Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

From Isekai to IT: How an Esports Startup Builds the Workforce

admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:52:40 +0000

From Isekai to IT: How an Esports Startup Builds the Workforce admin Wed, 07/30/2025 - 08:52

More than 1,000 cosplayers, gamers, and nerds took over Macon, Georgia’s, annual Cherry Blossom Festival in late March. They were there for the fourth year of the CBF Isekai convention, which celebrates all things anime, cosplay, and esports, but Isekai offers more than a weekend of fun. Participants could enter gaming competitions that might help them land a future cybersecurity or IT job.

CBF Isekai is sponsored by SON Technologies — short for Swagged Out Nerds — a Macon esports company focused on workforce development. SON believes the best gamers can also become promising IT professionals.

A startup founded by two Air Force veterans, SON is already making a name for itself in the esports world and has support from Georgia Tech. It is one of the Accelerate companies in the startup portfolio of Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), one of the oldest and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States.

Swagged Out Start

SON founders Jason Clarke and John Robinson first met when they both worked in cybersecurity in the Air Force. As they transitioned to civilian IT careers, they realized a perhaps unlikely source sparked their IT expertise — video games. In 2019, the two partnered to create an esports competition team for veterans, but they knew the company’s mission could be bigger.

“When people think of gamers, you think of a 40-year-old person in their mom’s basement,” Clarke said. “But we wanted to change the perception. Gamers have employable skills that can be used for substantial IT work.”

For example, when a person plays a multiplayer game like Fortnite, they can assume a leadership role, delivering directives to their teams. What may look like mere play actually entails planning, organizing, and executing. Even a simple task like troubleshooting a household wi-fi network is a skill that can be expanded on with the right training.

From Player to Professional

SON wants both kid and adult gamers to know they have options. They regularly host gaming tournaments and conventions to find people who would be right for their programs and cultivate community. Through a partnership with digital education company Aperion Global Institute and cybersecurity certification organization EC-Council, Clarke and Robinson administer a high school-level curriculum highlighting the synergies between IT and gaming.

Adults also have opportunities. Past SON tournament competitors can take an eight-week program, Sticks to Clicks, to turn their gaming skills into IT proficiency. These initiatives come at a crucial time: Between now and 2030, according to O*NET OnLine, 51,000 cybersecurity jobs in the state of Georgia are expected to be vacant.

Game-Changing Career Paths

The programs’ benefits are already tangible. One adult participant in Sticks to Clicks had an annual income of less than $10,000 before joining the program. In the first seven weeks, he earned a certification in CompTIA Security+. In the eighth and final week, he interviewed with some of SON’s workforce partners. He was ultimately hired to install network infrastructure for $46,000 a year.

High school students have had similar success. In the 2025-26 school year alone, 150 students went through the SON program and received stackable credentials that can prepare them for IT careers even if they don’t go to college.

All of this momentum got ATDC’s attention, and SON Tech was accepted as a portfolio company in Fall 2024. Both Georgia AIM and the Air Force went to Macon for the 2025 Isekai convention and met potential employees firsthand. They saw that SON was just getting started.

The ATDC Connection

SON joined ATDC in 2024 under the AI and Manufacturing vertical sponsored by Georgia AIM, a statewide coalition to advance manufacturing using AI. SON is one of ATDC’s first middle Georgia companies, but the entire state will experience benefits. Through ATDC, SON can use Georgia Tech resources, meet experts in grant applications and corporate networking, and plug into the startup ecosystem in Atlanta. The three-to-five-year program helps startups scale up.

“The truth is when you’re starting a company, the first few years are the worst of your life,” said Nwanyinma Dike, who serves as the Georgia AIM and ATDC liaison. In this role, she advises SON. “Connecting into a community of folks rooting for you, listening to you, helping you breathe through whatever challenges occur is one of the most valuable resources ATDC has to offer.”

The size of the March Isekai event was only possible thanks to ATDC’s support. They helped SON fundraise by finding the right sponsors.

“We went from starting this convention in a pizza shop to now packing an entire plaza downtown,” Clarke said. “To see the growth is amazing. We've received a lot of industry backing because of the creative ways we're helping workforce development.”

Dike wants to ensure the event wasn’t a one-off and that SON can keep up the momentum. SON is already planning an even bigger 2026 Isekai convention, with exciting new partners in the pipeline who want to share in the energy of this creative workforce development solution and movement.

