Six ECS students took part in the first ‘Code for Good Challenge’ event held by J P Morgan at their London office last month.

The challenge was an opportunity for top tech talent from UK universities to use technology, through their team coding skills, to address a social challenge for one of our three partner charities: Centrepoint, WaterAid or The Nature Conservancy.

‘From a recruiting and marketing perspective, the Code for Good Challenge aimed to attract a high calibre of technology candidates, and strengthen our university relationships whilst highlighting to the students that our business is an innovative technology firm to work for,’ said J P Morgan.

The students spent the weekend working on the challenge with J P Morgan’s ‘Tech for Social Good Team’, coding for 30 hours to build and creative and tangible solution to the problems faced by the charities.

All the participants have been invited to apply for a fast-tracked recruitment process for the J P Morgan Technology Intern and Graduate programmes in Europe.

The ECS students who took part are pictured here (l-r): Adrian Nedea, Ayesha Ali, Sebastian Claici, Antonios Goergiadis, Aleksandar Botev and Hendrik Appel.

J P Morgan already employ a large number of ECS graduates and the company will be attending the ECS Careers Fair on 12 February.

Households are being encouraged to take part in a new project by the University of Southampton to help reduce their energy bills.

Rising energy prices combined with falling winter temperatures provide a powerful incentive for us to find ways of reducing our energy bills.

According to researchers at the University of Southampton, a key element in reducing our bills is to better understand how our home consumes energy. To help users gain this understanding, the researchers have devised a simple process which provides personalized advice with the minimum of time and effort – and at no cost.

The research is a collaboration between the ORCHID project, based in Electronics and Computer Science, which is investigating how people and software systems can better interact, and the ‘Intelligent Agents for Home Energy Management’ project, which focuses on using autonomous software agents to improve energy efficiency within the home.

Only three steps are involved in the process: first you register with the project online and you receive your free Joulo data logger (which looks and works just like a conventional memory stick). You place this on top of your central-heating thermostat and leave it for a week to collect data as you continue to use your heating as normal. You then log on to the website, upload the data from the logger, and receive instant personalised advice on how to reduce your heating bill. The logger can then be posted back to the researchers using the return bag – and postage is also free.

“We’re giving people responsible energy advice at low cost and scale”, said Dr Alex Rogers, who is leading the project. “The system is very easy to use – we’re not installing something permanently and we’re not asking users to collect data themselves; all that’s required is that the data logger sits on top of the thermostat for a week.

“The analysis that participants receive is designed to make them more aware of how they are operating their heating system against the background of the external weather conditions. We’re looking at the profile between internal and external temperatures and seeing how the home responds - how quickly it warms up and dissipates, and then providing advice on this feedback.”

“We believe that people will be able to lower their annual bill through taking our advice on board,” he added. “As we run our analysis algorithms on data from more and more homes throughout the trial, we’ll be able to add more complex analysis. We particularly want to add feedback about timer settings; warning householders that they may be heating their homes very early in the morning, or very late at night, when it probably isn’t necessary.”

Over 70 leading technology graduate recruiters will be attending the Engineering and Technology Careers Fair organized by Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences at the University of Southampton on Tuesday 12 February.

With the UK facing a current deficit of 60,000 engineers, according to Sir James Dyson, highly skilled and capable graduates are very much in demand, and Southampton students have an excellent reputation for the breadth and depth of their knowledge of different technologies, as well as for the strong mix of practical and theoretical understanding gained in their degree programmes.

This year’s Fair, the sixth in the series, brings some of the world’s leading recruiters to the University. Companies attending will be offering graduate recruitment opportunities, as well as summer internships and industrial placements, and aiming to build relationships with students as they progress through their degrees. Many of the companies also sponsor student activities in ECS, provide prizes and awards for academic course modules, and pay regular visits to give technology presentations.

Imagination Technologies, one of the country’s leading technology companies, is a regular recruiter of ECS graduates, whose skills and knowledge fit well with the company’s needs. Its multimedia and communications semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) cores are at the heart of today's most innovative and exciting consumer electronics products and the company relies on recruiting leading graduates.

“We believe it is critical for industry and universities to work together to mutually benefit,” says Raeeka Yassaie of Imagination Technologies. “As a company we are represented on the Industrial Advisory Board in ECS. This helps us maintain a strong understanding of the teaching ECS delivers and we are also able to advise and influence so that the School can ensure it is producing graduates with the skills that industry needs.

“We attend and sponsor many events each year across UK universities with strong engineering and computing departments, including sponsorship of multiple events and attendance at a number of careers-focused activities in Southampton for ECS."

