In the year that the University is celebrating its 60th anniversary it is also the 10th anniversary of the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory.

The Laboratory was renamed in 2002 in honour of Professor Tony Davies who was responsible for its creation. Its work in the area of dielectric materials has been recognised by the University as one of its 60 successes since 1952 and on Saturday 30 June the Lab opened its doors to the public as part of the University’s Community Day.

More than 140 visitors witnessed demonstrations of high voltage phenomena and were given tours around the facility.

The HV Lab has expanded over the last 10 years - in 2004 it doubled in size with the addition of a new hall and a dielectric materials laboratory. In 2010, a mezzanine floor was added to the old hall, allowing for further expansion in both research activity and commercial testing. This has led to the creation of a multidisciplinary research team, which is currently addressing a range of complex problems associated with the design of improved dielectric systems, specific issues associated with high voltage plant and its operation in what is an uncertain future.

For more information about our current activities see our HV Lab web pages.

Twenty-seven days after leaving London, a team of recent graduates from the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences made a triumphant entry to Budapest at the end of a marathon cycle ride across Europe.

Three graduates from ECS-Electronics and Computer Science - Tom Dell, Fergus MacGarry, and Will Neep, who all graduated this summer with MEng degrees in Electronic Engineering - were joined by Martin Blick, who graduated with an MPhys degree in Physics and Astronomy. The 1200-mile journey which finished last Saturday (25 August) marked the end of their university degrees in spectacular style, but has also raised over £1300 for Save the Children and the Southampton Hospital Charity.

‘Budapedal’ began on 28 July and has taken the team through eight countries and across 1200 miles of Europe’s road network. Throughout the journey the team have blogged about their progress and their adventures along the way, ending with this final post: "We all still can’t quite believe we have finished, but it certainly feels good not to be in the bike saddle any more! A massive thank you to everyone who has sponsored us both in the run up and during our adventure! It has been fantastic to watch the total grow as we cycled!"

The team were supported by funding from ECS Alumni through the Student Development Fund.

To donate to the team’s charities, visit the Budapedal donation website.

The UK’s Software Sustainability Institute is on the lookout for a team of researchers to take part in its new Fellows programme to develop a better understanding of the way that software is used in research.

Each Fellow will be allocated £3,000 over 18 months to support activities that are beneficial to both the Fellow and the Institute such as travelling to conferences, or setting up and running workshops. The Institute has launched the prestigious new programme to recruit outstanding UK-based academics and researchers, who will help them gather intelligence about research and software from a whole range of subject areas.

The Software Sustainability Institute is a team of experts from the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford and Southampton, who are committed to cultivating world-class research through software.

The Institute team is looking for about 15 new Fellows, from PhD students to professors, who are based in a wide range of research areas that rely on software such as science, technology, digital humanities, engineering and social sciences.

The programme follows on from a successful Agents programme run over the past year by the Institute. The pilot programme saw ten Agents recruited to keep the Institute up to date with the latest software developments in their field.

“Software is now a fundamental part of research. The Software Sustainability Institute was set up in 2010 to help researchers use and develop software that is reliable, well engineered and can be re-used by different disciplines in and outside their research programmes,” said Simon Hettrick, the Institute’s Publicity Manager, who is based in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

“To achieve this we need to gather information from across as many research areas and software programmes as possible to see what is available, what works well and what could be used elsewhere.

“We ran the Agents programme last year and had a phenomenal amount of interest from people who wanted to take part in the programme. Over the year our Agents gathered useful intelligence that we are using to inform researchers about more sustainable research software,” added Simon.

Interested candidates can start applying for a Fellows place immediately and will find it advantageous to attend the official launch event at the Digital Research 2012 conference on 10 September in Oxford. Attending the launch event is free.

The launch event will be a great opportunity for potential applicants to find out more about the Fellows programme, network with like-minded researchers from across all disciplines, meet people from the Institute and discover the important role that better software can play in research.

