News

3rd Robotics Challenge by our Computer Science Department

The 3rd Robotics Challenge for all 3rd level computer science students entitled “Design and Build a Robotic Ant Colony” was held with great success 22 and 23 January 2015 at our main campus in Thessaloniki. The two-day event was part of the "Agents and Robotics" unit, led by Dr Kostantinos Dimopoulos.  In the frame of the challenge, students had to build robots and programme them to face a series of challenges each a bit more difficult from the previous one. This year the challenges where leading to the development of robotic ants. Simple robots would search their environments looking for two things: food and their nest. Once a new nest was discovered by an ant, the ant would communicate the information to the other ants. In a similar manner, when an ant located food that it could not pick up, it would also communicate this to the other ants. The aim was for the ants to forage their food. The students worked in groups and developed a robot to face the given challenges. They had to research similar robots and suggest solutions, build the robots, using the Lego Mindstorms platform, and programme the robots, thus using all the skills and knowledge they acquired from their studies and specifically at the unit. The students were very excited with this year’s challenge. In fact, they asked for the challenge to be extended and although the event was schedule to last from 10am to 5pm for two-consecutive days, students insisted to continue until the Faculty’s premises were closed. Finally the challenge was successfully completed by most groups.

04/02/2015

Our Postgraduate Students in Athens Pitch their Startup to Jury of Renowned Experts

‘Car-care’ is the winning venture idea project  presented by a group of postgraduate students in Athens and voted by an expert jury, in the frame of the unit ‘Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship’ led by Prof. Panayiotis Ketikidis, Vice Principal for Research, Innovation and External Relations at our Faculty. As part of their coursework, ten groups of four students each, attending our MSc in Management of Business, Innovation & Technology (ΜΒΙΤ) programme in Athens in collaboration with Athens Tech, presented their project on a proposed new venture before a jury of renowned experts from the industry and academia. The jury panel comprised Mr. Petros Kokkalis, Vice President of the Kokkalis Foundation, Ms. Leda Karabela, Certified Coach for startups with many years of experience from Silicon Valley, Mr. Harry Daskalakis, CEO of Athens Tech College and Mr. Andreas Baresel-Bofinger, Lecturer at our Business Administration & Economics Department. The students were asked to come up with a start-up idea and put together a business plan describing and justifying the problems, the opportunities and potential gaps their venture might address. Each team held a five-minute presentation before the jury members and the rest of the teams, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. In the voting procedure that took place after the conclusion of the presentations ‘Car-care’ - a smart in-car health care system to provide risk reduction before and while driving-  received most of the jury’s votes, followed by ‘Argoguide’ and ‘PCP-Tomatoes’ while ‘Unify-Terra’ was the ‘People’s Choice’ (peer vote). The ‘Car-care’ team consisted of the following students: Afroditi Tzoumerkioti, Anastasios Tripolitis, Ioannis Theocharis and Theodora Prodromou. Jury members were highly impressed by the quality of our students’ work, their enthusiasm and their presentation skills. The students who come from a variety of national and professional backgrounds agreed that this hands-on experience was an enjoyable and well-appreciated enhancement of their curriculum and a valuable asset for future career options.

03/02/2015

CSD Seminar Series: A Research Career - the case of SEERC

09/12/2014

The University of Sheffield, Department of Computer Science ranks 6th in the Guardian league

The Department of Computer Science is among the top 10 in the Guardian league for computer science and IT in Great Britain! High student satisfaction with teaching and the course as a whole, as well as the high graduate employment were the contributing factors which helped our Computer Science Department to climb 6th in Great Britain! The University of Sheffield is now ranked above Cambridge, York and Manchester in the Guardian's table. For full details see the Guardian web site   Check the University of Sheffield Computer Science programmes offered in Thessaloniki: Computer Science Department

25/08/2014

Congratulations to Dr George Eleftherakis on receiving a 'Senate Award for Sustained Excellence' by the University of Sheffield Senate

Dr George Eleftherakis Senior Lecturer, Research Coordinator and Research Track Leader at SEERC Congratulations to Dr George Eleftherakis from the Computer Science Department, who received the Senate Award for Sustained Excellence in Learning & Teaching by the University of Sheffield.   The Senate Awards scheme aims to reward individuals for excellence in teaching and/or supporting and enhancing students’ learning experience. It also aims to encourage and promote good practice and raise the status of teaching and learning as a scholarly activity, whilst recognising its crucial balance with research. This is a prestigious award byt the University of Sheffield which recognises Dr Eleftherakis continued effort within teaching and learning and more specifically his inspirational contribution and support from UG to PhD level of studies, his encouragement to students in extra-curricula activities and his passionate approach is broad-ranging covering key learning and teaching strategic areas including interdisciplinary teaching, integration and employability.  

