Category Archives: Women in Computing

Events, Inspiration, MA/MFA Computational Art, Students, Women in Computing

TEST SIGNAL computational arts degree show

Ever wanted a robot to make you a cup of tea? Or thought you could create music just by walking? Well these dreams are becoming a reality, as up and coming artists experiment with technology in a new show at Hotel Elephant from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 September.

Blurring the boundaries between the virtual world and the physical world, these 17 young artists, from across the world, all met while studying Computational Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. They will be showcasing their works as part of their show, TEST SIGNAL.

Bringing together live performance, installation, audiovisual work, biosensors and robotics, this exhibition will give audiences the chance to see the most avant-garde experimentation in computational artwork.

Work that will be seen as part of TEST SIGNAL includes:

  • a robotic arm that you can control to try and make a cup of tea
  • a tunnel that analyses how you walk, and turns it into music
  • an interactive puppet theatre, that allows audiences to come onto the stage and interact with characters in the performance

Speaking about the work, Professor of Computer Art, William Latham, said: “Computational art is becoming more and more popular. Just look at the queues of people flocking to the Barbican to see the Digital Revolution exhibition. But this is only the beginning. What you will see at TEST SIGNAL is exciting new work by the newest postgraduate Goldsmiths talent showing the amazing potential of this emerging digital art form from the most innovative course in the UK.”

TEST SIGNAL is the final degree show of students who have studied on the MA in Computational Arts at Goldsmiths. This Masters develops students and helps them to apply skills in computational technology through arts practice.

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Staff profiles and activity, Students, Throwback Thursday, Women in Computing

Throwback Thursday: British Museum Motion Capture Workshop

britishmuseum

This week’s Throwback Thursday post revisits an EAVI project from 2011.

In March 2011, Andrea Kleinsmith, Will Robinson, Parag Mital, Bruno Zamborlin and  Marco Gillies from Goldsmiths’ Embodied Audio-Visual Interaction research group ran a series of workshops for the British Museum Samsung Digital Discovery Research centre.

These workshops allowed 13-18 year olds to explore characters and artefacts from the museums collection by performing in the Goldsmiths’ motion capture suite. The participants movements were mapped on to images of characters from the museum collection.

More images on the British Museum’s Flickr site

  • Andrea Kleinsmith is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering, University of Florida
Events, News, Women in Computing

Travel grants for Women in Computing Conference in Arizona

GraceHopperConfAs part of Google’s ongoing commitment to increase the number of women in engineering, they are offering travel grants to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on 8-10 October 2014.

The theme for this year’s conference is “Everywhere. Everyone.” and will offer incredible opportunities for mentoring, networking, and career development.

Female university students and industry professionals excelling in Computer Science can apply for one of the five travel grant to attend the 2014 Grace Hopper conference.

Sponsorship includes:

  • conference registration
  • round trip flight to Phoenix, AZ (from Europe, Middle East or Africa)
  • reimbursement for ground transportation to and from the airport and the hotel
  • arranged hotel accommodations from 7-11 October
  • a fun event with your travel scholar recipients on one of the evenings of the conference.

Apply here by Tuesday 15 July 2014. The winners will be announced the week of 4 August 2014.This conference is open to female residents of countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Terms & Conditions.

If you have any questions please email europe-events@google.com

News, Students, Women in Computing

Goldsmiths’ students win best pitch at sexual violence hackathon

Kahani-Team-Pitch-on-main-Screen_edit

Two Goldsmiths’ BSc Computer Science students have been awarded Best Team Pitch for their group project at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict hackathon.

The hackathon was part of a global summit hosted by Angelina Jolie, the Special Envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Foreign Secretary William Hague that aimed to find practical ways to prevent sexual violence being used as a weapon of war. The hackathon took place at the ExCel centre, Docklands between June 10 and 13 with a top prize of £1500 funding to be put towards further developing the winning app.

Students Sophie Pearce and James Milton worked with a group of eight to create a demo for a digital storytelling app called Kahani that shows the impact of sexual violence on a community from a range of view points.

The app is named after the Hindi word for story and would show positive examples of how survivors, their families and community leaders have dealt with the trauma of sexual violence.

The team behind Kahani won the Best Team Pitch for their pitch to a panel of judges that included heads of major charities, a delegate from the FCO and agency workers with on the ground experience. The top prize Judge’s Choice Award was won by an app that used GPS to direct survivors to the nearest aid centre.

Milton said he was pleased to win best pitch, and found the whole experience worthwhile. He said: “The cause was amazing, the people were inspiring and the challenge of building an effective team in 72 hours was really enjoyable. It has enhanced my belief in the power of computing and social technology to help solve major issues.”

This article was first published on East London Lines by Hannah Ashton

Careers, Women in Computing

Paid internships for designers, copywriters, creatives and UX experts

ladygeek

Our friends at Lady Geek are looking for outstanding creative talent to help us re-design the communications for one of the world’s leading phone manufacturer to make them more appealing to women.

This is an opportunity for you to take part on an exciting and transformative project, within a busy thriving and creative team, allowing you to develop your skills /portfolio.

The project will take place in June/July 2014 but with the opportunity for further scope. Previous creatives who have worked for us have had their work featured on BBC News, Wired, The Independent, Apple Store and the Houses of Parliament.

Skills & experience

  • Your duties mainly include concept creation, development and execution.
  • Someone who can come up with ideas that go beyond a media channel.
  • Ideally, you’ll also have a good understanding of CS suites and be able to visualise ideas on paper.
  • You will need a portfolio packed with high quality work and excellent ideas.

They’d love to hear from you whether you are a student or a graduate. To apply please send your CV and portfolio sample that will be relevant for the project, together with a cover letter stating why you’d like to join them. Please email your application to Joana Pereira at joana@ladygeek.com.