ECS has one of the UK’s best records for the employability of its graduates. In last year’s University league tables, the employability ranking (indicating the percentage of students in graduate jobs or further training six months after graduation) for ECS students was 95 per cent.

“It’s essential that we produce graduates who have the skills and understanding to play an effective role in developing future technologies,” says Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. “As a school we have worked hard over recent years to ensure that our courses are providing our students with the skills needed in the workplace. We also place a very high value on our employer liaison activity, including our annual Careers Fair and our Careers Hub web site.

“This enables students to work closely with companies who can sponsor projects and course modules, to take up summer internships and work placements in vacations, and to have the best possible information about employment opportunities.”

Over 1200 students attended last year's event, and this year's Fair is already hotly anticipated. The event takes place in the Garden Court, Students' Union, on the Highfield Campus, from 11 am to 3 pm on Tuesday 12 February, and is open to all students in the University, with a particular emphasis on engineering and technology degrees.

For further information about the Careers Fair or careers activity in the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences, contact Joyce Lewis; tel. +44(0)23 8059 5453.

Centrica Plc. invited the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory (TDHVL) to tender for a series of tests on a 27m section of 132kV offshore wind farm export cable and subsequently awarded the laboratory with its largest ever contract for commercial testing. Work has commenced on the three month long test programme and on the 7th December the supplied cable section was energized with a 1000 Amps per phase for the first time.

The cable is too large for testing within the laboratory and instead is being tested on the dockside of the University’s waterfront campus, “We are very grateful for the excellent support of everyone at NOCS,” said Neil Palmer, TDHVL Laboratory Manager, “their assistance in planning the work and ensuring that we can meet the test programme requirements has been outstanding”. The collaboration between the TDHVL and The National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) is largely as a result of the formation of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) as it was through this process that TDHVL became aware of the facilities and expertise available at the waterfront campus.

The wet design cable is being initially tested under dry conditions to determine its thermal properties and leakage/loss currents under controlled conditions. Obtained values will then be used to validate cable models that will provide information on the thermal rating of the export cable connection from the offshore substation to dry land. This will allow the investigation of potential limiting factors that may reduce the overall ampacity of the connection.

“This is extremely important work for the UK offshore wind farm industry as a whole”, said Professor Paul Lewin “the outcomes from this testing programme could ultimately lead to improved international standards for the rating of offshore wind farm export cable circuits.”

“The expertise of the University of Southampton in terms of high voltage cable ratings is well known and the results and analysis of the testing programme may lead to a reduction in the required number of export cables in the seabed. This could significantly reduce the costs associated with construction of offshore wind farms, a vital contribution to the viability of future projects.” said Simon Catmull, Project Engineer for Centrica.

Professor Steve Swingler, a member of academic staff at the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory, has received an award from National Grid in recognition of his work on the Western HVDC Link. He has worked on a number of large HVDC cable projects in recent years (including BritNed and Basslink) and played a key advisory role during the design process for the Western HVDC Link.

The Western HVDC Link is being jointly developed by National Grid Electricity Transmission and Scottish Power Transmission. It will provide a vital reinforcement to Great Britain’s transmission grid, bringing renewable energy from Scotland directly to England and Wales without having to pass through a transmission bottle-neck in northern England. The link comprises 400 km of HVDC cable and converter stations at Hunterston, North Ayrshire in Scotland and at Connah's Quay in Flintshire, North Wales. This link will be the longest HVDC cable system in the world at this rating (2.2GW) and will also be the first subsea link rated at 600kV DC.

Professor Swingler says “The Western HVDC Link is crucial in removing transmission constraints between England and Scotland. It is a challenging project, as there are a number of world firsts in its delivery. Based on my experience of working on previous HVDC interconnector projects, my role was to assist the design team through providing specialist advice on the submarine cable elements of the link. The project is now moving in to the construction phase, during which I will be continuing to work with the team at National Grid and Scottish Power”

Staff at TDHVL is still actively involved in the project, with work on going to develop fully coupled thermo-electric models of the cable system to allow detailed rating studies to be carried out. A significant component of this work draws in the experience of staff based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton in modelling thermal processes in seafloor sediments.

This year’s Engineering and Technology Careers Fair is the biggest yet – with 79 major employers keen to offer graduate jobs and summer internships to Southampton students.

Despite reports that indicate a reduction in the number of graduate jobs available this year, students can still expect very strong interest from employers across the tech industries and from companies that are seeking excellent graduates with high-level competence in technology, including computer science, engineering and the physical sciences.

