On the 23rd September 2022, two of the Secondary schools in Wokingham Town, The Holt and St Crispin’s took part in the annual Science with Schools event.
This event aims to show the variety of options for students post secondary education within STEM fields.
This event is now in its third year, and this year focused on Artificial Intelligence with presentations from Priyanka Sen a machine learning scientist with Amazon, and Tom Joy a research scientist at Five, who works on driverless car technology.
There are many routes into AI
Priyanka Sen came into machine learning through a love of languages and a degree in Linguistics from Harvard, which she now uses to help Amazon Alexa interact with people using natural language. She also talked about how broadly Artificial intelligence algorithms are being used, noting how it gets used in fashion, sport and other non science fields.
Pursue your passion
Tom Joy talked about his work and finding his passion in AI. Tom’s work involves creating algorithms so that the car can recognise objects; detect how far away they are; and then drive around them. Tom mentioned that he was an average graded GCSE student who spent most of the time at the skatepark. He found an interest in Engineering and pursued a passion in AI. He has recently finished his PhD in Artificial Intelligence, at Oxford University. Tom was keen to stress that students should keep their eyes open, get involved with subjects that interest them and never give up looking for their dream.
The students asked some insightful questions including if Alexa was capable of interpreting emotions from your voice? Could AI have a use in Architecture? And how does a car know when to stop in an emergency situation?
Many thanks to the Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI) at Queen Mary University of London for the support finding the speakers.
QUOTES
The Holt School
“The students found it immensely interesting and had lots of questions! It was a fascinating topic, and an insight of what life would like in the future!”
Cllr Maria Gee, Wokingham Town Mayor (who opened the event):
“We love working with local students many of whom will be the influencers and leaders of the future. STEM is such a broad area, and we are delighted to show the many avenues available to students.”