Wendy Hall appointed Regius Professor in Computer Science

Dame Wendy Hall was appointed to the prestigious post of Regius Professor in Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

Regius professorships are posts which have royal patronage. The post was originally created in 2013 and is the only Regius Professorship in Computer Science in the country.

Dame Wendy said of her appointment: “I am pleased to accept this prestigious honour from the University and from Her Majesty The Queen. The Regius Professorship signifies an important honour for the University, the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, and the discipline of Computer Science at Southampton. It also represents years of hard work by a world-leading team of people which I’m proud to continue to lead. I believe it’s a critical time in our history to contribute to our increased understanding of the power of the World Wide Web and the physical and social impact it makes on our daily lives.”

More details can be found here.

Wendy Hall to lead government review of the UK Artificial Intelligence sector

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has appointed Professor Dame Wendy Hall and former IBM Chief Data Scientist Jerome Pesenti to lead a review of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector. The government has also allocated funding of £17.3m to UK universities for carrying out research into AI and robotics.

The review will look into the ways in which government and industry could collaborate in this area and how the sector could grow.

On her appointment Professor Dame Wendy Hall said:
“Our scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs are at the forefront of the development of artificial intelligence and I’m looking forward to exploring how industry and government can work together to support the technology in the UK.”

Tim Organ Steps Down

After more than six years as CEO of Seme4, Tim Organ announced at the recent Board that he was stepping down. Hugh Glaser has taken on the role of CEO.

Tim has led Seme4 through some stormy times, especially in the market, with recessions and austerity in the public sector, and leaves it in a healthy condition – in fact, Seme4 recorded its best year yet in the recent financial review. He will stay involved with Seme4 at a strategic level, and remain on the Board, but the day to day involvement will be much reduced.

In recognising Tim’s contribution to Seme4, Wendy Hall commented that “We are very grateful for everything Tim has done for Seme4 over the last few years. Over his time at the helm, Seme4 has grown significantly as a company and we couldn’t have done this without his tireless efforts on our behalf. Always a pleasure to work with, we look forward to his continued involvement in the future development of the company”.

Tim said “It has been a great pleasure and an honour to work with everyone at Seme4 these last six years.  Making the case for Linked Data and our data integration technology has not been easy, but Seme4 has survived while others have not, making consistent profits every year.  There is no doubt that our time will come, and Seme4 will go from strength to strength.”

Seme4 launches new Horizon Scanning demonstrator

Seme4 has launched the Horizon Scanning demonstrator – an innovative new piece of software for linking and visualising global data.

The demonstrator, commissioned by KISTI (the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information), enables linking and visualisation of a range of data sources, including global threats, influenza outbreak locations and worldwide air travel passenger movements to/from the UK.

More details can be found here.