Marisa is helping tech start-ups worldwide to get access to the local innovation ecosystem. Currently, she is running Rise Europe, a new network of the 21 leading start-up ecosystem builders empowering European start-ups to make a positive global impact.

Why Investment Matters - from a Scotland Perspective

Abstract

Coming Soon

Short Bio

Kerry Sharp is Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise which is Scotland’s national economic development agency. Her team are responsible for the organisation’s start to scale services and investment activities working with alongside Highland and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise. Her team’s responsibilities include providing tailored advice, funding and investment to high growth potential, innovation based start-ups, spins-outs, and early-stage businesses with global ambitions, working in partnership with the entrepreneurial eco-system and private sector investors. Through the team’s commercial investments, which is c£50m pa, Scottish Enterprise is seeking to grow Scotland’s private sector risk capital market, ensuring early-stage SME’s have adequate access to growth capital to reach their full potential.

Minecraft and other stories: The story of building 4J Studios

Short Bio

Chris van der Kuyl is one of Scotland’s leading entrepreneurs working across the technology, media, gaming and entertainment sectors. Chris is most notably co-founder and chairman of 4J Studios, a next-generation video game development studio responsible for the global phenomenon Minecraft.
Chris is chairman of portfolio companies Puny Astronaut, TVSquared, Broker Insights, Stormcloud Games and Parsley Box, and sits on the boards of; Blippar, Ace Aquatec and ADV Holdings. He is also a non-executive director of the Ballie Gifford US Growth Trust.
Alongside his commercial roles, he was the founding chairman of Entrepreneurial Scotland and is currently a member of multiple advisory and local charity boards. Chris was formally recognised for his contribution to technology in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020, becoming a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Why Investment matters - from an Edinburgh Perspective

Abstract

The talk will set out how responsible early stage investment helps University of Edinburgh’s ideas, research and innovation transition out of the labs and classrooms into the wider world, making an impact at scale.

Short Bio

Andrea is Head of Investment for Old College Capital (OCC), the in-house Venture Investment Fund of the University of Edinburgh. OCC manages Edinburgh’s early stage investment activities and shareholdings; supporting exciting ideas and technologies emerging from the University. OCC’s mission is to work with our founders, investors, and the ecosystem to accelerate the journey of start-ups and spin-outs looking to make a positive impact on people and our planet. Andrea is part of the founding OCC team and has 30+ years of investment and venture capital experience. Andrea is FCA qualified and prior to joining OCC held director positions at Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank and Scottish Enterprise.

Informatics Higher Education in Europe: A Data Portal and Case-Study

In a context where the demand for people skilled in Informatics is increasing constantly, analyzing data about higher education in Informatics and assessing their impact on society is of paramount importance. The goal of this talk is to offer - by way of case-study research a data-driven perspective over how Informatics education can be studied and improved in a data driven-fashion.
The work is based on data available on the Informatics Europe Higher Education Data Portal (IEHE), the first European integrated portal of educational data. The portal was created with the aim of providing the Informatics academic community, policymakers, industry and other stakeholders a complete and reliable picture of the state of Informatics higher education in Europe.

Short Bio

Elisabetta di Nitto is a Full Professor in the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria of Politecnico di Milano. From April 1996 to June 1999 she has been researcher at CEFRIEL, leading the software engineering area. From April 1998 to September 1998 she has been visiting professor at University of California, Irvine (USA). Her expertise lies in the area of software engineering and, in particular, of large-scale, open, service-oriented systems with a special attention to the techniques to make these systems self-adaptable to the changes in the environment and in the performances of its distributed components, and to enable them to identify and incorporate new components at runtime. Recently, she has been focusing on Cloud Computing and, in particular, on how to design applications that can run on multiple clouds in order to limit vendor lock-in and to increase availability and reliability of such applications.

Behind-the-scenes of the IE Data Portal

Informatics Europe Higher Education Data Portal. is one of the most appreciated and used IE services. The portal was created to provide the Informatics academic community, policymakers, industry and other stakeholders a complete and reliable picture of state of Informatics higher education in Europe. Data presented there - covering over 20 European countries across 11 years - is the only one of its kind in Europe. In her talk, Svetlana will present the main functionalities of the Data Portal and explain how IE collects, integrates and curates the data ensuring its validity and reliability.

