Academics in Electronics and Computer Science, and Southampton Education School, at the University of Southampton have been praised by government minister Nick Gibb for their contribution to the success of the UK’s Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science, through the establishment of a Computing at School Regional Centre for the South of England (CRC South).

Professor Les Carr and Robert Blair from the Web Science Centre for Doctoral Training and Dr Janice Griffiths, Director of the University’s Mathematics and Science Learning Centre, were specifically highlighted by Nick Gibb, Minister of State for Schools, for their participation in the Network which aims to build communities of computing teachers to support each other and improve their subject knowledge.

Mr Gibb expressed his sincere thanks to the University and praised Southampton alongside the other universities participating in the Network which, he said, “have exceptional computer science school outreach initiatives in place and provide outstanding support to teachers in their regionâ€?.

“Thanks to your staff and those from the other universities involved we will be able to make sure school teachers throughout the country have access to the support they need to become excellent teachers of computer science,â€? Mr Gibb concluded.

Now in its third year, the Network, run by the Computing at School group (CAS), has so far helped over 40,000 teachers gain in expertise and confidence. The ten CRCs will provide strong regional strategic leadership to ensure the Network continues to provide high quality professional development at scale. Southampton brings expertise in computing through Electronics and Computer Science and in teacher education and professional development through the Mathematics and Science Learning Centre.

In September last year, the Government introduced a new statutory computing curriculum for all state maintained primary and secondary schools with the aim of establishing computing as a core subject discipline in schools on a par with the natural sciences. The success of this new curriculum depends on school teachers, head teachers and school governors who, although enthusiastic about the new curriculum, mostly have no background in computer science.

Professor Carr, co-director of the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre, has worked with CAS for several years supporting teachers who are responsible for delivering the new curriculum and its emphasis on programming, communications and creating computational systems. He has run annual conferences at the university for 200 teachers from around the south coast and with the support of the Education School's Maths and Science Learning Centre has provided regular CPD activities to teachers in preparation for the new curriculum.

Professor Carr praised the efforts of his colleagues from Southampton Education School, particularly Dr John Woollard who helped create the new Computing curriculum and is a leading light in the Computing at School group which runs the Network.

“Our work is another success story for Southampton's excellent interdisciplinary reputation,â€? Professor Carr enthused. “I am very proud to be part of an influential and multidisciplinary team, displaying the university's excellence in Computing, Communications and Education and achieving significant impact in training up new UK capability for the Digital Economy.

“This year, with funding from CAS, we are partnering with the Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences’ Institute of Professional Practice in Education through Dr Griffiths to provide leadership and to co-ordinate support to the region's teachers and strengthen their professional network,â€? Professor Carr concluded.

The University of Southampton has been awarded a multi-million grant from Lloyd’s Register Foundation to bring together some of the world’s brightest early career researchers to find new ways of using nanotechnologies to improve safety at sea, on land and in the air.

Dr Themis Prodromakis, from the Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group within Electronics and Computer Science, is leading the £3m programme, which will receive match funding from partner organisations. He says: “Researchers are always looking for funding for high risk, high reward ideas. They want to collaborate with the best scientists and engineers in the world and gain access to state-of-art facilities. The Lloyd’s Register Foundation International COnsortium in Nanotechnologies (ICON) will assemble the world’s leading universities, research institutions and innovative companies to help them tackle many of today’s most challenging issues by recruiting talented PhD students from every continent.â€?

Applications will soon be invited from scientists and engineers keen to pioneer research across a range of industries. Nanotechnologies are already widely used, for example in smart phones, cameras and gadgets. Breakthroughs already being developed include cars, boats and planes built from lightweight materials stronger than steel with new functions such as self-cleaning and repairing; flexible textiles that can become rigid and shockproof to protect the wearer; sensors in hostile environments such as the deep ocean and space; tiny implants for real-time monitoring to aid diagnoses for doctors; and smart devices that harvest energy from their environment.

