Get to know the research assistants

A new team of research assistants will continue our work with Kaia-The Social Robot

NorwAI will continue the research on Social Robotics. This semester three new research assistants have joined us and will develop new features and conduct extensive benchmarks to test Kaia against the state of the art.

Read the interviews of the three students by our fourth student assistant, Elizabeth Ainan Pan, below. 

Håkon Høgseth

Could you give me a brief introduction of yourself?

-My name is Håkon and I am a Norwegian student starting the last year of a 2-year master. This job at NorwAI is my first relevant job and I am really excited to be a part of this facility.

Why did you apply for the job as research assistant?

-I was introduced to the job during a meeting about my master thesis. I met some of the students working with Kaia the year before and I was convinced that this was something I wanted to learn more about

What about Kaia interest you the most?

-There seems to be a lot of focus on social robots in society today, for example as a tool to facilitate education for children. For me it is exciting to participate in the study of social robots and language models and maybe come up with something new that hasn’t been done before.

The journey into AI, could you share your story on how you got into the industry?

-I chose Artificial Intelligence because it is important for a lot of technology  and research nowadays. I believe that it will be even more important in the future and I want to understand and contribute with new exciting technology.

What are some tips you would give to students and professionals trying to break into the industry of AI ?

-Be open and being interested and opportunities will come when you least expect.

Who inspires you the most?

-I would sometimes sit together with my older brother when I was younger and he taught me the basics of coding. Because of this I became eager to learn more and this is also the reason I applied for computer science and I was introduced to the world of computer science.

Alexander Gerlach

Could you give me a brief introduction of yourself?

-My name is Alexander and I´m a 5th year computer science student specializing in artificial intelligence at NTNU. I am half-Norwegian and half-German and have worked several years as a software developer in part-time while studying.

Why did you apply for the job as research assistant?

-I have a strong interest in AI and would like to get more practical experience with it and learn about new AI technologies. What excites me most is the opportunity to be part of a team with a strong background in AI that shares the same interests.

What about Kaia interests you the most?

-The ability to combine language models with camera input in order to obtain some response based on what Kaia is seeing. This opens up a wide variety of possibilities, such as playing a game with Kaia and actually getting a reaction based on the actions taken.

The journey into AI, could you share your story on how you got into the industry?

-My interest in AI dates to my second year of my bachelors. I was always interested in developing applications that matter and have the ability to help others or make our lives easier and I believe that AI-based approaches are the best way to go in order to achieve that. My first real AI project was my bachelor thesis, which was about training and evaluating a model that is able to segment medical instruments in endoscopic images to facilitate performing minimally invasive surgeries. It was a lot of fun and very inspiring. I then moved on to my masters with a specialization in AI where I just recently started with my master’s project about collision-free navigation of robotic vehicles.

What are some tips you would give to students and professionals trying to break into the industry of AI?

-Don´t get scared off by the mathematical nature of AI. It seems more difficult than it actually is and you´ll get the hang of it after a while.

-Start off with a simple project. There are various open-source packages freely available with well documented tutorials to get you started. Once completed, start experimenting and try to add some custom behaviour to it. It does not have to be perfect!

What inspires you the most?

-I had to think a lot about this question, but I often get inspired by the creativity and ingenuity of other engineers. My father is an engineer and whenever something was broken, he was able to find a way to fix it and I always admired him for that.

Marte Eggen

Could you give me a brief introduction of yourself?

I am a Norwegian student studying at NTNU. I started at the civil engineering education in cybernetics and robotics in 2019 and I am now in my fourth year. This semester I am starting a specialization in autonomous systems where I am planning to combine some AI courses with the cybernetics courses.

Why did you apply for the job as research assistant?

-I applied for the job because I am interested in AI, and the job is relevant for my education. To get the opportunity to work at a research center with the expertise that NorwAI can offer will give me valuable learning and experience.

What about Kaia interest you the most?

-I am interested in learning about the future use of AI systems and to see some of the possibilities for such technology.

The journey into AI, could you share your story on how you got into the industry?

-I have attended courses in AI during the past year and found those to be very interesting. I have also been working at TrønderEnergi as a summer intern, which gave me experience in how AI can be applied.

What are some tips you would give to students and professionals trying to break into the industry of AI ?

-My tips would be to be curious and search for topics that you find interesting. Attending events and workshops, for instance with Kaia, can show the possibilities of AI systems and create interest and curiosity for the topic.

How is it to be a woman in AI and technology in general?

-From my experience I can’t see there are any differences between men and women working with AI or technology.