Short Bio

Svetlana Tikhonenko, having a Master degree in Survey Methodology and Public Opinion, works for Informatics Europe since 2017 where she is responsible for data collection, analysis and reporting activities. She actively contributed to writing annual Key Data Reports on “Informatics Education in Europe: Institutions, Degrees, Students, Positions, Salaries” and currently manages the Informatics Europe Higher Education Data Portal.

Short Bio

Vasilios Andrikopoulos is associate professor at the University of Groningen, where he is a member of the Software Engineering and Architecture group in the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. He received his PhD from Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and he has worked as a postdoc for both Tilburg University and the University of Stuttgart, Germany. His research interests are in the area of software architectures for cloud-based systems, with an emphasis on their sustainability.

Short Bio

Kawsar Haghshenas joined the Computer Science Department of the University of Groningen in April 2023 as an assistant professor in Distributed Systems. Before that, she was a postdoc at the Service Computing Department of the University of Stuttgart, where she was working on artificial intelligence workload scheduling in GPU clusters. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2020 from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Tehran. Kawsar was a visiting Ph.D. researcher at the Embedded Systems Laboratory of EPFL University in Switzerland from 2017 to 2018. Her Ph.D. dissertation was focused on machine learning-based resource management in cloud platforms. Currently, her research is centered around system-level design and optimization of data centers, e.g., in the scheduling and allocation algorithms. The goal of her research is to improve sustainability, resource and energy efficiency, and performance of cloud computing.

Short Bio

Dr Brian Keegan is Head of Computer Science at TU Dublin School of Computer Science and a Founding member of ASCNet. Brian supervises PhD students whose research includes networking, cybersecurity, algorithm design, and Machine Learning. Further research includes IoT, Smart Spaces, Optimal Energy Systems and Communications Engineering. Brian is a Senior Member of IEEE and works with the EU Commision on HORIZON evaluation. Brian has a background in Electrical and Electronic Engineering with a PhD specialisation in Wireless Networks completed in 2010 at DIT. Brian also holds an M.Phil. and B.Eng. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering as well as a Pg.Dip in Third Level Teaching and Learning. Brian has worked for Oracle (Sun Microsystems) as software engineer and release lead as well as working for Cisco Systems, San Jose as software developer and test engineer. Brian has been involved with academic teaching since 1998 and is currently a Senior Lecturer with TU Dublin Computer Science.

Software Engineering Education in the Era of Large Language Models: Promises and Perils

Abstract
The noticeable achievements reached in automated software engineering have produced substantial benefits to various software development activities, ranging from coding to testing and code review. On top of that, the recent availability of Large Language Models has provided developers with the ability to automatically solve problems that were not imaginable just months before.
Expectedly, the advent of LLMs has also created, on the one hand, skepticism and concerns due to their hallucination problems and, on the other hand, fears about the side effects due to their adoption by practitioners as well as by students. Concerning the latter, Universities have adopted different strategies, either forbidding the use of such systems or encouraging their responsible usage.
In this talk, the speaker will follow the latter approach, illustrating how the evolution of recommender systems and, recently, LLMs have completely changed the role of software engineers. They should no longer be the ones that write source code (or tests) from scratch. Rather, their role would be to be able to properly leverage existing tools and use their output to efficiently and effectively develop software systems. Certainly, this not only has an impact on software development practices but also on the type of education/training we should provide to the developers of tomorrow.

Short Bio

Massimiliano Di Penta is a full professor at the University of Sannio, Italy. His research interests include software maintenance and evolution, mining software repositories, empirical software engineering, search-based software engineering, and software testing. He is an author of over 330 papers that appeared in international journals, conferences, and workshops. He has received several awards for research and service, including four ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished paper awards. He serves and has served in the organizing and program committees of more than 100 conferences, including ICSE, FSE, ASE, and ICSME. Among others, he has been program co-chair of ICSE 2023 ESEC/FSE 2021, and ASE 2017. He is associate editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, co-editor in chief of the Journal of Software: Evolution and Processes edited by Wiley, and editorial board member of Empirical Software Engineering Journal edited by Springer. He has served the editorial board of the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

Should We Still Teach "Programming"?