ICON will support more than 50 PhD students to undertake research at leading global universities, aided by matched funding. They will work together with partners from industry on interdisciplinary projects and access world-leading facilities, such as the £120m Southampton Nanofabrication Centre. The doctoral researchers will meet every year to present their findings and share ideas and concepts, becoming part of a global doctoral cohort addressing the Foundation’s safety mission.

Professor Richard Clegg, Managing Director of Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said: “We are pleased to support the University of Southampton in developing this global cohort of scientists. Their research will develop applications to further the Foundation’s safety goals whilst also providing training and building technical capacity in support of our educational mission. The doctoral students joining this consortium will gain an understanding of how their research can benefit society whilst developing international research networks at an early stage in their careers.â€?

“The support of Lloyd’s Register Foundation is key to our mission,â€? adds Dr Prodromakis. “Lloyd’s Register itself is well-known for promoting safety worldwide for more than 250 years. Its Global Technology Centre is now based in Southampton and its Foundation has become a catalyst to support research, training and education for the benefit of society. We are delighted to work alongside them.â€?

The first group of new startup businesses to be funded from Europe’s Open Data Incubator, ODINE, range from an innovative app that helps track infectious diseases to a global search engine for the Internet of Things.

Seven startups were funded in the first open call from the European incubator programme, receiving €650,000 in total.

The startup companies, based across Europe, all use open data in innovative ways. Their participation in ODINE will enable them to develop successful sustainable businesses through a wide-ranging support package and accelerator programme, including peer-networking, expert advisories and coaching, innovation labs, VC investors, data owners, and the media. ‘The response to this first funding call has been very exciting,’ said Dr Elena Simperl, associate-professor within the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and leader of the ODINE Programme. ‘We were impressed by the wide-ranging innovation and the range of applications which covered the use of open data in business sectors such as finance, bio-materials, and commercial property.

‘Other businesses to be funded in this round will directly impact on people’s daily lives – such as the infectious disease tracker, and a new platform for the urban cyclist community.’

ODINE represents a new European startup incubator for SMEs and startups which use open data to create economic and social value. The programme is funded by the European Union through Horizon 2020, and includes seven partner organizations, including the Open Data Institute (ODI), the University of Southampton, Telefónica, The Guardian, Fraunhofer, and the Open Knowledge Foundation (Germany).

Throughout the programme, which runs until August 2016, new startups will be recruited every two months on a rolling basis and winning companies are eligible for grants of up to €100,000. The next application deadline for the startup programme is 11 September (apply here).

‘We know that open data has the potential to radically change the way organisations value and use data,’ said Dr Simperl. 'ODINE will offer mentoring, technology and financial support to SME innovators in this space. SMEs are really significant for the European economy and we are giving them the chance to experiment with open data and to exploit business ideas that use open datasets to create added value.’

ODINE has places for 50-70 startup businesses over the next two years. Selected projects will run for up to six months, and new proposals will be assessed on a two-monthly cycle by a panel of external reviewers. Applications take the form of a written submission and will be assessed in three areas: idea, impact, and team and budget.

Meet the ODINE team at the Open Data Institute Summit, 3 November 2015 – London http://summit.theodi.org/

The first round of winners are:

UK

• Sickly - a company which gathers detailed open data on the spread of infectious illnesses amongst children, thanks to its free app with which parents can securely report their child’s illness to his/her school. Sickly’s aim is to track infectious illnesses with this anonymised data, and support public health organisations in the fight against disease. (www.sickly.org)

• Thingful - a global search engine for the Internet of Things (IoT), Thingful indexes dozens of public open data assets and millions of connected devices from temperature sensors, to air quality monitors, to sharks. Thingful is developing a data mediation service for IoT to discover and transact in device data based on access entitlements using a decentralised and trustless system. Thingful is also a member of the ODI Startup Programme. (www.thingful.net)

• Pikhaya Smart Streets - this service offers market intelligence to help entrepreneurs and local councils assess the business potential in empty commercial properties in deprived urban centres. It aggregates open data on local consumer purchasing behaviour and pedestrian footfall, as well as existing local business rent and salary expenditure. (http://pikhaya.com/)

France • CommoPrices - a web portal of business intelligence which publishes over 1600 commodity prices. Based on open data from French Customs, data is structured, selected and processed to generate benchmark price references. (https://commoprices.com/)