As well as talks from Institute’s Director, Neil Chue Hong, Software Architect, Steve Crouch, and Fellows Programme leader, Shoaib Sufi, some of the Agents who took part in the pilot programme will be on hand to share their experiences.

Find out more about the Fellow Programme at: http://www.software.ac.uk/fellowship-programme

The Software Sustainability Institute is funded by the EPSRC with further funding from the JISC.

University of Southampton Open Days for prospective students take place this month on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 September.

Prospective students are able to visit Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) throughout the two days, with tours and presentations demonstrating the unique opportunities available at the University of Southampton. Visitors will also be able to meet past and current students, visit our undergraduate labs and learn about ECS students’ excellent careers prospects.

Open Day presentations will provide introductions to all the subjects taught in ECS - Computer Science, Software Engineering, Informational Technology in Organisations, Electronic Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Electromechanical Engineering. Visitors will be able to tour the Nanotechnology cleanrooms, the ECS computer labs and the electronic teaching labs. Careers talks, student showcase events and drop-in sessions will also be running throughout the two days.

The University of Southampton’s Open Day website provides further information as well as booking opportunities.

"Visiting universities is extremely important in enabling students to find the best place for their study," says ECS Professor Alun Vaughan. "There are many factors which make a difference to the kind of educational experience that will suit a particular student and we urge prospective students to take advantage of these visit days to find out as much as they can about what we can offer them."

Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southampton is currently ranked 1st and 2nd in subject league tables (The Guardian University Guide 2013/The Times University Guide 2013), while Computer Science and IT is currently ranked 3rd and 8th in the same league tables.

Further information about Open Days is available on the University of Southampton’s Open Day website.

Three ECS Computer Science students – James Brierley, Patrick Naish, and Anton Smyrnov, have spent the summer working in Newbury as Interns with Micro Focus, an internationally leading provider of enterprise application modernization, testing and management solutions.

ECS-Electronics and Computer Science encourages all its students to undertake internships during their summer break and there are many opportunities open to them from the large number of companies with which ECS is involved through its career and employability initiatives. Internships provide students with a wide range of experience of different companies and styles of working during their degree programme and help them gain important insights into the workplace.

During their internships the students have had the opportunity to work as part of a project team at Micro Focus and to experience processes new to them which will add to their ability to understand the importance of their coursework. The students reflect here on their experiences:

"The internship at Micro Focus involved working on a web-based IDE currently being maintained and supported by IBM that enables developers to program on the web (http://orion.eclipse.org)" (writes Anton Smyrnov). "Although currently it mainly supports web-based languages and scripts and is still in its initial development stages, our goal was to write a plugin for COBOL (used primarily for business applications) with a goal of integrating into it as many Eclipse-like features as possible. “Our team was composed of five student interns and two supervisors with everyone being equally engaged in the whole development process. We were following a Scrum approach towards software development which is used across all the teams at Micro Focus. Every week, a new Scrum-master was chosen by the previous one, and he/she was involved in managing the estimations of tasks for the current iteration, making sure that everyone updated their progress on the tasks, and conducting daily Scrum meetings. Since the beginning of the internship, everyone has had a chance to be in this role which enhanced our understanding of agile software development and provided very useful practical experience. “Particular attention has been paid to rigorous testing, which was somewhat new to some of us, as it involved writing not only JUnit but also GUI tests with Silk. The tests helped us to spot a lot of bugs and we have come to appreciate how important they are for releasing stable feature-complete software.

“Apart from work, Micro Focus organized socials for us where we had a chance to meet other interns and recently-employed graduates, as well as to get to know each other better. Also, every intern has had a weekly one-to-one meeting with a supervisor where we could discuss any impressions, thought or concerns of the past week. Micro Focus is definitely a company that cares about their employees’ feelings and wants them to enjoy their time in the workplace."