SON also announced a partnership with gaming company Blaze Fire Games and the Houston County School District. The school district can access Blaze Fire Games’ Recruit, Reclaim, and Retain career pathway program, which is designed to help close the technology industry’s vast talent gap.

“The partnership is exciting because it represents more than creating and launching an esports club,” said Isiah Reese, CEO and co-founder of Blaze Fire Games. “This agreement allows our company to continue creating opportunities and develop relevant, sustainable career-readiness skills required to compete in today’s environment.”

Sherri Johnson, the CEO and principal of Houston County College and Career Academy, agrees. "The partnership is a real game-changer for our students. These unique, forward-thinking, 21st-century digital economy workforce educational courses will empower our instructors to reimagine and enhance classroom learning within our cybersecurity and gaming career pathway programs.”

SON is ready to rise to whatever industry or challenge needs their model next. What they have been able to do for the IT and cybersecurity fields could eventually be applied to the Federal Aviation Administration or even healthcare technician jobs. There’s an entirely new way to develop the tech world field, and it may not start in a classroom but with a controller.

Summary sentence

SON Technologies is part of Georgia Tech’s startup incubator, ATDC.

Summary

Dateline

Mon, 07/21/2025 - 12:00

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Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor

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Wed, 07/30/2025 - 08:51

Georgia Tech Team Takes Second Place at ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest

dgivens8 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:58:25 +0000

Georgia Tech Team Takes Second Place at ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest dgivens8 Tue, 07/29/2025 - 08:58

An algorithmic breakthrough from School of Interactive Computing researchers that earned a Meta partnershipdrew more attention at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

Meta announced in February its partnership with the labs of professors Danfei Xu and Judy Hoffman on a novel computer vision-based algorithm called EgoMimic. It enables robots to learn new skills by imitating human tasks from first-person video footage captured by Meta’s Aria smart glasses.

Xu’s Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab (RL2) displayed EgoMimic in action at ICRA May 19-23 at the World Congress Center in Atlanta.

Lawrence Zhu, Pranav Kuppili, and Patcharapong “Elmo” Aphiwetsa — students from Xu’s lab — used Egomimic to compete in a robot teleoperation contest at ICRA. The team finished second in the event titled What Bimanual Teleoperation and Learning from Demonstration Can Do Today, earning a $10,000 cash prize.

Teams were challenged to perform tasks by remotely controlling a robot gripper. The robot had to fold a tablecloth, open a vacuum-sealed container, place an object into the container, and then reseal it in succession without any errors.

Teams completed the tasks as many times as possible in 30 minutes, earning points for each successful attempt.

The competition also offered different challenge levels that increased the points awarded. Teams could directly operate the robot with a full workstation view and receive one point for each task completion. Or, as the RL2 team chose, teams could opt for the second challenge level.

The second level required an operator to control the task with no view of the workstation except for what was provided to through a video feed. The RL2 team completed the task seven times and received double points for the challenge level.

The third challenge level required teams to operate remotely from another location. At this level, teams could earn four times the number of points for each successful task completed. The fourth level challenged teams to deploy an algorithm for task performance and awarded eight points for each completion.

Using two of Meta’s Quest wireless controllers, Zhu controlled the robot under the direction of Aphiwetsa, while Kuppili monitored the coding from his laptop.

“It’s physically difficult to teleoperate for half an hour,” Zhu said. “My hands were shaking from holding the controllers in the air for that long.”

Being in constant communication with Aphiwetsa helped him stay focused throughout the contest.

“I helped him strategize the teleoperation and noticed he could skip some of the steps in the folding,” Aphiwetsa said. “There were many ways to do it, so I just told him what he could fix and how to do it faster.”

Zhu said he and his team had intended to tackle the fourth challenge level with the EgoMimic algorithm. However, due to unexpected time constraints, they decided to switch to the second level the day before the competition due to unexpected time constraints.

“I think we realized the day before the competition training the robot on our model would take a huge amount of time,” Zhu said. “We decided to go for the teleoperation and started practicing.”

He said the team wants to tackle the highest challenge level and use a training model for next year’s ICRA competition in Vienna, Austria.

ICRA is the world’s largest robotics conference, and Atlanta hosted the event for the third time in its history, drawing a record-breaking attendance of over 7,000.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

A Georgia Tech team earned second place in the ICRA Robot Teleoperation Contest for their EgoMimic algorithm, which allows robots to learn skills by mimicking human tasks from first-person video.

