2016

Review of the ICT thesis contest 2016

The ICT thesis contest was held on June 2, in TUT Mektory. During the public event the evaluating committees, which included representatives from several ICT companies, selected the best theses in five competition categories and gave out five special awards. Additionally, AS Cybernetica and AS Nortal acknowledged two successful master's level theses with a company-named award.

The competition took place for the fourth time, including all the IT faculty specialities. The objective of the contest is to prepare students for academic defense and recognize thesis writers for their academic accomplishments. Also, give other students the opportunity to gather inspiration for writing their own theses. On the other hand, to create favorable conditions for companies and students to meet and discuss potential collaboration opportunities. This year, in addition to other objectives, introduce the IT faculty specialities to high school students through thesis presentations.

From all of the IT faculty’s master’s and bachelor’s curricula, 11 curricula were represented. The contest received a total of 40 applications. During the 2016 spring semester about 360 theses will be defended in the IT Faculty. All of the theses submitted to the completion passed through preliminary evaluation, 30 theses remained on the sieve:

• BSc software category - 13 applications, 9 theses passed to final stage;
• BSc hardware and systems category - 4 applications, 4 theses passed to final stage;
• MSc software category - 7 applications, 6 theses passed to final stage;
• MSc hardware and systems category - 10 applications, 7 theses passed to final stage;
• MSc information society category - 6 applications, 4 theses passed to final stage.

Great responsibility fell to the preliminary evaluation committee, as they had to choose the theses that would be given an opportunity to compete in the final round of the competition. The committee consisted of the academic staff representatives, who read and evaluated the theses, and gave their recommendation who of the candidates deserved a special prize. A deep bow and praise to all the members of the preliminary evaluation committee for the work done!

On June 2nd, the competition day started with the reception of pupils from Saue Gümnaasium and Põltsamaa Ühisgümnaasium. Students got an opportunity to become acquainted with the Innovation and Business Centre Mektory, in addition, the Youth Startup Competition Bright Minds and Start-up preincubation program. The public final round of the ICT thesis contest took place in the second half of the day. The audience consisted of pupils, university students, company representatives, academic staff and others. The students, competing in different categories, presented their theses in accordance with the academic practices. Five different evaluation committees worked in parallel session, the committees included representatives from several ICT companies in additions to the academic staff. At this point, we would like to thank the members of the evaluating committees and the chairmen for their hard work, and hope that students, who took part of the contest, received important input and confidence for the academic defense of their theses.

This year the topic of machine learning was the most popular among the theses competing in the BSc software category, also noticeable were theses written about creation of a plagiarism detection system and video games graphic’s algorithm optimization. Also specific software solutions were among the topics, for gymnastics, linguistics, software engineering and card applications. The BSc hardware and systems category included theses dealing with applicable solutions (software platform for a robot vacuum cleaner, creation of a design for a satellite communication antenna) and a thesis looking into the future: virtual reality.

Similarly, to the BSc hardware and systems category, the theses presented in the MSc software category were of applicable nature. The topics of theses were mostly related to development work done in different companies, dealing e.g. with public information systems, computer games and web applications. In the MSc hardware and systems category the topics varied from the pure theoretical research about model design and analysis to the practical implementation of mobile embedded systems. Also the theses presented in the MSc information society category were of a very different nature, but the most comprehensive thesis won.

Best theses were acknowledged with scholarships - a winner for each category was chosen, seven special prizes were given out, including Cybernetica-named scholarship and Nortal-named special award.

Authors of the best Bachelor’s level (BSc) theses are:

• Fred-Eric Kirsi, Voxel Game Engine Using Blender 3D Voxel-mängumootor Blender Game Engine abil, supervisor software engineer Jaagup Irve (the winner of BSc software category, scholarship 500€);
• Liisi Soots, Finding Fraudulent Users Through IP Address Changes Using Machine Learning, supervisors associate prof. Innar Liiv ja Lauri Koobas (best analytical thesis of BSc software category, scholarship 500€);
• Eduard Netšajev, Motor Insurance Clients Risk Level Evaluation using Artificial Neural Networks and Deep Learning, supervisor associate prof. Eduard Petlenkov (the special prize of BSc software category, scholarship 200€);
• Dolores Freiberg, 3D Kraana modelleerimine ja simuleerimine virtuaalmaailmas, supervisor research scientist Aleksei Tepljakov (the winner of BSc hardware and systems category, scholarship 500€).

Authors of the best Master’s level (MSc) theses are:

• Rait Raidma, PostgreSGL andmebaasisüsteemi põhine metaandmetega juhtivate veebirakenduste kiirprogrammeerimise keskkond, supervisor associate prof. Erki Eessaar (the winner of MSc software category, scholarship 500€);
• Villu Jürimaa, Ravitööd toetava infosüsteemi reeglipõhine otsustustoe tugisüsteem, supervisor prof. Jaak Tepandi (the special prize of MSc software category, scholarship 300€);
• Juri Kazjulja, Recommending Board Games to Groups – Prototype and Evaluation Tool, supervisor teaching assistant Ago Luberg (MSc software category, AS Nortali special award);
• Akashkumar Rajaram, Energy Harvesting in Cooperative Communications, supervisors Dr. Dushantha Nalin K. Jayakody ja Dr. Vitaly Skachek (the winner of MSc hardware and systems category, scholarship 500€);
• Shaoxuan Wang, Modeling the reflected THz range radiation from blood cells, supervisor lecturer Reeno Reeder (the special prize of MSc hardware and systems category, scholarship 300€);
• Vaiko Vahter, Reaalajas robotauto juhtimise võrgurakendus, supervisor associate prof. Eduard Petlenkov (MSc hardware and systems category, AS Cybernetica scholarship)
• Luis Carlos Herrera Velasquez, A Comprehensive Instrument for Identifying Critical Information Infrastructure Services, supervisor prof. Olaf Manuel Maennel (the winner of MSc information society category, scholarship 500€);
• Ievgen Bilyk, How New e-Services for e-Residency Project Can Be Designed: The Case of Virtual Incubation Service, supervisor associate prof. Ermo Täks (the special prize of MSc information society category, scholarship 300€);

After the student presentations, all participants were invited to listen to the exciting guest speaker. AS Proekspert Product Lead Triin Sepp talked about work happiness and technology.

TUT Faculty of Information technology would like to thank all of the partners, who contributed to the realization of the contest - contributed to the scholarship fund, participated in the evaluating committee, gave a promotional gift to the contest participants and helped with the organizational matters. Thank you: AS Cybernetica, AS Kühne + Nagel, AS Swedbank, AS Nortal, AS Telia Eesti, AS Fujitsu Estonia, OÜ Artec Design, OÜ Playtech Estonia, OÜ Pipedrive, OÜ Mooncascade, OÜ LDI Innovation, Ülemiste City, Information Technology Foundation for Education through Study IT in Estonia Programme, SA TUT Development Fund and ITÜN.

Photo album of the contest can be found here (photographer Sten-Ander Ojakallas).

The organizers of the ICT thesis contest
Liisi Ilu and Elena Vaarmets
Faculty of Information Technology
iktkonkurss@ttu.ee

Partners

The competition is organized by the TUT Faculty of Information Technology with Information Technology Foundation for Education's IT Academy programme.