Events, News, Students

Goldsmiths Computing Expo 2013: interesting people doing interesting stuff

The annual Goldsmiths Computing Expo is where we open our doors to everyone and offer them a chance to come and see some of our technological innovation and meet the staff and students behind it.

This year’s Computing Expo was a fantastic showcase of the work of our department at all levels from first year undergraduate to PhD and staff research. The diversity of work was impressive, from a durational performance recreating in digital form the collaboration between Marina Abramović and Ulay, to an app that suggests clothing and make-up colours to complement your skin and hair. There was also a first year collaborative music making systems that many attendees mistook for a final year project!

These were all projects that were very creative and well thought out but also highly technically challenging. What was particularly impressive was the number of students who were getting their work out in the real world from iPhone games on the app store to collaborations with Choreographers and open source hardware.

In the early evening, a range of professionals, students and academics took to the Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre to hear a series of short presentations from some of the departments brightest undergraduate students. Martin Roth, head of research at interactive music company RjDj, and Research Fellow in the department, chaired a panel of industry experts including Lisa Long – Director of Soniq Play , Alan Stuart – Director of Wow Elite, Brendan Quinn from Clueful Media Ltd, and Justin Spooner, Director of Unthinkable consulting. Martin Roth said “It was great to be able to see what Goldsmiths students are up to and how the College is thinking about entrepreneurship.”

Check out some of the projects below:

The Department of Computing at Goldsmiths is arguably Europe’s leading interdisciplinary computer science department for research, teaching and enterprise across the arts, music and social sciences. Our success has been based on a strong strategic focus with London’s creative industries and realised through strong partnerships with other departments in Goldsmith such including Art, Music, Sociology, Design, Visual Cultures, Theatre and Performance and Psychology.

We are already looking forward to EXPO 2014 where, you never know, it might be your work we’re showing off!

See our Expo pics on Flickr

 

News, Staff profiles and activity

Killer Robots: Mark Bishop in New Scientist

The Computing Department’s very own Prof Mark Bishop has appeared in New Scientist this week where he has been interviewed about the development and potential (mis)use of military killer robots. Mark argues that a ban on these kind of weapons is essential.  Read the online version of the article (by Simon Makin) here. 

Image, Will Hutchinson

Mark Bishop is professor of cognitive computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and chairs the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour

Staff profiles and activity

The realities of university life with mental health problems

13-19th May 2013 is Mental Health Awareness Week, the Mental Health Foundation’s annual campaign. The Students’ Union and the Disability Team at Goldsmiths have organised a series of events around this, including an information stand in the Loafers café and a movie night, showing Lars and the Real Girl. Prior to the film screening there will be a Q&A panel on mental health issues. I’ll be one of the panellists, talking openly about my role as a departmental Senior Tutor, my own experiences as a mental health service user (I have bipolar disorder), and the problems and practicalities of being a student with mental illness (my husband is an undergraduate student at a different university and also has bipolar disorder). Everyone is welcome to attend.

Academic life and mental illness is not a smooth ride but it can be done. For me, academic life with bipolar disorder is both a blessing (when my mood is elevated I am incredibly productive and creative) and a curse (if I’m too high or low I can’t focus or concentrate). I know I can do my job and I can do it well – I just sometimes need a little more time or a different way of working. From a student perspective the same applies. My husband is now in his second year of his degree after two previous attempts at undergraduate studies prior to his diagnosis left him burnt out and on antipsychotics. This time round he has support in place. Goldsmiths offers the same support for any student with a disability: there are reasonable adjustments for assessments, we can help with your application for Disabled Student Allowance to fund further support, we strive to raise awareness and understanding amongst staff and fellow students, there is a counselling service on campus, and where we can’t help we’ll refer you to someone who can.

I’m the Senior Tutor in the Department of Computing, which means that any student with a non-academic issue such as illness, personal problems, welfare, etc., can come and see me so that we can plan a solution. That solution may be as straightforward as arranging extra time for courseworks, through to more complex strategies like taking a break from studies for a while, or helping people get access to the right services. For my students, I hope that I can offer not just advice and adjustments but empathy and understanding. I know what it’s like to hang on to normality by the fingertips. It’s not always easy and sometimes it can be downright awful but I also know that it’s possible, and that a life often turned upside down by mental health problems needn’t be a barrier to a successful journey through university. Help is there. We want to see people succeed. From my own experience, the best advice I can offer anyone facing mental health problems is “talk to someone”.

Kate Devlin, Senior Tutor
For more info about the film screening and Q+A on Thursday please see the SU website here.

Students

Meet Eduardo, our Department Student Co-ordinator.