Summary

Students from Georgia Tech's Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab earned second place and a $10,000 cash prize in a robot teleoperation contest at the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta. The RL2 lab announced a partnership with Meta in February on a novel computer vision-based algorithm called EgoMimic. It enables robots to learn new skills by imitating human tasks from first-person video footage captured by Meta’s Aria smart glasses.

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Wed, 06/11/2025 - 12:00

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Thu, 06/12/2025 - 07:52

Georgia Tech Celebrates 2025 Ph.D. Graduates in Cybersecurity and Privacy

dgivens8 — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:47:40 +0000

Georgia Tech Celebrates 2025 Ph.D. Graduates in Cybersecurity and Privacy dgivens8 Mon, 07/28/2025 - 10:47

The School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech is proud to recognize the accomplishments of five doctoral students who finished their doctoral programs in Spring 2025. These scholars have advanced critical research in software security, cryptography, and privacy, collectively publishing 34 papers, most of which appear in top-tier venues.

Ammar Askar developed new tools for software security in multi-language systems, including a concolic execution engine powered by large language models. He highlighted DEFCON 2021, which he attended with the Systems Software and Security Lab (SSLab), as a favorite memory.

Zhengxian He persevered through the pandemic to lead a major project with an industry partner, achieving strong research outcomes. He will be joining Amazon and fondly remembers watching sunsets from the CODA building.

Stanislav Peceny focused on secure multiparty computation (MPC), designing high-performance cryptographic protocols that improve efficiency by up to 1000x. He’s known for his creativity in both research and life, naming avocado trees after famous mathematicians and enjoying research discussions on the CODA rooftop.

Qinge Xie impressed faculty with her adaptability across multiple domains. Her advisor praised her independence and technical range, noting her ability to pivot seamlessly between complex research challenges.

Yibin Yang contributed to the advancement of zero-knowledge proofs and MPC, building toolchains that are faster and more usable than existing systems. His work earned a Distinguished Paper Award at ACM CCS 2023, and he also served as an RSAC Security Scholar. Yang enjoyed teaching and engaging with younger students, especially through events like Math Kangaroo.

Faculty mentors included Regents’ Entrepreneur Mustaque Ahamad, Professors Taesoo Kim and Vladimir Kolesnikov, and Assistant Professor Frank Li, who played vital roles in guiding the graduates’ research journeys.

Learn more about the graduates and their mentors on the 2025 Ph.D. graduate microsite.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

Five Ph.D. students from Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy graduated in Spring 2025, contributing significant research in software security, cryptography, and privacy with 34 published papers. Highlights include Ammar Askar’s concolic execution tools, Zhengxian He’s industry collaboration, Stanislav Peceny’s advances in multiparty computation, Qinge Xie’s adaptability across domains, and Yibin Yang’s award-winning work on zero-knowledge proofs. Faculty mentors played key roles in supporting their success.

Dateline

Wed, 05/14/2025 - 12:00

jpopham3@gatech.edu

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JP Popham, Communications Officer II

College of Computing | School of Cybersecurity and Privacy

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Mon, 07/28/2025 - 10:46

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:58:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:58

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

“Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of the AI talent and technologies that are powering a revolution in our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It’s fitting we’ve been selected to host this new supercomputer, which will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation across the nation. We’re grateful to the NSF, and we are excited to get to work.”

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics.

“The Nexus system's novel approach combining support for persistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will accelerate the time to scientific discovery,” said Katie Antypas, National Science Foundation director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced computing capabilities for the research community.”

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

AI is rapidly changing how science is investigated. Researchers use AI to analyze massive datasets, model complex systems, and test ideas faster than ever before. But these tools require powerful computing resources that — until now — have been inaccessible to many institutions.

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

“This supercomputer will help level the playing field,” said Suresh Marru, principal investigator of the Nexus project and director of Georgia Tech’s new Center for AI in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN). “It’s designed to make powerful AI tools easier to use and available to more researchers in more places.”

Srinivas Aluru, Regents’ Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Computing, said, “With Nexus, Georgia Tech joins the league of academic supercomputing centers. This is the culmination of years of planning, including building the state-of-the-art CODA data center and Nexus’ precursor supercomputer project, HIVE."

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

“Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science,” said Charles Isbell, chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “I'm proud that my two academic homes have partnered on this project that will move science, and society, forward.”

What’s Next

Georgia Tech will begin building Nexus this year, with its expected completion in spring 2026. Once Nexus is finished, researchers can apply for access through an NSF review process. Georgia Tech will manage the system, provide support, and reserve up to 10% of its capacity for its own campus research.