Abstract
Programmer assistants like Github Copilot based on LLMs (Large Language Models) may change the way programs are constructed. What are the implications for (university-level) courses on programming? Institutions that must deal with large enrollements and/or a diverse student population face a number of challenges and any assistance offered by tools may be appreciated. Our speaker Thomas Gross says, "I do not have a definite answer that applies to all settings, but I have a few observations. My perspective is clouded by teaching the 1st-semester course "Introduction to Programming" to 500+ students in the CS BS program at ETH, and I'm more than happy to hear your ideas, suggestions, or feedback."

Short Bio

Thomas R. Gross has been Associate Professor since 1994 and became Full Professor of Computer Science April 1, 1998; his research area covers the design and implementation of software systems. Currently, he is investigating methods and tools for the construction of network-aware applications.
Prof. Gross studied at the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn and the Technical University Munich, where he graduated with a degree in computer science. He attended Stanford University and obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. At Stanford he was part of the team that developed the original Stanford MIPS processor and his dissertation (advised by John L. Hennessy) dealt with the post-pass optimizer for this innovative RISC processor. After spending another year in sunny California as a postdoc, he joined the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. At CMU, he headed the development of the software system for the Warp machine and later participated in the design of the iWarp, a joint Intel/CMU project. Subsequently, his focus shifted to software systems, and he and his colleagues developed several innovative compilers (Fx, cmcc). His current projects focus on compilers, programming tools, and (in collaboration with Disney Research) on using software instead of (complicated) hardware (e.g., for low-cost networking based on visible light communication or body channel communication).

Teaching software engineering for AI-enabled systems

Abstract

Common academic AI courses teach how to build machine learning (ML) models with the best performance for a given dataset. However, integrating such ML models into production systems and maintaining them over time is a complex work that requires teaching future engineers how to build production-grade components out of ML prototypes.

In this talk, Filippo Lanubile will introduce a project-based learning approach that starts with a ML model developed by a data scientist and deploys it as part of a scalable and maintainable AI-enabled system. He will then present the design of a course, which he has taught for two editions, focusing on labs and assignments that aim to familiarize students with MLOps practices and tools.

Short Bio

Filippo Lanubile is a Full Professor of computer science and Head of the Department of Informatics at the University of Bari, Italy, where he also leads the Collaborative Development Research Group. His research interests include: human factors in software engineering, collaborative software development, software engineering for AI/ML systems, social computing and emotion detection. He is a recipient of a NASA Group Achievement Award, an IBM Eclipse Innovation Award, an IBM Faculty Award, and the Software Engineering Innovation Foundation Award from Microsoft Research. He was the General Chair of the 2020 and 2021 editions of the ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) and he is currently the Chair of the IEEE Software Advisory Board.

Benefits, risks, and challenges of AI in informatics education

Abstract

AI in education has many benefits, such as personalizing learning, enhancing feedback, and facilitating assessment. However, it also poses several risks that need to be addressed. This is affecting education in all fields and at all levels, but how will it affect computing education? Computing studies have been adapting to the state of the art of AI, including new developments in the curricula. Likewise, topics such as developing intelligent tutoring or learning analytics have been incorporated into the studies. In the last year, the emergence of tools such as ChatGPT, with its ability to work on issues such as code generation, is opening up a reflection on computing studies beyond AI itself, which we will see in other talks in the workshop. However, AI also poses several challenges that need to be addressed by all actors involved in the educational process.

Some of the challenges that will be discussed in the workshop are: the adaptation to the digital ecosystem derived from AI, which is continuously evolving; the development of students’ competencies in generative AI, with an emphasis on fostering critical thinking skills to understand its potential and limitations and to make ethical use of these technologies; the reviewing, updating, and innovating of curriculum content and teaching methods that may have become outdated, opening up more opportunities for students’ reflection; and the exploration of alternatives and/or complementarities in assessment methods.

Short Bio

Dr. David López has a master’s degree (1991) and a PhD (1998) in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC). He also has a master’s degree in Asian Studies, with a major in East Asian Arts and Societies (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC, 2008). His technical skills include computer organisation and architecture; data centre organisation; and the relationship between sustainability, education and ethics in computing and services.