The Fair takes place at the University’s Highfield Campus on 12 February. It is the sixth annual Fair organized by Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) and the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences. The first Fair, in 2008, attracted 23 companies; each year since then strong demand for Southampton graduates has seen the Fair increase in size. New companies attending this year include: Amazon, Gazprom, Hawk-Eye, Lockheed Martin, Meggitt, Notonthehighstreet.com, and many more. Thirty per cent of the companies are attending for the first time.

The Fair is the centrepoint of the careers and employability activity in ECS, but activities throughout the year, such as conferences, employer presentations, and mentoring programmes are designed to ensure that students are aware of all the opportunities open to them, and best prepared to gain the position that they want. ‘It is very exciting to see the number of companies that are keen to employ our students,' said Professor Neil White, Head of ECS. ‘The environment we have created here continues to ensure that companies want to promote their opportunities to our students. For our part we do our best to increase our students’ awareness of career opportunities, right from their very first week at the University. We want to prepare them to find the job they want, and raise their aspirations of future achievement.’

Companies attending this year's Fair are: Accenture Adex-Group Aubay Altera Amadeus Amazon Analog Devices ARM Atmel BAE Systems BAE Systems Detica BBC R&D Bloomberg BT Cambridge Group Captec Career Destinations/ODAR Centrica Climax Studios Critical Software Technologies Deloitte Dialog Semiconductor ECM Selection EMC Enterprise Recruitment Ericsson Television FactSet Fidessa G Research GE Gazprom Marketing and Trading Goldman Sachs Gradcracker Gresham Computing HMG Communications Centre HSBC Huddle IBM Imagination Technologies Invensys IT Dev JP Morgan JDI Backup Lockheed Martin M&G Matchtech Meggitt Memset Micro Focus National Instruments NCC Group NDS Netcraft New Voice Media Notonthehighstreet.com nvidia Ocado OpenBet Open Market PwC RGC Jenkins & Co. Schlumberger Selex ES SetSquared Sony Professional Snowflake Software Sperry Rail SPI Lasers STFC STI Switch Concepts Teach First Telesoft Technologies Telsis Thales Transport for London True Clarity WikiJob Winton Capital Yahoo! Year in Industry

The Fair takes place in Garden Court and the Mountbatten Building, Highfield Campus, University of Southampton, from 11 am to 3 pm, on Tuesday 12 February. It is open to all students at the University of Southampton.

For further information about the ECS Careers Hub activity, contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

This year’s Group Design Project (GDP), an essential element of the final year of the ECS Master’s programmes, was completed last week when the students made their final project presentations to the sponsoring companies.

Clients for the prestigious project this year included industrial companies such as L-3, Imagination Technologies, Xyratex, Gloucester Research, Detica, and Snowflake Software, as well as public bodies such as Heathrow Airport, and academic institutions.

ECS is very pleased to announce that a new prize for the GDP has been instituted by one of this year’s sponsors – Captec Ltd, which was founded by ECS alumnus and Visiting Professor Max Toti. The Captec Prize for Entrepreneurial Industrial Innovation (Group Excellence), will be awarded for the first time at the ECS Graduation Reception this summer. It is open to all the groups that took part in this year’s GDP, and is intended to recognize entrepreneurial insight and technical innovation in project initiatives that also have an industrial application.

The prize of £1000 will be shared equally between the winning team members, and GDP teams have already been invited to submit their applications. Academic supervisors and sponsoring clients are also able to submit recommendations for the prize.

In addition to the group prize, Captec has also generously awarded a prize for Entrepreneurial Industrial Innovation, which will be awarded to an individual student and can be applied to any piece of project work in ECS, or any other initiative, academic or extra-curricular, which exemplifies entrepreneurial insight and technical innovation with an industrial application. The application forms for both awards, which should be submitted by 12 April, are available from Joyce Lewis (ECS Senior Fellow); tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

‘We are very pleased to have two new prizes to formally recognize the high standard of our students’ achievements,’ said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. ‘The innovation and creativity within ECS makes it a great place for enterprise to thrive, and our students are also very aware of the opportunities and new ideas that can be developed from their knowledge of new technologies and devices. As an ECS alumnus who started his own company which has been outstandingly successful, Max is a great role model for our students and this encouragement in the form of generous prizes is very much valued by ECS. We look forward to a high standard of applications.’

Daniel J. Weitzner, Director of the Decentralized Information Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, will be delivering a Distinguished Faculty Lecture on Monday 11 February.

Daniel Weitzner will lecture on the subject: ‘Is the Internet Governable?’, asking if the new central nervous system of the world’s political, economic and social life is actually ungovernable.