“This is a big step for Georgia Tech and for the scientific community,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing. “Nexus will help researchers make faster progress on today’s toughest problems — and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

The National Science Foundation has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

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Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

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Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

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Science and Technology

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Mercury ID

683161

Source updated

Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:56

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:05:37 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases to understanding how the brain works to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain + memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing, with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the Moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and the HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

Tech companies, whose technologies will power the system, will also play a role.

What’s Next

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

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Keywords

go-ai

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Science and Technology

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Artificial Intelligence

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Mercury ID

683139

Source updated

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference

dgivens8 — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:46:41 +0000

Brain-Inspired AI Breakthrough Spotlighted at Global Conference dgivens8 Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

Researchers at Georgia Tech have taken a critical step forward in creating efficient, useful and brain-like artificial intelligence (AI). The key? A new algorithm that results in neural networks with internal structure more like the human brain.

The study, “TopoNets: High-Performing Vision and Language Models With Brain-Like Topography,” was awarded a spotlight at this year’s International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), a distinction given to only 2 percent of papers. The research was led by graduate student Mayukh Deb alongside School of Psychology Assistant Professor Apurva Ratan Murty.

Thirty-two of Tech’s computing, engineering, and science faculty represented the Institute at ICLR 2025, which is globally renowned for sharing cutting-edge research.

“We started with this idea because we saw that AI models are unstructured, while brains are exquisitely organized,” says first-author Deb. “Our models with internal structure showed more than a 20 percent boost in efficiency with almost no performance losses. And this is out-of-the-box — it’s broadly applicable to other models with no extra fine-tuning needed.”

For Murty, the research also underscores the importance of a rapidly growing field of research at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. “There's a major explosion in understanding intelligence right now,” he says. “The neuro-AI approach is exciting because it helps emulate human intelligence in machines, making AI more interpretable.”

“In addition to advancing AI, this type of research also benefits neuroscience because it informs a fundamental question: Why is our brain organized the way it is?,” Deb adds. “Making AI more interpretable helps everyone.”

Brain-inspired blueprints

In the brain, neurons form topographic maps: neurons used for comparable tasks are closer together. The researchers applied this concept to AI by organizing how internal components (like artificial neurons) connect and process information.

This type of organization has been tried in the past but has been challenging, Murty says. “Historically, rules constraining how the AI could structure itself often resulted in lower-performing models. We realized that for this type of biophysical constraint, you simply can’t map everything — you need an algorithmic solution.”

“Our key insight was an algorithmic trick that gives the same structure as brains without enforcing things that models don't respond well to,” he adds. “That breakthrough was what Mayukh (Deb) worked on.”

The algorithm, called TopoLoss, uses a loss function to encourage brain-like organization in artificial neural networks, and it is compatible with many AI systems capable of understanding language and images.

“The resulting training method, TopoNets, is very flexible and broadly applicable,” Murty says. “You can apply it to contemporary models very easily, which is a critical advancement when compared to previous methods.”

Neuro-AI innovations

Murty and Deb plan to continue refining and designing brain-inspired AI systems. “All parts of the brain have some organization — we want to expand into other domains,” Deb says. “On the neuroscience side of things, we want to discover new kinds of organization in brains using these topographic systems.”

Deb also cites possibilities in robotics, especially in situations like space exploration where resources are limited. “Imagine running a model inside a robot with limited power,” he says. “Structured models can help us achieve 80 percent of performance with just 20 percent of energy consumption, saving valuable energy and space. This is still experimental, but it's the direction we are interested in exploring.”

“This success highlights the potential of a new approach, designing systems that benefit both neuroscience and AI — and beyond,” Murty adds. “We can learn so much from the human brain, and this project shows that brain-inspired systems can help current AI be better. We hope our work stimulates this conversation.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Summary

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed an algorithm that helps AI models develop internal organization just like the human brain — boosting efficiency by 20 percent.

Dateline

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

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682905

Source updated

Thu, 06/26/2025 - 12:46

When Talent Meets Opportunity: Celebrating the Impacts of Scholarships at Tech

dgivens8 — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:38:38 +0000

When Talent Meets Opportunity: Celebrating the Impacts of Scholarships at Tech dgivens8 Mon, 06/16/2025 - 15:38

A hum of anticipation filled McCamish Pavilion as more than 150 attendees turned their attention to the arena floor, not for a basketball game, but to hear about the impact of scholarships at Georgia Tech. On April 5, Georgia Tech hosted the second annual Scholarship Brunch, an event that brings scholarship recipients together with their benefactors to celebrate the potential unleashed when talent meets opportunity. Rick Clark, Georgia Tech’s executive director of Strategic Student Success, served as master of ceremonies, and he opened by highlighting why scholarship assistance is so vital to attracting top talent from Georgia and beyond. “One thing we’ve found to be clear is that admissions without affordability is not access,” he said.