12/05/2014

Company visit to i4G for our Computer Science students

16/04/2014

Professional Developement Seminar Series

The Seminars are addressed to 3rd Level CS students

19/03/2014

Dr Lagkas Participates as Keynote Speaker in Mtel’s Conference in Sofia

Dr. Thomas Lagkas Dr. Thomas Lagkas, Lecturer at our Computer Science Department, participated in Mtels ‘Top Performers Conference’ in Sofia with an insightful presentation on fourth generation (4G) networks. The event took place on Friday, 8 November 2013 at the Sophia Sheraton Hotel and was organised by Mtel, one of Bulgaria’s biggest telecommunications companies. Dr. Lagkas was among the conference’s keynote speakers and shared his expertise with a very informative speech entitled ‘Contemporary Issues and Future Trends in 4G Networks’. His presentation touched upon the related telecommunication standards and their main features, advanced techniques on efficient resources utilisation and energy consumption in telecommunication systems. The audience found Dr. Lagkas’ presentation particularly informative. The event was dedicated to MTEL’s employees who exhibited high performance during the previous year. The event concluded with an Awarding Ceremony for these employees.  

20/11/2013

Computer science student among the four ACM scholarship recipients from around the world

Ms Maria Gaci Congratulations Ms Maria Gaci, undergraduate student at our Computer Science Department, who received an UPE Scholarship Award by the Association for Computing Machinery. Maria is one of the four winners of the Award among many applicants from all around the world. The scholarship - which includes a monetary award of $1000 and a recommendation letter by the ACM - was awarded to Maria by The Executive Council of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the Honor Society for Computing Sciences, and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for her excellent academic performance as well as the professional commitment to the computing and information technology field. In her application for the scholarship Maria submitted her academic transcripts from the International Faculty and also outlined her activity as Vice-Chair and founding member of the ‘Muses ACM-W CITY College Student Chapter’ . "Muses ACM-W City College Student Chapter" is an ACM student chapter, established in September 2012, and it is the first student chapter for women not only in Greece, but in the European Union as well, with the mission to support and encourage people to join the computing field, with a specific focus on women. The Head of our Computer Science Department, Ms. Anna Sotiriadou, and Dr George Eleftherakis, Senior Lecturer at the Department and Maria’s supervisor significantly supported her in her scholarship application. Maria commented: "Winning a Scholarship Award from the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, is a great honour for me. I would like to thank the University of Sheffield for this excellent opportunity offered to me. This achievement would not have been possible without the academic skills gained during my studies here and the valuable experience gained by participating in ACM-W, a student chapter hosted by International Faculty with the mission of broadening the computing community. It is my pleasure to be a student at the University of Sheffield and a member of ACM-W City College. Special thanks go to Ms. Anna Sotiriadou for her support, and especially to Dr. George Eleftherakis for his irreplaceable help throughout my studies at the International Faculty."  

