A second year Computer Science student from Swansea University has won first prize in a UK–wide poster competition organised by the British Computer Society (BCS) Women.
Kaushalya Kularatum (pictured) was awarded the prize at the 2010 Lovelace Colloquium which took place at Cardiff University this month.
Kaushalyla’s poster, entitled “Intellectual Equals” was centred around the super computer, Deep Blue, designed by IBM in 1996 and famously pitted against the world’s greatest chess player, Garry Kasperov in 1997.
Using this example, the poster highlighted the wonders of artificial intelligence and gave some insight into the man versus machine debate and whether a ‘thinking machine’ still remains a distant dream.
The Lovelace Colloquium is a one-day event named after Ada Lovelace, a computing pioneer and often considered to be the first programmer. The event is open to all undergraduate and taught postgraduate women in computing and related disciplines across the UK, and beyond. The day comprised of poster competitions and speakers from industry and academia.
This was the first year that the Lovelace Colloquium, hosted by Cardiff’s Department of Computer Science, was held outside England. Kaushayla faced competition from students from all over the UK who attended and presented their posters at the event.
Beti Williams, Director of IT Wales at Swansea’s Department of Computer Science said: “I am delighted that Kaushalya has won this prestigious prize. Students from universities throughout the UK submitted posters and the standard was very high. We at the Department of Computer Science are very proud of her.”
To find out more about BCS Women, visit: http://www.bcs.org/.
For further information about the School of Physical Sciences, visit: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/physical_sciences/.