He has taught at the Department of Computer Architecture at the UPC since 1991, becoming associate professor in 2001. His PhD thesis was on the design of architectures and compilers to optimize numerical code. In 2004 he decided to change his main research field to engineering education, sustainability and ethics. He has published more than 150 scientific papers and participated in several research projects funded by the Spanish government and the European Union.

Dr. López is a member of the Spanish Association of University Informatics Teachers (AENUI), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He has given more than 50 workshops and over 100 talks on computing and sustainability, professional engineering skills, communication for engineers and research in engineering education. He is one of the founders and former president of TxT (Technology for Everybody), an NGO composed mainly of people from the Barcelona School of Informatics. Former deputy director and director (2014-2019) of the Institute of Education Sciences at the UPC. He is currently the coordinator of the STEAM University Learning Group - EduSTEAM (https://futur.upc.edu/34275132). He was in charge of the creation of the UPC PhD program in Engineering, Science and Technology Education, which started in September 2020. He has been a member of the Steering Committee in charge of the development of the Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020) of ACM-IEEE. He is currently advisor on educational issues for the Conference of Directors and Deans of Computing Engineering (CODDII) and responsible for higher education in the Scientific Society of Computing of Spain (SCIE). He has earned the "AENUI Award for Teaching Quality and Innovation 2020" and the "UPC Award for Social Commitment 2019” among other awards and honours.

Open science and research assessment: Which agenda should the informatics community push forward?

Abstract

The talk will be jointly presented by Laurent Romary and Pierre Paradinas.

The recent period has witnessed significant advances in both the domains of Open Science and research assessment. The establishment of COARA (the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) has generated high expectations regarding the ability of all types of institutions to shape the future of research assessment in a more qualitative manner, encompassing a broader range of subjects beyond mere publications. Within this context, the informatics community, characterized by its distinct publication profile (journals and conferences), longstanding commitment to open science, and active involvement in the creation of various infrastructures dedicated to the dissemination of publications (such as CiteSeerX and DBLP) or software code (via Software Heritage), holds a unique position to shape its own agenda and priorities in articulating how open science can contribute to improved research assessment practices. In this session, we will present some ongoing background analysis conducted within the EU GraspOS project on this subject, as well as perspectives from Inria and the French SIF (Société Informatique de France) association. Our intention is to lay the groundwork for exchanging ideas and identifying priorities for action among the participants.

Short Bio

Pierre Paradinas is Professor at Cnam since 2003 (Paris) in the "Embedded Systems chair".
He received a PhD in Computer Science from Lille University in 1988 on smart cards and health care applications. Pierre Paradinas joined Gemplus -- a smart card company -- in 1989. There held many positions and he created and directed the Software Research Lab. He left, after having been director of a technological partnership based in Silicon Valley. He also served as Director of Technology Development at INRIA for 3 years.
Since the mid-2010s he has been the coordinator of the initiative for the French museum of Informatics. He is a former President of the Société Informatique de France and he actually serves as VP for international relations.

Open science and research assessment: Which agenda should the informatics community push forward?

Abstract

The talk will be jointly presented by Laurent Romary and Pierre Paradinas.

The recent period has witnessed significant advances in both the domains of Open Science and research assessment. The establishment of COARA (the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) has generated high expectations regarding the ability of all types of institutions to shape the future of research assessment in a more qualitative manner, encompassing a broader range of subjects beyond mere publications. Within this context, the informatics community, characterized by its distinct publication profile (journals and conferences), longstanding commitment to open science, and active involvement in the creation of various infrastructures dedicated to the dissemination of publications (such as CiteSeerX and DBLP) or software code (via Software Heritage), holds a unique position to shape its own agenda and priorities in articulating how open science can contribute to improved research assessment practices. In this session, we will present some ongoing background analysis conducted within the EU GraspOS project on this subject, as well as perspectives from Inria and the French SIF (Société Informatique de France) association. Our intention is to lay the groundwork for exchanging ideas and identifying priorities for action among the participants.

Short Bio

Laurent Romary is Director for Scientific Information and Culture at Inria (France). For many years, he has carried out research on natural language processing and the modelling of semi-structured documents, with a specific emphasis on texts and linguistic resources. He has also been active in standardisation activities within ISO committee TC 37 and the Text Encoding Initiative. He has been active since many years on various issues related to the advancement of open science.