Patrick Naish commented: “We're now in our final week at Micro Focus - it's gone surprisingly quickly. Our presentation went well, despite being to an unexpectedly large crowd (including the CEO). Our project is now pretty much feature-complete, and we're on our last day of bugfixes. The next two days will be spent on "spikes", where we investigate side-projects to the main one. There are some plans to deploy what we've done on the company's own forums - and potential applications as an education tool. Overall it has been a very useful experience, and we really appreciate the organisation and support given by our managers Chris Whitty and Sam Prophet. We'd recommend an internship at Micro Focus for anybody interested in getting experience working in a Scrum process.”

Richard Levy, Director of Development Operations, commented: “Micro Focus is delighted with the enthusiasm, talent and energy of this year’s summer Interns which was reflected in the quality and completeness of the solution they produced.

"Interns at Micro Focus work together in single scrum team focused on a specific technical challenge rather than through separate individual placements in our permanent teams. This has proved to be a very productive and rewarding way of working for everyone concerned; providing experience throughout the agile lifecycle and allowing the interns to see their work through to fruition in a completed project. Aside from the obvious technical skill it was rewarding to see strong teamwork, excellent presentation skills and a real desire to deliver a quality solution.

"We have enjoyed hosting this year’s team and sincerely hope we will work with them all again in the future along with a new intake next summer.”

The interns are pictured here: (l-r): Chris Whitty, Samantha Prophet (Micro Focus supervisors), Anton Smyrnov (ECS), Ben Morris, Richard Peach (Univ. of Cambridge interns), James Brierley, Patrick Naish (ECS)

The ECS Careers Fair 2013 will take place on Tuesday 12 February, when around 70 of the UK’s leading technology employers will be able to engage with students studying Computer Science, IT in Organisations, Electronics and Electrical Engineering in ECS. Places are still available at the Fair. For further information contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.

ECS Professor Nigel Shadbolt was a member of the Steering Group for the new global Web Index, compiled by the World Wide Web Foundation, and published today at a launch event in London.

The World Wide Web Foundation is led by Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and also a Professor in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science. The new Index is the world’s first multi-dimensional measure of the Web’s growth, utility and impact on people and nations. Covering 61 developed and developing countries, it measures how well these different countries around the world are harnessing the benefits of an open and universal Web. This inaugural poll is topped by Sweden, followed by the USA, the UK, Canada and Finland in the top five.

Combining over 80 indicators to evaluate access, affordability, institutional and policy environment, and social and economic utility, the Web Index will now be published on an annual basis, providing an analytical tool for researchers and a resource for policy makers.

"By shining a light on the barriers to Web for everyone, the index is a powerful tool that will empower individuals, government and organisations to improve their societies," Sir Tim tells the BBC. "The Web is a global conversation. Growing suppression of free speech, both online and offline, is possibly the single biggest challenge to the future of the web," he added.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, who is a member of the Board of the World Wide Web Foundation representing the Web Science Trust, commented: "The Web is essential to modern life. Providing a detailed index of how well countries are doing at providing the empowering and enriching benefits of the Web is a really important development. We hope to refine and extend the reach of the Web Index – but it is clear that it will inform decision making and help people argue the case for doing better. Importantly all of the the data and methods used in the Web Index will be transparently and openly published for others to use."

The Open Data Institute (ODI) has named AMEE founder, Gavin Starks, as its new CEO.

The role of Technical Director is being taken by Jeni Tennison, currently the technical architect of legislation.gov.uk for The Stationery Office (TSO) and The National Archives (TNA).

Created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, both Professors in ECS-Electronics and Computer Science, the ODI will open its doors this autumn and is a world-first, dedicated to incubating and nurturing new and existing businesses that want to use open data to create economic growth.

The ODI will promote innovation and help develop skills amongst developers and entrepreneurs. The ODI will support the publication and exploitation of high quality open data from across the public sectors.

Today’s announcement confirms the first appointments to its leadership team that will help deliver the ODI’s ambitions which include: --Creating and helping new start-up companies get off the ground. --Helping SMEs or larger corporates to develop and grow their businesses using open data. --Developing ODI technologists, who will be trained in specialist skills enabling them to create new products and services from open data. --Enabling public sector organisations to become publishers of high quality open data.

