Robert Polding's Home

Conferences

FOSDEM 2025

Field Trip to FOSDEM 2025: Open Source Adventures in Brussels Earlier this February, a group of our computer and data science students embarked on a field trip to Brussels to attend FOSDEM 2025. For those unfamiliar, FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting) is the biggest all-over-the-place FOSS developer conference in Europe, and possibly the…
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Conferences

Student Hackathon Champions at MWC 2025

In March 2025, a team of talented students from IE School of Science and Technology traveled to Barcelona to attend Mobile World Congress (MWC) and the inaugural Talent Arena – a new developer-focused conference co-located with MWC. These students earned this opportunity by winning our School’s recent hackathon on multi–time series analysis, emerging first against…
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Social Media

Pedro Sánchez calls for Accountable Social Media

In a powerful speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed a pressing issue that’s shaping our digital age: social media accountability. Sánchez expressed deep concerns about how algorithms on platforms are “poisoning society” and undermining democracy, calling for bold actions to tackle these challenges head-on. The Call for…
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Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Education

Large Language Models in Education

Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as significant tools in artificial intelligence, and they are having a huge impact on education. This report examines the historical development of LLMs, tracing their evolution from their early origins to their current advanced state. Subsequently, it analyzes the implications of LLMs in educational contexts, including data security concerns…
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Entrepreneurship

Tech Venture Bootcamp

I couldn’t be more excited to share my reflections on the recent Tech Venture Bootcamp. It was an incredible week, full of creativity, collaboration, and the kind of energy that reminds me why I love working in education. I want to start by offering a huge congratulations to the winning team and to all of…
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Conferences

ICR’24

The Third International Conference on Innovations in Computing Research (ICR’24), held from August 12-14, 2024, in Athens, Greece, was a remarkable event that brought together a diverse group of researchers from academia, industry, and government sectors. Organized by the Institute for Innovations in Computer Science and Engineering Research (IICSER), the conference aimed to encourage collaboration…
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Artificial Intelligence

The Impact of AI on Creative Rights

This is a continuation of my previous article at IE Insights. Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have stirred significant controversy, particularly concerning the ethical use of creative content. In this context, a noteworthy partnership between Apple and OpenAI has emerged, overshadowing deeper issues about the foundation of OpenAI’s AI models. OpenAI’s foundational AI models…
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Conferences

ACR’24 at IE University

The Second International Conference on Advances in Computing Research (ACR’24) was held from June 3 to 5, 2024, at IE University in Madrid, Spain. This prestigious event, organized by the Institute for Innovations in Computer Science and Engineering Research (IICSER), aimed to create collaboration and exchange among researchers from academia, industry, and government sectors and…
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History

The 70th Anniversary of Alan Turing’s Death

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the passing of Alan Turing, a true visionary and pioneer in the fields of computer science and artificial intelligence. Turing’s incredible work on code-breaking during World War II was one of the keys to the Allied victory, and his contributions to theoretical computer science laid the foundation for the…
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Artificial Intelligence

Scarlett Johansson Opens the Debate on AI Consent

Chatbots are now popular with the general public thanks to the recent development of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Of course, interacting with text-based chatbots is not exactly what we envisioned the future of AI to entail. Years of goofy science fiction movies and TV series have conditioned us to imagine a…
View more: Scarlett Johansson Opens the Debate on AI Consent