Clark was followed by Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera, who recounted how a scholarship made it possible for him, “a middleclass kid from Madrid, Spain,” to come to Georgia Tech, earn his doctorate, and later return to serve as president. Like Clark, he underscored the urgency of making Tech affordable for top talent. “If we want to have the very best, smartest, kindest, most dedicated people” working to solve the world’s most pressing challenges, “we have to find them when they’re young and invest in them.”

Next, three current scholarship recipients and an alumna donor spoke. Fourth-year computer engineering student and Virginia native Elisa Miller recalled how scholarship support led her to Georgia Tech and how her education has positioned her for future success. While at Tech, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) awarded Miller a Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation Scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in cybersecurity, with a DOD job awaiting her upon graduation. She offered advice to current and future Tech students, urging them to “seize every opportunity you are given to tackle every challenge you face.”

JahWill Fannings, a fourth-year business administration student from West Point, Georgia, described how his scholarship validated a bet he placed on himself in high school: He would apply only to Georgia Tech, and if admitted, he would only attend if he could do so without incurring debt. Thanks to a G. Wayne Clough Tech Promise Scholarship, that bet paid off. Freed from financial burdens, Fannings was able to launch his second company, Flowst8, an AI-powered workflow tool for musicians and other creatives. He credits the network of students, mentors, and industry leaders he was able to connect with as key to his upward trajectory. “Georgia Tech is more than a school,” he said. “It’s an ecosystem designed to help us all build toward success.”

Tampa, Florida, native Sofia Mesa, a first-year civil engineering student and recipient of the Godbold Family Foundation Scholarship, spoke of her desire to attend the Institute from a young age. When family road trips took her family through Atlanta, she would plead with her parents to stop and visit Tech Tower and the Kessler Campanile. What most excites her about the future, Mesa said, is what a Georgia Tech diploma signifies. “It’s more than just a piece of paper. It’s a statement that says, ‘I endured, I grew, and bring it on, because I am ready for whatever you can throw at me.’”

Closing out the program was Ronda Sides, IE 1983, who, along with her husband Alan Sides, ME 1983, endowed her first scholarship in 1999. Sides described her family’s return to Georgia after 18 years abroad. Witnessing firsthand the transformation the Institute had undergone inspired them to give back. Fittingly, after hearing from students about what they gain from scholarships, Sides related the impact of giving on donors. “Students, I know how good it feels when you look into your accounts and you see the money that has flowed in,” she said. “We as donors look into our accounts, and we see the money that flowed out and was sent to you — and it’s an exponentially better feeling.”

Plans are underway for next year’s Scholarship Brunch, which will once again celebrate remarkable talent and extraordinary generosity. Business administration student JahWill Fannings 16 “Georgia Tech is more than a school. It’s an ecosystem designed to help us all build toward su

Summary sentence

On April 5, Georgia Tech hosted the second annual Scholarship Brunch, an event that brings scholarship recipients together with their benefactors to celebrate the potential unleashed when talent meets opportunity.

Summary

Dateline

Mon, 06/16/2025 - 12:00

justin.horton@dev.gatech.edu

Contact

Justin Horton

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Categories

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Business

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Engineering

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Mercury ID

682800

Source updated

Mon, 06/16/2025 - 15:38

SKYSCENES Dataset Could Lead to Safe, Reliable Autonomous Flying Vehicles

admin — Mon, 19 May 2025 13:31:53 +0000

SKYSCENES Dataset Could Lead to Safe, Reliable Autonomous Flying Vehicles admin Mon, 05/19/2025 - 09:31

Is it a building or a street? How tall is the building? Are there powerlines nearby?

These are details autonomous flying vehicles would need to know to function safely. However, few aerial image datasets exist that can adequately train the computer vision algorithms that would pilot these vehicles.

That’s why Georgia Tech researchers created a new benchmark dataset of computer-generated aerial images.

Judy Hoffman, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing, worked with students in her lab to create SKYSCENES. The dataset contains over 33,000 aerial images of cities curated from a computer simulation program.

