In June 2020, the 4TU.NIRICT research centre launched the ‘’Diversity-Equity-Inclusion’’ (DEI) fund to support projects that boost diversity, equity and inclusion within the 4TU ICT community.
Three projects have already been awarded funding: The first project focuses on best practices in gender and nationality composition in student teams. The second one supports the participation of researchers from the underrepresented groups to the Lorentz workshop “Beyond the Mobile-Cloud Computing Paradigm’’ and the third project celebrates the inspiring work of women in computing.
Gender and Nationality Composition in Student Teams
Main applicant: prof.dr. A.Serebrenik (TU/e)
Modern Computer Science and Electrical Engineering curricula emphasize the importance of teamwork. In this project they focus on identification and validation of best practices in composition of student teams in terms of gender and nationality. In this way they (a) will create awareness of teachers of the ways team composition affects performance and attitudes of students, and (b) reduce gender biases of future generations of students.
Lorentz workshop ‘Beyond the Mobile-Cloud Computing Paradigm’.
Main applicant: Dr. Aaron Ding (TU Delft)
This project aims at creating a scientific community within the Netherlands of like-minded but also complementary-skilled researchers who are motivated to tackle the unique challenges of edge computing and unlocking the value of edge computing in research and education. Edge computing is the new generation of cloud computing, by bringing the cloud from the far away data centre closer to the user, e.g., think of a smart speaker that collects different sensing information from the environment, instead of sending this information to the cloud, edge computing enables the processing and analysis of this data directly on the device. By supporting underrepresented researchers, DEI funding will help this workshop to develop a joint research agenda considering a broader vision and also help the underrepresented researchers to meet junior or senior researchers in their domain and expand their network.
Alice & Eve Goes Digital: A celebration of women in computing
Main applicant: prof.dr. M.I.A. Stoelinga (UT)
Women belong in Computer science. This is an irrefutable fact proven by countless individuals every day. In 2020, Alice & Eve – a conference and exhibition – was created to highlight the prominent role and noteworthy contributions of women in computing. Thereby, the goal was not to address gender issues but simply present their research and show its relevance and excellence. The event took place at the University of Twente in Enschede.
Now, Marieke Huisman, Alma Schaafstal, Mariëlle Stoelinga (Twente), Cynthia Liem (Delft), and Alexander Serebrenik (Eindhoven) are working on creating a digital version of the exhibition. It will be a museum-like experience, displaying interactive portraits of the women. The showcase will be accessible from mobile devices allowing large audiences to experience the inspired work of female scientists throughout multiple generations.