Italy • InSymbio - a business-to-business e-marketplace which aims to make one company’s bio-based residues and waste, another company’s raw material. (https://www.insymbio.com)

Austria • BikeCitizens - this company offers a platform to the urban cyclist community. The free Bike Citizens App is available for more than 200 cities in the UK and Europe, and uses OpenStreetMap to offer offline navigation, route planning and tracking. (www.bikecitizens.net)

Estonia • Instats.co - a web service helping knowledge workers who need to find and visualize massive datasets to easily create insightful presentations (www.instats.co)

ODINE has places for 50-70 startup businesses over the next two years. Interested startups should register via http://opendataincubator.eu/. Applicants submit a short proposal presenting their idea and the budget required. The applicant must be registered with the European Commission as an SME at the time of submission.

For further information contact Dr Elena Simperl: e.simperl@soton.ac.uk; Joyce Lewis: j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk

With an ever increasing number of everyday objects from our homes, workplaces and even from our wardrobes, getting connected to the Internet - examples of the ‘Internet of Things (IoT) - researchers from the University of Southampton have identified easy-to-use techniques to configure IoT objects, to make them more secure and hence help protect them from online attacks.

This increased connectivity brings additional risk. Setting personalised and strong passwords when connecting new devices to the Internet, for example through our home Wi-Fi networks, can mitigate such risks. However, many IoT devices have limited interfaces: just a few buttons (if any at all) and light indicators, making it challenging for users to configure them. If secure configuration becomes complicated, users may choose easier, less secure options that leave their devices vulnerable.

Southampton researchers compared four interaction techniques for the configuration of IoT devices, looking for methods that allowed security, but were quick and easy to use. All four techniques used the smartphone touchscreen to let users enter secure passwords.

Two of the techniques used a more ‘traditional’ approach by connecting the smartphone and the IoT device through a USB or audio cable, via the smartphone’s headphone socket. The third technique used a ‘Wi-Fi-only approach, where the smartphone creates a special temporary Wi-Fi network, or ‘ad-hoc network’, to which the IoT device automatically connects before being redirected to the correct permanent network. The final option was the smartphone and the IoT device exchanging information through light: the smartphone's screen flashed black and white to mean binary 'zero' or 'one'; the IoT device read this light/binary pattern to learn the password from the smartphone. The results, which are presented at the ACM Ubicomp 2015 conference in Japan this week, found that two of the techniques were noticeably more usable than the others - the audio cable and the Wi-Fi-only interactions.

Study co-author Dr Enrico Costanza, from the Agents, Interaction, Complexity Group in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, says: “IoT objects can be attacked and possibly hijacked, putting our privacy, data and safety in question. We believe that our results can help designers and researchers make IoT devices, and especially their configuration, more usable and therefore secure. Moreover, we believe that not enough attention has been placed on how to make the IoT easy to use and to configure, so we hope that our results will motivate others in researching this topic.â€?

Further information

This work was supported in part by the EPSRC C-tECh (EP/K002589/1) and CharIoT (EP/L02392X/1) projects. A copy of the research paper ‘Connecting the Things to the Internet: An Evaluation of Four Configuration Strategies for Wi-Fi Devices with Minimal User Interfaces’ by Jewell, Michael O., Costanza, Enrico and Kittley-Davies, Jacob (2015) is available at: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/379702/

Watch a video about the project at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go10n6s39mg

Professor mc schraefel writes for The Conversation about Facebook’s new intelligent assistant, M, and how such services could be shrinking our online options.

The “digital assistantâ€? is proliferating, able to combine intelligent natural language processing, voice-operated control over a smartphone’s functions and access to web services. It can set calendar appointments, launch apps, and run requests. But if that sounds very clever – a computerised talking assistant, like HAL9000 from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey – it’s mostly just running search engine queries and processing the results.