The Internet’s third decade has begun with raging policy debates about privacy (EU Data Protection Regulation and the US Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights), copyright (the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the International Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), cybersecurity, as well as proposals to bring the Internet to heel under the control of the United Nations. Each of these debates pits efforts to impose centralized control over the flow of online information against demands for unfettered freedom for Internet users. In order to be sure that the Internet can continue to be a platform for innovation and grow to reach the 70% of the planet’s population still not online, policymakers have to tread carefully.

Beginning with a policymaker’s view of how Internet debates have played out over the last four years, Weitzner will present some fundamental principles that should guide the development of Internet public policy in the future.

Daniel J. Weitzner is co-founder and Director of the MIT CSAIL Decentralized Information Group and former White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Internet Policy. Weitzner’s research group at MIT explores network and Web architectures to enable information privacy accountability. Over the course of his career in the public policy world he has led legislative and judicial efforts resulting in the first Internet free expression protections in the United States and updated privacy and civil liberties protections in the realm of government surveillance. His work at the White House led to a new Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights in the US and an agreement among 34 nations at the OECD for protection of Internet free expression and privacy.

The lecture takes place at 6 pm in the Nightingale Lecture Theatre (67/1027). No tickets are required and all are welcome. Refreshments will be available in the Nightingale Building from 5.30 pm.

This Distinguished Lecture is organized by the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences.

The University of Southampton has been awarded a rare professorship, bestowed by The Queen, to mark its excellence in the field of Computer Science.

Southampton is one of a handful of universities to receive the prestigious title Regius Professor which reflects the institution’s exceptionally high quality of teaching and research. The University will assign the title to an existing Professor or will appoint a new professor to take the chair and hold the title.

When universities were invited to apply, six new Regius Professorships had been planned to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. However, Southampton’s winning submission and those of 11 other universities were judged by the panel to have been of exceptionally high quality and government Ministers and The Queen agreed that twelve should be awarded. Before today, the awarding of Regius Professorships were limited to a handful of the ancient universities of the United Kingdom and Ireland, namely Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Trinity College, Dublin.

University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Don Nutbeam says: “We are incredibly proud of the recognition that this award of Regius Professor brings to the pioneering work of our computer scientists over many decades. The University of Southampton continues to set the standard as one of the leading places in the world for computing science research and education, as our academics and researchers continue to blaze a trail for the future exploration of computing, intelligent systems and the World Wide Web.”

Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Dean of the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences and former Head of Electronics and Computer Science, says: “This is a fantastic honour for us. It pays tribute to the many people who have supported the development of Computer Science at Southampton over the years including Vice Chancellors, Heads of Department and the many amazing academics, researchers and students who have contributed so much to enable us to obtain the world-leading position we are in today.“

During the last 26 years, Computer Science at the University of Southampton has grown in scale and global eminence, attracting students and researchers from around the world, providing academic leadership and continuing to define and develop new leading-edge technologies and approaches.

Computer Science was established as an academic discipline at Southampton in 1986 when the University created a joint department of Electronics and Computer Science. This union of the fledgling Department of Computation (founded in 1967 by Professor David Barron), with Southampton’s Electronics Department, whose pioneering achievements were already transforming global communications, propelled research and teaching in Computer Science at Southampton to the world-leading status it enjoys today.

Southampton’s world-leading achievements in Computer Science include the development of pioneering hypermedia systems in the late 1980s and laying the foundations of agent-based computing and intelligent systems since the late 1990s. The University is also recognised around the globe for founding and fostering Web Science as an academic discipline, led by Professors Dame Wendy Hall, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Nigel Shadbolt, who Chairs the UK’s new Open Data Institute.

The Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, says: “I was incredibly impressed by the quality and range of the applications received and I am delighted that twelve new Regius Professorships are to be created. Together, the successful applications demonstrated an exceptionally high level of achievement in both teaching and research.

"It is testament to the quality and strength of our higher education sector that so many universities were considered worthy of such a distinguished honour."

The creation of Regius Professorships falls under the Royal Prerogative, and each appointment is approved by the Monarch on ministerial advice. Only two others have been awarded in the last century, to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin in 2009. Before then, the most recent Regius Professorship was created by Queen Victoria.

The 12 new Regius Professorships awarded by the government are:

• University of Dundee – Life Sciences • Imperial College, London – Engineering • London School of Economics and Political Science – Economics • The Open University – Open Education • University of Manchester – Physics • Royal Holloway, University of London – Music • University of Essex – Political Science • King’s College London – Psychiatry • University of Reading – Meteorology and Climate Science • University of Southampton – Computer Science • University of Surrey – Electronic Engineering • University of Warwick – Mathematics