Hoffman said sufficient training datasets could unlock the potential of autonomous flying vehicles. Constructing those datasets is a challenge the computer vision research community has been working for years to overcome.

“You can’t crowdsource it the same way you would standard internet images,” Hoffman said. “Trying to collect it manually would be very slow and expensive — akin to what the self-driving industry is doing driving around vehicles, but now you’re talking about drones flying around.

“We must fix those problems to have models that work reliably and safely for flying vehicles.”

Many existing datasets aren’t annotated well enough for algorithms to distinguish objects in the image. For example, the algorithms may not recognize the surface of a building from the surface of a street.

Working with Hoffman, Ph.D. student Sahil Khose tried a new approach — constructing a synthetic image data set from a ground-view, open-source simulator known as CARLA.

CARLA was originally designed to provide ground-view simulation for self-driving vehicles. It creates an open-world virtual reality that allows users to drive around in computer-generated cities.

Khose and his collaborators adjusted CARLA’s interface to support aerial views that mimic views one might get from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

What's the Forecast?

The team also created new virtual scenarios to mimic the real world by accounting for changes in weather, times of day, various altitudes, and population per city. The algorithms will struggle to recognize the objects in the frame consistently unless those details are incorporated into the training data.

“CARLA’s flexibility offers a wide range of environmental configurations, and we take several important considerations into account while curating SKYSCENES images from CARLA,” Khose said. “Those include strategies for obtaining diverse synthetic data, embedding real-world irregularities, avoiding correlated images, addressing skewed class representations, and reproducing precise viewpoints.”

SKYSCENES is not the largest dataset of aerial images to be released, but a paper co-authored by Khose shows that it performs better than existing models.

Khose said models trained on this dataset exhibit strong generalization to real-world scenarios, and integration with real-world data enhances their performance. The dataset also controls variability, which is essential to perform various tasks.

“This dataset drives advancements in multi-view learning, domain adaptation, and multimodal approaches, with major implications for applications like urban planning, disaster response, and autonomous drone navigation,” Khose said. “We hope to bridge the gap for synthetic-to-real adaptation and generalization for aerial images.”

Seeing the Whole Picture

For algorithms, generalization is the ability to perform tasks based on new data that expands beyond the specific examples on which they were trained.

“If you have 200 images, and you train a model on those images, they’ll do well at recognizing what you want them to recognize in that closed-world initial setting,” Hoffman said. “But if we were to take aerial vehicles and fly them around cities at various times of the day or in other weather conditions, they would start to fail.”

That’s why Khose designed algorithms to enhance the quality of the curated images.

“These images are captured from 100 meters above ground, which means the objects appear small and are challenging to recognize,” he said. “We focused on developing algorithms specifically designed to address this.”

Those algorithms elevate the ability of ML models to recognize small objects, improving their performance in navigating new environments.

“Our annotations help the models capture a more comprehensive understanding of the entire scene — where the roads are, where the buildings are, and know they are buildings and not just an obstacle in the way,” Hoffman said. “It gives a richer set of information when planning a flight.

“To work safely, many autonomous flight plans might require a map given to them beforehand. If you have successful vision systems that understand exactly what the obstacles in the real world are, you could navigate in previously unseen environments.”

For more information about Georgia Tech Research at ECCV 2024, click here.

Summary sentence

Georgia Tech researchers created a new benchmark dataset of computer-generated aerial images that could allow autonomous flying vehicles to operate reliably and safely.

Summary

Few aerial image datasets exist that can adequately train the computer vision algorithms that would pilot autonomous flying vehicles. Judy Hoffman, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing, worked with students in her lab to create SKYSCENES. The dataset contains over 33,000 aerial images of cities curated from a computer simulation program.

Dateline

Thu, 09/26/2024 - 12:00

Contact

Nathan Deen

Communications Officer

School of Interactive Computing

Associated importer

Keywords

go-ai

go-research

Artifical Intelligence

Center for Machine Learning

autonomous drones

drones; UAV; unmanned aerial vehicles

autonomous aircraft

computer vision

computer vision algorithm

computer vision systems

Categories

City Planning, Transportation, and Urban Growth

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Research

Mercury ID

677158

Source updated

Thu, 09/26/2024 - 15:12

Campus Connection Inspires Mother and Son to Find Purpose and Passion

admin — Fri, 09 May 2025 14:00:41 +0000

Campus Connection Inspires Mother and Son to Find Purpose and Passion admin Fri, 05/09/2025 - 10:00

When Andrew Rush started at Georgia Tech last fall, he already had a sense of direction as soon as he set foot on campus. His mother, Holly Rush, is a longtime Georgia Tech staff employee, and this exposure influenced Andrew to study at the Institute.