Facebook has now joined Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon with the launch of its digital assistant M, part of its Messaging smartphone app. Its special sauce is that M is powered not just by algorithms but by data serfs: human Facebook employees who are there to ensure that every request that it cannot parse is still fulfilled, and in doing so training M by example. That training works because every interaction with M is recorded – that’s the point, according to David Marcus, Facebook’s vice-president of messaging: We start capturing all of your intent for the things you want to do. Intent often leads to buying something, or to a transaction, and that’s an opportunity for us to [make money] over time.

Facebook, through M, will capture and facilitate that “intent to buyâ€?Â? and take its cut directly from the subsequent purchase rather than as an ad middleman. It does this by leveraging messaging, which was turned into a separate app of its own so that Facebook could integrate PayPal-style peer-to-peer payments between users. This means Facebook has a log not only of your conversations but also your financial dealings. In an interview with Fortune magazine at the time, Facebook product manager, Steve Davies, said: People talk about money all the time in Messenger but end up going somewhere else to do the transaction. With this, people can finish the conversation the same place started it.

In a somewhat creepy way, by reading your chats and knowing that you’re “talking about money all the timeâ€? – what you’re talking about buying – Facebook can build up a pretty compelling profile of interests and potential purchases. If M can capture our intent it will not be by tracking what sites we visit and targeting relevant ads, as per advert brokers such as Google and Doubleclick. Nor by targeting ads based on the links we share, as Twitter does. Instead it simply reads our messages.

Talking about money, money talks

M is built to carry out tasks such as booking flights or restaurants or making purchases from online stores, and rather than forcing the user to leave the app in order to visit a web store to complete a purchase, M will bring the store – more specifically, the transaction – to the app.

Suddenly the 64% of smartphone purchases that happen at websites and mobile transactions outside of Facebook, are brought into Facebook. With the opportunity to make suggestions through eavesdropping on conversations, in the not too distant future our talking intelligent assistant might say: I’m sorry Dave, I heard you talking about buying this camera. I wouldn’t do if I were you Dave: I found a much better deal elsewhere. And I know you’ve been talking about having that tattoo removed. I can recommend someone – she has an offer on right now, and three of your friends have recommended her service. Shall I book you in?

Buying a book from a known supplier may be a low risk purchase, but other services require more discernment. What kind of research about cosmetic surgery has M investigated? Did those three friends use that service, or were they paid to recommend it? Perhaps you’d rather know the follow-up statistics than have a friend’s recommendation.

Still, because of its current position as the dominant social network, Facebook knows more about us, by name, history, social circle, political interests, than any other single internet service. And it’s for this reason that Facebook wants to ensure M is more accurate and versatile than the competition, and why it’s using humans to help the AI interpret interactions and learn. The better digital assistants like M appear to us, the more trust we have in them. Simple tasks performed well builds a willingness to use that service elsewhere – say, recommending financial services, or that cosmetic treatment, which stand to offer Facebook a cut of much more costly purchase.

No such thing as a free lunch

So for Facebook, that’s more users spending more of their time using its services and generating more cash. Where’s the benefit for us?

We’ve been trained to see such services as “freeâ€?, but as the saying goes, if you don’t pay for it, then it’s you that’s the product.Â? We’ve seen repeatedly in our Meaningful Consent Project that it’s difficult to evaluate the cost to us when we don’t know what happens to our data.

People were once nervous about how much the state knew of them, with whom they associated and what they do, for fear that if their interests and actions were not aligned with those of the state they might find ourselves detained, disappeared, or disenfranchised. Yet we give exactly this information to corporations without hesitation, because we find ourselves amplified in the exchange: that for each book, film, record or hotel we like there are others who “likeâ€? it too.

The web holds a mirror up to us, reflecting back our precise interests and behaviour. Take search, for instance. In the physical world of libraries or bookshops we glance through materials from other topics and different ideas as we hunt down our own query. Indeed we are at our creative best when we absorb the rich variety in our peripheral vision. But online, a search engine shows us only things narrowly related to what we seek. Even the edges of a web page will be filled with targeted ads related to something known to interest us. This narrowing self-reflection has grown ubiquitous online: on social networks we see ourselves relative to our self-selected peers or idols. We create reflections.

