Autonomous Systems are the jumping off point for this podcast episode with Indrakshi Dey of the Walton Institute at SETU. We talk about how computer science research is progressing in this area, encompassing the world of AI and forming links with partners across all disciplines. This leads on to a chat about how we (humans) tend to anthropomorphise Artificial Intelligence systems. We also discuss Indrakshi’s career to date and how being a woman of colour has given her unique insight across the sector.

Here are some links if you wish to follow up the podcast:

· Walton Institute Key Research Areas https://waltoninstitute.ie/research/key-research

· CONNECT project https://www.connect-science.net

· Indrakshi Dey’s profile at the Walton Institute https://waltoninstitute.ie/about/staff/dr-indrakshi-dey

· Indrakshi Dey’s profile on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/indrakshi-dey-aa658839/

· Rob O’Connor on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertoconnorirl/

To help celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Rob spoke with Spanish computer scientist Nuria Oliver about her work to date, such as using big data systems to help unbanked people access credit in developing nations or combating bias in AI systems. Nuria recounted how she first became interested in computing and turned that interest into a career. They also discussed the gender imbalance in computing today and Nuria offered some thought-provoking suggestions as to how these issues might be addressed. Nuria is also a fellow with Association of Computing Machinery, so thanks to the ACM for setting up the interview.

Here are links to projects mentioned during the podcast:

• ELLIS – European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems https://ellis.eu
• Data-Pop Alliance https://datapopalliance.org
• Nuria Oliver’s Personal Website https://www.nuriaoliver.com
• Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) https://www.acm.org

To keep up to date with The Machine, you can find the podcast on X/Twitter @machine_podcast or you can connect with Rob O’Connor via LinkedIn

Here's a live panel discussion we recently hosted at SETU, in which a bunch of computing professionals talked about what it's like to work in the tech sector in Ireland. This took place in front of approx. 200 Leaving Cert students, tied in with Computing Week at SETU. If you're a student or someone who's interested in starting a career in IT, this discussion might be very useful. The panel is comprised of:

• Padraig O’Neill – UNUM
• Sinead Queally – VoxGig
• Mick O’Brien – Kargo
• Donna Tilson – Sun Life
• Brendan O’Farrell – Red Hat
• Amanda Freeman-Gater - SETU

Please excuse the poor audio in places. This was held as a live event and not a podcast. However, there were some great nuggets of info in there so we decided it was better to get it out there, warts and all.