We caught up with Holly and Andrew to learn more about what makes Georgia Tech so appealing to students and employees alike, and the unique perspective their mother-son relationship brings to campus.

How long have you worked at Georgia Tech? What do you do as a financial operations assistant director?

[Holly] I have been at Georgia Tech since 2000 and joined the College of Computing in early 2005. Ironically and very memorably, I found out I was expecting Andrew right after I started in Computing. I still recall being very nervous about telling my new boss that I was expecting, but she was happy for me and very accommodating. I went to the bookstore right after our meeting and bought Andrew his first Georgia Tech t-shirt, which I plan to pass down to him one day.

Being part of the College for this long, I have watched it grow from having divisions to schools. I began as a financial administrator and steadily grew into my current role as assistant director of financial operations for the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). In my current role, I oversee financial operations for the School of CSE, including budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and ensuring compliance with Institute and sponsor guidelines. I work closely with faculty, staff, and leadership to support our financial programs and other initiatives. It is a rewarding role that allows me to contribute to the success of the college while watching it grow, just like my own journey here.

How much influence did your mom’s work at Georgia Tech have on your interest in coming here for college?

[Andrew] It definitely played a role. I grew up a fan of all things Georgia Tech, so this was always my dream school. When I got in, all the stars aligned. Tech was my dream school, my mom worked there, and I was close to home. It was perfect.

What is it about Georgia Tech that has kept you here for more than two decades?

[Holly] From the beginning, I have always felt that my work contributes to something bigger – supporting faculty who offer world-class education and innovation. I have had the opportunity to grow professionally and work alongside very talented colleagues.

How has your first year gone? What do you like best about attending Georgia Tech?

[Andrew] Overwhelming. I wasn’t sure what to expect from attending college. The college lifestyle was a big change for me, and I had to learn how to navigate it. I knew Georgia Tech would be challenging, and I thought I was ready for it, but it was still harder than I expected. However, I managed to get through my first year with great resilience and finish stronger than I started.

What do you each like best about being on campus together?

[Holly] I enjoy being nearby and getting to share this chapter of his life. There are many times that Andrew is focused on his studies or his fraternity commitments, so he doesn’t get to come home as often as I would like. But with me being on campus, we can grab a quick lunch or have a short visit. I also like knowing he is a short walk from my office if I want to drop off a homemade meal. Even when we are both too busy for a visit, sometimes I find myself looking out the window across campus. Just seeing the top of a building where he is attending class gives me comfort knowing he is there.

[Andrew] Bouncing off of what my mom said, it has been great. It is comforting that I can go to her office just to say “hey,” and not drive all the way home. It’s nice that when I’m having a rough patch with school, she drops by to offer some reassurance.

What has been the key to reaching the milestones of a fulfilling career and witnessing your children achieve their goals?

[Holly] The key to reaching these milestones has really been maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Georgia Tech has given me the space and support to grow professionally while also being present as a parent. That balance has been everything. It allowed me to build a fulfilling career that I’m proud of, while also being there to watch my children grow and pursue their dreams, including Andrew becoming a Georgia Tech student himself. Being able to do both, without having to choose one over the other, has truly been the foundation of my success and happiness.

What do you look forward to in the next few years studying computer engineering at Georgia Tech? And after graduating?

[Andrew] I am most excited for my threads and starting my career. I have learned so much that I am already applying my studies. I recently used Raspberry Pi to build a circuit that enabled a motion detector to work and set off an LED indicating motion. This was a part of my discovery class for my major, and it was the most fun I have had at Georgia Tech so far. It was very new and exciting to learn about, and it motivates me to put my skills to work.

After graduating, I want to work in cybersecurity, possibly as a hardware security engineer for the government or even my own startup. The project I mentioned opened my eyes to my threads and really motivated me to continue in this field.

Rush is one of more than 150 College of Computing staff members who support the College and its five schools. Staff members are the backbone of the College. From managing operations to providing essential services, their dedication ensures the seamless delivery of education, research, and community support, making them integral to the College's success.

Summary sentence

Holly Rush has worked at Georgia Tech since 2000. Her employment influenced her son, Andrew, to attend the Institute and study computer engineering.

Summary

We caught up with Holly and Andrew to learn more about what makes Georgia Tech so appealing to students and employees alike, and the unique perspective their mother-son relationship brings to campus.