The workings of Google, Doubleclick or Facebook reveal these to be two-way mirrors: we are observed through the mirror but see only our reflection, with no way to see the machines observing us. This “freeâ€? model is so seductive – it’s all about us – yet it leads us to become absorbed in our phones-as-mirrors rather than the harder challenge of engaging with the world and those around us.

It’s said not to look too closely at how a sausage is made for fear it may put you off. If we saw behind the mirror, would we be put off by the internet? At least most menus carry the choice of more than one dish; the rise of services like M suggests that, despite the apparent wonder of less effortful interactions, the internet menu we’re offered is shrinking.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

mc schraefel is Professor of Computer Science and Human Performance within Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

A team of life sciences researchers at the University of Southampton have been awarded a £1.5m Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant to develop cutting-edge data analysis techniques that could help transform future medical research.

The interdisciplinary team, led by Professor of Mathematics Jacek Brodzki and including researchers from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), is at the forefront of developing new techniques to interpret large complex datasets that could be used in the development of new drugs, and improve the detection, diagnosis and treatment of healthcare conditions such as asthma. The programme will bring together researchers from mathematics, statistics, computer science, chemistry and medicine under the aegis of the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS) to explore the significant societal challenge of extracting contextual information from the enormous amount of data.

Jacek said: “The relentless growth of the variety, and availability of data has profoundly transformed all aspects of human life, but this Big Data revolution has left us facing a paradox – while we create and collect more data than ever before, it is often difficult to unlock the information it contains. In order to convert the vast amounts of data into understandable, actionable information we need to create analytic tools that are equal to the challenge, and we believe that by developing a powerful fusion of machine learning, statistics, and topology we will create a seamless pathway from data analysis to implementation.â€?

The programme will see the team developing their work to address the problem of creating a set of descriptors to diagnose and treat asthma, as well as investigating a more efficient search of new compounds in chemistry that play a key part in the creation of new medicines.

The team will be working with an extensive network of scientific and business connections, including the multinational EU consortium U-BIOPRED (the largest asthma research programme in the world), to test their new analytic tools on real-world problems such as asthma. By using quality controlled patient data collected by U-BIOPRED they will identify leading biomarkers of asthma that could potentially lead to new diagnostic pathways and better personalised healthcare provision for asthma sufferers. Researchers will also explore the structure of bronchial trees to help improve understanding of the efficiency of different asthma treatments.

“Obviously, I am delighted we won this grant,â€? said Professor Mahesan Niranjan, a co-investigator in the proposal and Deputy Head of Department of ECS. “As in many similar grants funded at ECS, this success is testimony to the ease with which we are able to work across traditional discipline boundaries, identifying and solving challenging data analysis problems.

“A particular appeal to me is the collaboration with the School of Mathematics. When you want to go beyond simply applying off-the shelf machine learning tools to data in a problem domain and develop deep insights into the behaviour of computational models, or be able to make formal statements about their limitations, where else would you look other than Mathematics – the Queen of all Sciences?â€?

Jacek added: “This funding is affirmation that we have created a truly interdisciplinary research partnership where all disciplines can meaningfully interact and work together on common ground. The EPSRC award gives us the means to be able to pursue the next step in our vision and to test our ideas against some of the most challenging problems in medicine and the sciences.â€?

Professor Peter J S Smith, Director of the Institute for Life Sciences said “I am delighted to see the breadth of interdisciplinary research come together in such a successful venture. This is an exciting project, for both the research group and the wider Universityâ€?.

Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) has been welcoming its first cohort of students from our University of Southampton Malaysia Campus (USMC) for the start of the new academic year.

The students, who have completed the first two years of their four-year MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) in Malaysia, have arrived in Southampton to start their third year. The degree is part of the University’s Integrated International Engineering Education (IIEE) programme which allows students to spend two years studying in Malaysia followed by two years studying in the UK.

"This marks a significant milestone in the development of our USMC/ECS EEE Degree programme" said Professor Paul Lewin, Deputy Head of Department (Education). “Over the past two years, more than a dozen staff from ECS have spent periods of time in Malaysia delivering course material to ensure that the educational experience for the USMC students is the same as for those based in Southampton. This has had the added benefit that on arrival in the UK, the USMC students already personally know their project supervisors, tutors and many of the staff that will be teaching them.â€?