The new hires will be based at the ODI’s Shoreditch HQ, which will open its doors later this year and will become a focal point for entrepreneurs and developers, start-ups and established corporates, technologists and creatives to meet, share ideas and drive growth. Gavin Starks

Gavin Starks has a unique background in business, technology, science and media. In 2006, he created AMEE to organise the world’s energy and environmental data, standards and calculations into a simple web-service. As well as AMEE, Gavin has helped create many innovative and successful start-ups in the Shoreditch area over the past decade–working with organisations including the UK Government, Google, and Unicef. Gavin Starks said: “I have been an advocate for open data as a transformative force for change for many years. I now believe open data is not just a “nice to have” but critical to our future. We are in an age where data-driven decisions are made on a daily basis but the quality of our data is often lacking or misunderstood. As CEO of the Open Data Institute, I am determined to ensure that we demonstrate the value of open data, drive up data standards, and collaborate with world-class talent across the UK and beyond: to make data useable, accessible, and scalable, for the benefit of the public, the environment and the economy” Jeni Tennison Jeni Tennison is one of the country's foremost developers in open data and web technologies, having pioneered the use of open data APIs within the public sector through legislation.gov.uk. She is known internationally for her work with both XML and Linked Data, and is a member of the W3C's Technical Architecture Group. Speaking about her appointment as ODI's Technical Director, she said: "Open data is an unstoppable tide, with transformative implications for both businesses and the public sector. There is huge potential for new and existing businesses not just to build apps for end users but also to develop innovative ways of storing, transforming, analysing and visualising data. From my work on legislation.gov.uk, I know that publishing open data does not have to be a one-way street: data owners can also bring value to their businesses by opening up their data. I am absolutely delighted to be taking up the role of Technical Director of ODI, and am looking forward to working with Gavin and the rest of the team here. I'm also very excited about the prospect of collaborating with the many organisations and individuals developing tools and business models that will enable open data to live up to its potential." The future Welcoming today’s appointments, Professor Nigel Shadbolt said: “I am delighted that in Gavin and Jeni, we have attracted two outstanding talents to the ODI team. Data drives transactions and decisions of every kind in today’s world and it is essential for our economic future that the UK’s industries and public services remain at the forefront of this movement. Gavin and Jeni will work with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and myself to build an ODI that can help UK businesses exploit open data, fostering a generation of open data entrepreneurs to ensure that new companies, products and services emerge that make a tangible difference to peoples’ lives.” Sir Tim Berners Lee said: "The new institute is starting with a two top-notch leaders. Gavin and Jeni each bring a passion for what we are doing, lots of relevant experience, and very strong skills. This is a great start for the ODI." Next steps The ODI has also confirmed today that its new headquarters will be at 65 Clifton Street in Shoreditch, at the heart of London’s technology community. The headquarters will open later in the year with a series of events and activities.

An ECS student on the MSc Artificial Intelligence course presented the results of his research project at an international workshop last month.

Hanjie Luo focused his project on a form of fabrication that mimics the formation of biological complexes such as viruses.

He presented his findings on "Selecting Self-assembly Pathways" at the Biological and Chemical Information Technology workshop in Orleans, France, last month.

His research investigated the future manufacturing methods of individual components self-assembling into desired products by making decisions when to bind to another component. There are a large number of possible assembly combinations – intermediate structures - but only some of them will yield a high quantity of the desired structure in a short time. Some of the intermediate structures can hinder progress.

Hanjie developed a software tool based on combinatorial mathematics and physics simulation that predicts which intermediate structures should be avoided, thus helping to optimise the fabrication process.

Hanjie’s project supervisor was Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner, who commented: “Hanjie has worked very hard on his research project and I am delighted that he has been recognised for this work by being invited to present his findings at this prestigious conference.”

