A link to the university

The Linkki centre opened at the Helsinki University Department of Computer Science last Friday. The centre offers all kinds of fun activities like games programming, and an online programming course open to all upper-secondary students, starting at the beginning of next year.

 

 

 

 

At the centre's opening, Arto Vihavainen, Linkki coordinator, demonstrated computer games made during the games programming summer camp. Photo: Sakari Tolppanen.

What exactly is computer science? What this discipline actually entails is often unclear even to new undergraduates at the Helsinki University Faculty of Science. However, many of them find themselves in this field of work in the end.

 
To spread information, we have now started the Linkki centre, which offers good, fun opportunities to acquaint yourself with the world of computer science. Linkki is a physical science classroom in the Exactum building on the Kumpula campus, but it is also where people are and where it is needed, says Jaakko Kurhila, director of the Linkki resource centre.
 
Linkki was officially opened last Friday, but it has already organised a games-programming summer camp for children and teenagers last summer. This autumn’s games-programming club is in full swing. ‘We only have to give young people opportunities, and after that there are no bounds,’ Arto Vihavainen says of Linkki.
Visitors at the Linkki opening could try out games that were programmed during the summer camp. Game programming is a nice introduction to computer science, but it can also become your profession. According to some calculations, the computer-game industry is already larger than the film industry.
 
‘The future and work opportunities are ours,’ Esko Ukkonen, the head of the Department of Computer Science said at the opening of Linkki. He was referring to all kinds of software engineering in addition to the game industry.

 


Linkki has been decorated with familiar characters from Angry Birds and SuperMario.Director Jaakko Kurhila in the right-hand photo. Photos: Sakari Tolppanen.

It is not the first time the University of Helsinki has given gifted upper-secondary students the opportunity to take computer science courses while they are still at school. Next spring, anyone can take the courses.

This is a whole new kind of online course, MOOC (massive open online course), which is equivalent with the nine-credit university courses Introduction to programming and Advanced programming.

MOOC hooks its participants and steers them forward, you can have the course credits recognized at the university, or they can be incorporated in your upper-secondary degree. In addition, anyone who completes the course with distinction may be accepted to the Department of Computer Science purely based on this course.

Linkki is one of seven resource centres in the national LUMA centre and its website is at: linkki.cs.helsinki.fi. Signing up for the MOOC course starts on 10 January 2012.

 

Article: Elisa Lautala

Translator: Marina Kurtén

 

 

Created date

18.10.2011 - 10:55

Inter-university research and training centre on information security

The University of Helsinki and Aalto University have set up a joint research centre focusing on information security. The new centre, HAIC (Helsinki-Aalto Centre for Information Security), will coordinate the Master’s-level security education between the university and Aalto, with links to research and doctoral education.

The idea is to build bridges to the industries and gain their support for the education, and e.g. grants for MSc students coming from outside the EU, the head of the Department of Computer Science, Sasu Tarkoma, says.

Computer science undergraduate Petteri Timonen awarded in US science competition

Petteri Timonen, 19, came second in his category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

On Friday, 15 May, Timonen, who is studying computer science at the University of Helsinki, was awarded a grant worth 1500 USD, some 1330 euros, in the Systems Software category of the Intel ISEF science competition.
 
As his entry, Timonen submitted a software tool he developed for Finland’s Red Cross to make mobile blood runs around the country as cost-effective as possible. Timonen implemented his tool in cooperation with the Blood Service.

The tool has gained international attention, as no tool like it seems to have been developed anywhere else. Timonen has also negotiated with the American Red Cross by email.

Renewed Carat App Gives a Smart Boost to Battery

 
The Carat Project Team at the University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science, has published a new version of the popular mobile energy-awareness application.

After launch in June 2012, Carat has helped over 850,000 users, of which 41 per cent have been Android and 59 per cent iOS users, respectively. The new user interface follows modern application design guidelines and presents battery information in a more intuitive and easy to use manner.

- In addition to the new user interface, we have increased the accuracy of the energy saving recommendations of Carat, says Professor Sasu Tarkoma, the leader of this research done at the university.

The user interface features the number of energy intensive applications (Hogs), energy anomalies (Bugs) and user recommendations (Actions) at a glance on the main screen as well as global energy statistics for the device community.

Cover Song Identification Using Compression-based Distance Measures

M.Sc. Teppo E. Ahonen will defend his doctoral thesis Cover Song Identification Using Compression-based Distance Measures on Friday the 1st of April 2016 at 12 o'clock in the University of Helsinki Exactum Building, Auditorium CK112 (Gustaf Hällströminkatu 2b).  His opponent is Academy Professor Petri Toiviainen (University of Jyväskylä) and custos Professor Esko Ukkonen (University of Helsinki). The defence will be held in Finnish.

Measuring similarity in music data is a problem with various potential applications. In recent years, the task known as cover song identification has gained widespread attention. In cover song identification, the purpose is to determine whether a piece of music is a different rendition of a previous version of the composition. The task is quite trivial for a human listener, but highly challenging for a computer.