Since arriving in the UK and Southampton, students have been familiarising themselves with their new surroundings and teaching laboratories. As part of the welcome programme the students were given a tour of some of the specialist research facilities within the Department, including the clean rooms and the high voltage laboratory, before meeting the Department's management team and Faculty's Student Office staff for tea and cakes, hosted by Professor Nick Jennings, Head of Department. "I am very pleased to welcome our first USMC students to Southampton", said Nick, "I am sure that they come very well prepared for the challenges ahead and believe they will perform at a high level over the final two years of our EEE degree".

Wen Yee Tey, one of the group of students arriving from Malaysia said: “I have been enjoying my time at the University so far. Lecturers and staff from the ECS department have made me feel very welcome as they give sufficient support and assistance to international students like me. Being one of the ECS students, I get to use the newly-upgraded computer lab and practical lab in which computers with big screens and high performance are provided. I also have a chance to get to know lots of people with different backgrounds because a wide range of activities are provided for students. Southampton really is a lovely place where wonderful people from all over the world are gathered.â€?

Ten years ago fire ripped through the University of Southampton’s Mountbatten Building gutting the building and destroying valuable equipment and research.

A decade later and the award-winning Mountbatten Building successor has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Providing £120m worth of specialist facilities and equipment, the Mountbatten Building now enables world-leading researchers to continue their pioneering work tackling many of the key challenges facing society today.

The new Zepler Institute Cleanroom Complex houses a revolutionary suite of research facilities. Home to the UK’s best set of nanoelectronics and photonics fabrication capabilities, including the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, the Complex is driving forward some of the most innovative explorations in optics and nanotechnology research.

Professor Nick Jennings, Head of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), said: “The fire which destroyed the old microfabrication cleanroom gave us the opportunity to create a facility which is unique and internationally leading as a place to research and develop the next generation of electronics and multidisciplinary applications.

“The Southampton Nanofabrication Centre cleanroom facility is both grounded in existing state-of-the-art nanofabrication technology and exploring the next generation of fabrication methods, materials and devices. Research in the facility covers the creation and characterisation of nano-electronic devices, functional materials and nanophotonics, spintronics, quantum and memristive devices, bio-inspired devices, microfluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip systems, and NEMS devices.â€?

Here we look at the key milestones in that led to the reconstruction of the Mountbatten Building:

Fire devastates Mountbatten Building - October 30, 2005 A massive fire devastated the Mountbatten Building. Firefighters were called at 6.30am and battled until mid-afternoon to extinguish the blaze. No-one was injured in the fire which was believed to have started accidentally. The University’s then Secretary and Registrar John Lauwerys said: “This is a huge loss to the University and the fire has destroyed one of our key research facilities of international importance.â€? While former University Vice-Chancellor Bill Wakeham pledged the day after the fire: “We are committed to rebuilding, and that out of these tragic events will emerge something bigger and better.â€?

Rebuilding work begins - October, 2006 A year to the day after the fire, demolition teams move on to the site to prepare for the construction of the new building.

Boris Johnson MP tours construction site - June, 2007 Boris Johnson MP, the then Shadow Minister for Higher Education, toured the construction of the new £55m Mountbatten Building. He remarked on how impressed he was by the scale of the building and the potential of the work to be carried out there.

New equipment ordered - October 2007 More than £6.5m worth of key equipment is ordered for the new Mountbatten Building, including a Jeol JBX 9300 FS electron beam lithography system, costing £3.3m - a significant tool for top down nanotechnology research. The order also includes deposition and etch equipment that deposit thin layers of semiconductors and insulators, and etches patterns that have been written by the e-beam lithography system.

Topping out ceremony – November 2007 The new Mountbatten Building’s topping out ceremony marked the fact that the building had reached its highest point. University Pro-Chancellor Dame Valerie Strachan was accompanied by University Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Wakeham, and representatives from the construction company, the project management team, the design team, and architects and engineers.