Hanjie is currently researching at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Germany, where he was invited to undertake a two-month research visit based on the achievements of his MSc project. During his time in Jena Hanjie will investigate how self assembly can be used for future molecular computing architectures.

"The project is an important aspect of the MSc programme," said Dr Zauner, "and it's great to see what can be achieved by an MSc student in the research-intensive environment of ECS."

Hanjie returns to Southampton in December to attend his MSc Graduation ceremony.

The MSc programme in ECS is a 12-month postgraduate degree programme, which provides the opportunity for students to spend a year studying and researching on an intensive high-quality course at the cutting edge of technology.

An innovative challenge in which the University of Southampton PhySoc helped schoolchildren from St Albans launch their experiments into ‘space’, also included banishing a Minecraft Creeper as far away as possible.

Earlier this year, the University of Southampton PhySoc launched a new PhySoc Outreach Project devised and led by Physics undergraduate Chris Frohmaier, PhySoc Outreach Chair and final-year student on the MPhys with Astronomy. The idea behind the project was to help schoolchildren from St Albans launch their experiments into ‘space’. PhySoc were keen to get the schoolchildren excited about practical science and to inspire them to study Physics at the University of Southampton.

The schoolchildren put their experiments into table-tennis balls which were then launched on a balloon with a tracker designed by Electronics student Matthew Brejza, a member of the Southampton University ASTRA Initiative. Physics student George Winstone also designed an experiment to detect cosmic particles. With the aid of Cambridge University Spaceflight Society (CUSF), the weather-balloon was launched from Churchill College, and tracked throughout the duration of its flight.

The payload also included cameras loaded with CHDK software to take pictures on the way up. “As a group, we saw this as a brilliant time to also launch some of our own personal hobbies”, said Ben Oxley of the PhySoc Outreach team, “and so a Minecraft ‘Creeper’ and chest were launched.”

Although the balloon burst early, it reached a maximum altitude of 23km! It then descended and landed in a field where after some searching it was found still intact and still taking photos!

The Physoc Outreach team is run by dedicated undergraduate students from Physics and other disciplines, who are all passionate about passing on their enthusiasm for science.

ECS alumnus Matt Hobbs was one of five graduates who provided advice and support to ECS students at the first of our new series of Careers Conferences.

The event – ‘Winning the Job you Want: What you need to know about applications, interviews, and corporate culture’, featured leading recruiters Raeeka Yassaie of Imagination Technologies and Sally Cranstone of Lockheed Martin, as well as ECS alumni Matt Hobbs, Simon Kampa, Mike Austin, Carly Wilson and Philip Whittlesea.

Matt, who graduated MEng Electrical Engineering in 2004, has been working for BP for seven years and is one of the Lead Electrical Engineers on a project in Azerbaijan. Matt provided advice on shaping up to competency questions and on assessment centres.

Simon Kampa did both his undergraduate and PhD degrees in Computer Science at ECS, which he joined in 1995. He is now Managing Director of Critical Software Technologies which is based at the University Science Park. Simon spoke on the value of PhD research.

Mike Austin, who did Electronics at ECS and graduated in the 1980s, provided ‘Three reasons not to join a start-up’ – despite the fact that he has recently founded his fourth start-up, Triggered Messaging, which provides digital marketing technology, and is based at the University Science Park.

Recent graduates Carly Wilson (MEng Computer Science 2011), and Philip Whittlesea (MEng Computer Science 2012), tackled ‘What I wish I’d known before I started work’. Carly works for PA Consulting, and Philip joined Snowflake Software in Southampton on graduation.

The event was intended to ensure that our students are best prepared for the application and interview process, for both summer internships and graduate jobs. It was the first event of its kind in ECS and we will be building on its success in the future. Other events are currently taking place to provide information to MSc students on CV preparation, international student visas, and preparing for the Careers Fairs.

The ECS Engineering and Technology Careers Fair takes place on 12 February 2013 and over 50 companies are already booked to attend, with many ECS alumni likely to be on the stands. Places at the Fair can be booked through Joyce Lewis.