Dateline

Thu, 05/08/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Bryant Wine, Communications Officer
bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu

Keywords

College of Computing

college of engineering

School of Computational Science and Engineering

College of Engineering; School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Daily Digest

The Whistle

whistle

Georgia Tech News Center

Mother's Day

News room topics

Campus and Community

Categories

Community

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Engineering

Student and Faculty

Mercury ID

682285

Source updated

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 09:59

Computing Framework Could Reveal Signs of Neuro Disorders Hidden within Brain Data

admin — Mon, 05 May 2025 13:58:41 +0000

Computing Framework Could Reveal Signs of Neuro Disorders Hidden within Brain Data admin Mon, 05/05/2025 - 09:58

A Georgia Tech doctoral student’s dissertation could help physicians diagnose neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease. The new approach leverages data science and algorithms instead of relying on traditional methods like cognitive tests and image scans.

Ph.D. candidate Md Abdur Rahaman’s dissertation studies brain data to understand how changes in brain activity shape behavior.

Computational tools Rahaman developed for his dissertation look for informative patterns between the brain and behavior. Successful tests of his algorithms show promise to help doctors diagnose mental health disorders and design individualized treatment plans for patients.

“I've always been fascinated by the human brain and how it defines who we are,” Rahaman said.

“The fact that so many people silently suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders, while our understanding of the brain remains limited, inspired me to develop tools that bring greater clarity to this complexity and offer hope through more compassionate, data-driven care.”

Rahaman’s dissertation introduces a framework focusing on granular factoring. This computing technique stratifies brain data into smaller, localized subgroups, making it easier for computers and researchers to study data and find meaningful patterns.

Granular factoring overcomes the challenges of size and heterogeneity in neurological data science. Brain data is obtained from neuroimaging, genomics, behavioral datasets, and other sources. The large size of each source makes it a challenge to study them individually, let alone analyze them simultaneously, to find hidden inferences.

Rahaman’s research allows researchers and physicians to move past one-size-fits-all approaches. Instead of manually reviewing tests and scans, algorithms look for patterns and biomarkers in the subgroups that otherwise go undetected, especially ones that indicate neuropsychiatric disorders.

“My dissertation advances the frontiers of computational neuroscience by introducing scalable and interpretable models that navigate brain heterogeneity to reveal how neural dynamics shape behavior,” Rahaman said.

“By uncovering subgroup-specific patterns, this work opens new directions for understanding brain function and enables more precise, personalized approaches to mental health care.”

Rahaman defended his dissertation on April 14, the final step in completing his Ph.D. in computational science and engineering. He will graduate on May 1 at Georgia Tech’s Ph.D. Commencement.

After walking across the stage at McCamish Pavilion, Rahaman’s next step in his career is to go to Amazon, where he will work in the generative artificial intelligence (AI) field.

Graduating from Georgia Tech is the summit of an educational trek spanning over a decade. Rahaman hails from Bangladesh where he graduated from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology in 2013. He attained his master’s from the University of New Mexico in 2019 before starting at Georgia Tech.

“Munna is an amazingly creative researcher,” said Vince Calhoun, Rahman’s advisor. Calhoun is the founding director of the Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science Center (TReNDS).

TReNDS is a tri-institutional center spanning Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Emory University that develops analytic approaches and neuroinformatic tools. The center aims to translate the approaches into biomarkers that address areas of brain health and disease.

“His work is moving the needle in our ability to leverage multiple sources of complex biological data to improve understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders that have a huge impact on an individual’s livelihood,” said Calhoun.

Summary sentence

A Georgia Tech doctoral student’s dissertation could help physicians diagnose neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Summary

Ph.D. candidate Md Abdur Rahaman’s dissertation studies brain data to understand how changes in brain activity shape behavior.

Dateline

Thu, 04/24/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Bryant Wine, Communications Officer
bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu

Keywords

College of Computing

School of Computational Science and Engineering

Research Horizons

go-researchnews

artificial intelligence (AI)

go-ai

Daily Digest

Georgia Tech News Center

News room topics

Health and Medicine

Categories

Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Life Sciences and Biology

Research

Student Research

Mercury ID

682026

Source updated

Mon, 05/05/2025 - 09:58

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SKYSCENES Dataset Could Lead to Safe, Reliable Autonomous Flying Vehicles

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Seeing the Whole Picture

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Computing Framework Could Reveal Signs of Neuro Disorders Hidden within Brain Data

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