Eduardo is a student on the BSc Creative Computing (integrated degree). This year he has been doing a wonderful job of one of our Department Student Co-ordinators, representing the student body to both the department itself and to Goldsmiths. Here he tells us a little about himself and his experiences of Goldsmiths:

I am a mature student with a young heart. At the moment I am in the foundation year to shape up and get the tools I need to become a computer scientist. I knew about Goldsmiths because some of my friends who were studying at the university already told me the wonders of studying here.

I was thinking about coming back to education for some time, and after attending to an open day and having a chat with the Computing Department peeps I was convinced I wanted to study here. Studying at Goldsmiths for me has been a great experience and a rollercoaster of emotions, I have met good friends, and given the opportunity to get involved in the academic life, by working closely with students, teachers and other academic figures to support students as Student Coordinator and this way become a bridge for better understanding between the two sides.

My tutors have given me many gifts to be thankful for, like logical thinking and understanding computing behaviour, the hunger for researching, and creating my own personal and creative ways to develop my ideas so I can walk my own path.

Finally studying at Goldsmith has given me the ultimate gift, which is a dream of an amazing future and a second opportunity in life to become the person I want to be.

Women in Computing

Women in Computing workshop at Goldsmiths

On the 27th March, the Computing Department at Goldsmiths ran an Introduction to Arduino workshop specifically aimed at women applicants.

The workshop was a great success. Arduino is a computer that can sense what is going on in the world and make something happen because of it. It is a prototyping board, for all your interactive design/artistic needs. The workshop introduced applicants to some of the amazing things that can be done with an Arduino, how to get started and how to find out more. In the workshop we learned how to write a small computer program to control a light to turn on when it gets dark, or when someone comes near. All participants seemed to enjoy the workshop, as did the workshop leaders, Sophie and Shauna from MzTek.

Our department is committed to actively encouraging more women to take up university places in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) subjects. We are also committed to supporting women students once they arrive at Goldsmiths because we recognise that Computing subjects have traditionally been dominated by men.

Keep an eye out for more Women in Computing events taking place at Goldsmiths over the coming months.

 

 

 

Staff profiles and activity

Meet the staff: Prof Robert Zimmer

In the run up to the new academic year in September, we’re conducting a series of quick-fire interviews with some of the lecturers so you can meet them before you arrive. It would be only right to kick off with the Head of Department, so here you go…

Professor Robert Zimmer in 60 seconds!

What five words would you choose to describe the department? Welcoming, innovative, relaxed, creative, unique.

What do most enjoy about being Head of the Computing department? Being a head of department at Goldsmiths has enabled me to work with world class researchers in arts, humanities and social sciences to build a unique and exciting intellectual environment in the Computing Department

If you weren’t an academic, what would your dream job be? Presenter of a daytime TV.

What do you most like doing when you’re not at work? I would say…drinking wine and cooking!

What piece of advice would you give to applicants hoping to take up a university place in September? Be yourself. Be somebody better.

Staff profiles and activity, Women in Computing

‘Our Correspondent’, Dr Kate Devlin – BBC Expert Women

Our lecturer, Dr Kate Devlin, was one of 60 experts selected out of over 2000 applicants to take part in a scheme to tackle gender imbalance in the media. Here she talks about her experience.

Tuesday, 4pm, at the BBC Academy: I was so busy chatting with three other women about computers, 3D printing, robotics and counterterrorism engineering that I forgot I was in a radio studio in the middle of a broadcast. I was taking part in the BBC Academy Expert Women day as a participant in the second cohort to be put through their paces at White City. Considering I had started the morning panicking that maybe I didn’t know enough, and that maybe they would think I was a fraud, the training had worked.

In four all-too-short sessions we were shown the ropes, getting a taste of how to confidently share our knowledge and research with a wide audience on TV and radio. But it wasn’t just the new skills that were so fascinating: the twenty-nine other women experts and the industry women training us were among the most interesting I have ever had the pleasure to meet. From astrobiologists to actuaries, and from to vulcanologists to feminist historians, everyone had something compelling to share and the opportunity was there to share it.

Women are vastly under-represented in the media and the Expert Women campaign seeks to redress the gender imbalance. This imbalance is also echoed in our own discipline – computing – where women are often discouraged by the “white male geek” stereotype. It’s estimated that the number of UK technology jobs held by women is just 17%. Seventeen percent! And yet we are all using and interacting with technology daily. Research shows we often assume that because we see stereotypes, we feel we ought to conform to those stereotypes in order to be successful. In other words, if we see a geeky male computer scientist, we think we can only be a computer scientist if we are both geeky and male. Not true! It was women who drove many of the early developments in computing and, hopefully, it will be women who contribute more and more in the future. Through initiatives such as these where women talk about what they do and share it publicly, we hope to encourage other women and girls, and show that a career in computing is both possible and desirable.

Dr Kate Devlin

Creativity, independence and learning by doing.