Eye-catching fractal pattern added to building - December 2007 The dynamic fractal pattern, inspired by the University’s research into optical nanotechnology, is added to the glass panels of the new Mountbatten Building. The fractals form an ornamental design on the glass of the new building and are a reflection of the innovative research being carried out by Electronics and Computer Science and the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) to create new optoelectronic devices that could enhance optical communications and reduce the cost of solar energy.

New building opens doors to staff and students – October, 2008 Three years to the day after the devastating fire, the imposing building that has taken its place opened its doors to students and staff. Occupying the same footprint as its predecessor, the new building is one of Europe’s leading multidisciplinary and state-of-the-art cleanroom complexes. It provides flexible research space for world-leading technology development in nanotechnology and photonics. At the time former Head of ECS Professor Harvey Rutt said: “We have a truly fantastic facility that positions us at the cutting-edge of nanotechnology,â€? while ORC Director Professor Sir David Payne said: “This magnificent cleanroom building is unique and world leading in its imaginative vision for the integration of nanoscience, photonics and optical fibre technology.â€?

Mountbatten Building wins top architecture award – May 2009 The new Mountbatten Building wins a prestigious award from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The awards are made annually and are highly prized for buildings that have high architectural standards and make a substantial contribution to the local environment. The RIBA judges praised the Mountbatten Building’s simple, dynamic forms with a design that embodies 21st century scientific research in a sustainable, academic setting. The building is a bold and modern design and features an impressively spacious atrium. Its glass curtain walls allow those outside to view the research taking place in the cleanrooms.

Unique Spectra detector commissioned – July 2009 A unique Spectra detector on the Zeiss Orion beam instrument was commissioned. The detector was the first of its kind to be installed and measures the energy of the helium ions that bounce off a sample.

Southampton Nanofabrication Centre opened – September, 2009 Southampton’s Nanofabrication Centre – one of Europe’s premiere cleanroom complexes – was opened. The £100m facility was launched by Professor Ian Diamond, Chair of Research Councils UK who said the new building would place Southampton as part of an excellent UK network better than anywhere in the world. The state-of-the-art facility for microfabrication and high-spec nanofabrication has a uniquely broad range of technologies, combining traditional and novel top down fabrication with bottom up fabrication.

Mountbatten Building officially opened – January, 2011 The new Mountbatten Building was officially opened by the Rt Hon David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science. Mr Willetts paid tribute to all those involved in the reconstruction of the building and in ensuring it was bigger and better than before. He also announced £7.2m of investment in research that could revolutionise the Internet. Led by Professor David Payne, Director of the ORC, the Photonics Hyperhighway project brings together world-leading scientists from the universities of Southampton and Essex and industry partners to pioneer new technologies capable of making broadband Internet 100 times faster.

Zepler Institute opened - September, 2013 The Zepler Institute - the UK’s largest photonics and electronics institute – was launched. The Institute is a unique multidisciplinary research centre that brings together leading expertise in photonics, advanced materials, quantum technologies and nanoscience to build on the University’s reputation in photonics and electronics delivering solutions to the key global challenges of the future.

REF confirms world-leading research in electrical and electronic engineering - December, 2014 The University of Southampton comes out top in the UK for the volume and quality of its research in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF) results. The REF considered case studies showing the impact of our research including work on the latest advances in nanotechnology and micro-devices to deliver new remote therapies to patients.

International Consortium in Nanotechnologies launched – September, 2015 The Lloyd’s Register Foundation International COnsortium in Nanotechnologies (ICON) is launched. Led by Dr Themis Prodromakis, the multi-million pound project will bring together some of the world’s brightest early career researchers to find new ways of using nanotechnologies to improve safety at sea, on land and in the air.

A group of five students from the Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton received academic scholarships for €300 each to present their various engineering and computer science projects at the second Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) WomENcourage conference, this year held in Uppsala, Sweden.

The ACM WomENcourage conference is an international celebration of women in computing; a scientific and career networking event bringing together researchers, students and professionals to present and share their experiences and achievements. More than 200 people attended from 38 countries and conference sponsors included Google, Inria, Oracle, Cisco, Bloomberg, Facebook, Intel, and Microsoft Research.

