Female scientists from Gdańsk Tech on the TOP-100 Women in AI list | Gdańsk University of Technology

Following the previous rankings (TOP-20 Women in Cybersecurity in 2019 and TOP-15 Women in 5G in 2020) TOP-100 Women in AI was created on the occasion of the Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit 2022 event organized on 7-8 June, which is the largest conference in Europe for women in technology. During the conference, from the list of all women professionally associated with AI, the jury chaired by prof. Aleksandra Przegalińska will choose Top of the Top, i.e. 10 of the most outstanding AI experts in Poland (one in each category), who will receive the Excellence in AI Awards.

The aim of the TOP-100 Women in AI initiative is to promote outstanding women working on artificial intelligence solutions. According to the organizers, the most important thing is to increase the number of experts (according to a survey by PARP, over 200,000 IT specialists in the field of artificial intelligence may be needed in Poland by 2025), and above all AI female experts. Only by eliminating the current gender imbalance in this area (only 13% of people working on AI solutions in Poland are women – according to the Digital Poland 2020 report) can artificial intelligence provide answers to various needs and challenges.

Nomination in the AI Research category

Prof. Bożena Kostek is the head of the Phonic Acoustics Laboratory at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics and an expert in the field of sound engineering. Since 2013, she has been a correspondent member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 2010, she was awarded the Fellow title by the scientific society of the Audio Engineering Society, and in 2020 she was awarded the Fellow title by the scientific society of the Acoustical Society of America.

Research conducted by prof. Kostek in the interdisciplinary field of sound engineering, which lies on the border of acoustics, cognitive sciences and computer science, have resulted in many scientific achievements in the form of numerous publications (over 600) and implementations.

Among the research achievements of prof. Kostek we can differentiate two trends related to the applications of sound engineering. Two foreign monographs ("Soft Computing in Acoustics", and "Perception-based Data Processing in Acoustics") refer to the ongoing technological breakthrough in music computer science, in particular in the intelligent processing, searching and recommendation of music. The second trend is related to scientific and application research in broadly understood medical informatics, focusing primarily on human-computer communication interfaces. The result of these works was the co-author monograph "Computer technology in audiology, phoniatrics and speech therapy" and numerous implementations in these areas, awarded at world and European exhibitions of inventions.

Nomination in the AI Research category

Agnieszka Mikołajczyk, MSc, is featured in the Perspektywy foundation's ranking for the second time. In 2021, she was among fifteen women dealing with 5G. Student of doctoral studies at the Faculty of Electrical and Control Engineering, she conducts research on AI algorithms and their Explainable AI.

She is the originator and designer of an application that, when installed on a mobile phone, can diagnose skin nevi in terms of neoplastic changes. In her research work she focuses on the so-called deep learning. The aim of this research is the most effective development of neural networks in algorithms.

She is involved in many scientific, educational and social projects, including "Detect waste in Pomerania" - a project in response to environmental pollution or "Hear.ai", in which, together with a group of enthusiasts, they create AI solutions to make the world more accessible to deaf people and expand knowledge about the use of artificial intelligence in sign language.

Nomination in the AI Rising Star category

Alicja Kwaśniewska, PhD, Eng., a graduate and former PhD student at Gdańsk University of Technology (FETI). In her doctoral dissertation, she proposed AI solutions aimed at improving the accuracy of non-contact assessment of vital signs, based on low-resolution thermal sequences. She has developed many innovative solutions for the healthcare sector. She is a mentor in the Hear AI project (working on artificial intelligence solutions for understanding sign language).

Currently, she works as a software architect at SIMa.ai, a company specializing in AI applications. Her professional interests include solutions for autonomous unmanned vehicles, smart homes and the development of remote healthcare applications. She is also a co-founder of the International Summer School on Deep Learning. She is an author of over 20 scientific publications.

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