12/11/2013

Dr Dimopoulos' dancing robots go to Bulgaria

3rd SEE - Science Festival Dr Kostas Dimopoulos, Lecturer at our Computer Science Department and Adrian Solomon , Researcher at SEERC visited Burgas in Bulgaria in order to participate in the 3rd SEE- Science Festival where Dr. Dimopoulos had one more opportunity to present his dancing robots. The event was held on 26-27 September 2013 in the Cultural Centre Sea Casino of Burgas in view of the spectacular Burgas bay area. The concept of the 3rd SEE Science Festival was ‘SEA OF SCIENCE - explore the sea of science with us’. Within the framework of the SEE-Science project Dr Kostas Dimopoulos has developed an activity for children and young adults where robots dance with humans. The activity was inspired by the popular TV show “Dancing with the Stars”, a dancing competitive game where popular persons (in our case, robots) are matched with dancing instructors (in our case, pilot participants), who after a training period they compete in front of an audience. A number of differently configured robots programmed using Microsoft Kinect - which enables robots to respond to certain movements of the trainer - are used and each participant pairs off with one of the robots. During the dance, the participant changes postures, making the robot appear to dance as well. This activity was designed to boost the young peoples’ interest, and especially women, in science through interactive robot games and activities. This was the third of the four Science Festivals to be organised in total within in the framework of the SEE-Science project. The first festival was organised by SEERC and NOESIS in Thessaloniki last October. Dr Dimopoulos presented his dancing robots with great success in all three SEE-Science Festivals that have taken place so far. Our reserch centre, SEERC, is a partner for the SEE- Science project. More info: https://seescience.eu/festivals  

02/10/2013

New Undergraduate Programmes in Computer Science

Keeping up with the latest trends, our Computer Science Department introduces two new programmes recently added to its undergraduate portfolio: The BSc (Hons) in Computer Science (Internet Computing) and the BSc (Hons) in Computer Science (Business Informatics). Computer Science is an exciting, challenging and dynamic discipline. These two innovative programmes give students the opportunity to acquire - starting from an undergraduate level- specialized knowledge and skills of the most advanced theories and techniques currently under consideration. The programmes will be offered at our main campus in Thessaloniki, Greece. More information about the programmes Admissions period now open! Contact our Admissions Office for more information about the tuition fees and scholarship opportunities for academic year 2013-14  

15/07/2013

Congratulations to Mr. Thanos Hatziapostolou on receiving a 'Senate Award for Sustained Excellence' by the University of Sheffield Senate

Mr Thanos Hatziapostolou Senior Lecturer, Computer Science Department Congratulations are in order for Mr Thanos Hatziapostolou, Senior Lecturer at our Computer Science Department, for being awarded a Senate Award for Sustained Excellence in Learning & Teaching by the University of Sheffield. Mr. Hatziapostolou stood out from many talented candidates from all the other Faculties of the University of Sheffield. The award came as an official recognition and reward of Mr. Hatziapostolou’s academic competence, ethos and excellence in learning and teaching. The University of Sheffield Senate Awards Scheme aims to encourage and promote good practice, and raise the status of teaching and learning as a scholarly and inspirational activity. The Scheme rewards those who are inspirational or who demonstrate an exceptional contribution in the area of learning and teaching and/or supporting and enhancing the student learning experience.   Mr. Hatziapostolou said: "My main aim in teaching is to engage students’ hearts and minds. Whether through innovative educational technologies or classroom teaching engagement techniques, I try to create an active, student-centered learning environment where learning happens out of interest, curiosity and enjoyment. Following a holistic approach to education whether in or out of the classroom, I place a strong emphasis on the development of the whole person in order to prepare students as much as possible for a very challenging world. I have been very fortunate to collaborate with exceptional colleagues in a Faculty that places quality learning and teaching as the highest priority, and especially within a department that greatly fosters innovation and fully supported my ideas." Some of the comments of the Panel that reviewed Mr. Hatziapostolou’s nomination are the following: "Innovative ... Student centred... Effectively combines all aspects of excellence in learning and teaching ... embracing current technologies ... Exemplary profile ... passion and commitment ... disseminate his expertise outside his own institution ... Successful support for student publication ... Engagement with external partners to enhance the employability agenda ... Supporting students with mixed abilities ... Strong commitment to developing the Sheffield Graduate attributes ... Outstanding teacher who inspires students … Sustained classroom engagement ... An excellent ambassador for the university ... A truly inspirational teacher ... Influences the wider academic community ... An outstanding and ‘magical’ nomination!" Academics of the quality and calibre of Mr. Hatziapostolou are a true asset for our Faculty. The International Faculty warmly congratulates once again Mr. Hatziapostolou and takes pride in his achievement. View the list of all University of Sheffield academics that received a Senate Award for Sustained Excellence in Learning & Teaching.    

26/06/2013