The ECS students attending were (pictured from left to right): Ayse Sunar, third-year PhD student in the Web and Internet Science research group (WAIS); Olja Rastic-Dulborough, recent MComp graduate in Information Technology in Organisations; Olivia Ojuroye, first-year PhD student in the Electronics and Electrical Engineering research group; Adriana Wilde, Mayflower Teaching Fellow and final-year PhD student in WAIS; and Dorota Filipczuk, fourth year MComp student in Computer Science and the ECS Society Academic President.

The students are at various stages in their careers and they all benefitted from disseminating their work to a broader audience, acquiring specific skills through a range of workshops and networking with other researchers and professionals. Adriana Wilde commented: "I'm pleased that for second time we were able to take a strong team to WomENcourage, representing ECS all the way from second year undergraduates to doctoral researchers. We were very fortunate to receive sponsorships from ACM, complemented with funds from the ECS Athena SWAN Chapter, which enabled us to attend this international conference.�

The quality of research was recognised at the conference poster session where ECS had the highest number of posters accepted for presentation. These included Olivia Ojuroye part III project "SIRI on your Wrist: Making your home smart". Olivia was delighted, saying: "The technical calibre of the female attendees were staggeringly high. If these women are part of the future STEM industry, then the world has a lot to look forward to; I was pleased to be recognised as having the same virtues when invited to present my poster at the conference."

The conference also featured a number of talks and workshops including a Data Mining session led by Adriana and a Learning Analytics session, led by Ayse Sunar and supported by Olja Rastic-Dulborough. Ayse thought very highly of session she led; "The attendees were from various backgrounds, including a teacher from Singapore, a PhD student studying agent-based learning systems and an experienced learning analyst. We discussed the use of learning analytics in the classroom as well as online learning at small and massive scale."

Dorota Filipczuk, representing the student society that promotes women's participation in the department commented: "The conference was truly inspiring and gave me new ideas of the direction our ECSWomen society should follow."

Alexander Wolf, ACM President, said at the opening of the event: "We wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't a problem in our community ... but this is not a women's problem, this is a community problem. It takes everyone to solve this problem". The University of Southampton’s Electronics and Computer Science department has been recognised for its work tackling the problem of gender inequality in science and engineering with an Athena SWAN Bronze Award. For more details, visit www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/athenaswan

The University of Southampton has appointed JP Rangaswami, the Chief Data Officer at Deutsche Bank, as an Adjunct Professor.

Adjunct Professor is a new honorary title conferred to business and industrial leaders who contribute towards enterprise activities at the University. JP Rangaswami’s position as Adjunct Professor will see him working within the department of Electronics and Computer Science for a three year period to Summer 2018, with a particular focus on Web Science.

As part of the University’s Distinguished Lecture series, JP recently gave a talk to the Web Science Institute entitled "Mother's Home Cooking", using metaphors of ingredients, method and recipes to consider how we trust and consume data.

JP says: “‘When I first heard about Web Science I could immediately see the reason for this new approach and wanted to be part of it. We need multidisciplinary, multi-jurisdictional views, drawn from collaboration and working together across disciplines. If I were asked the one reason why the Web exists, I would say “collaborationâ€?. Web Science must be about the ability to collaborate at a meta-layer, beyond disciplines, rather than augmenting and increasing the science in a single discipline. I look forward to working together with students in the Web Science Institute, as well as supporting the Web Science project in the future.â€?

JP Rangaswami is Deutsche Bank’s Chief Data Officer, responsible for enhancing the Bank's data quality and controls. Originally, an economist and financial journalist, JP has over 30 years of experience in information technology, primarily in the financial sector. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, JP was Chief Scientist at Salesforce.com. He was previously at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, he was named CIO innovator of the year by the European Technology Forum in 2004 and CIO of the Year by Waters magazine in 2003. He is a fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, a Trustee of the Web Science Trust and a Trustee of the Computer History Museum. He is also a venture partner for Anthemis Group and an advisory board member of Byte Night, a charity or young homeless people.