News — CWI Amsterdam

Pieter Kleer wins Gijs de Leve Prize

Pieter Kleer, former PhD student of CWI, was awarded the Gijs de Leve Prize 2018-2020 for the best PhD thesis in in the area of Mathematics of Operations Research defended in the last three years.

CWI researchers analyze suicide prevention help calls during pandemic

Salim Salmi, PhD-student in CWI's Stochastics group, analyzed conversations between Stichting 113 Suicide Prevention caregivers and clients before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cum laude for optimization of hinterland transportation

At large deep-sea ports tens of thousands of containers are handled daily. PhD student Bernard Zweers of CWI's Stochastics group investigated how these containers can be transported to the hinterland as efficient as possible. He received a 'cum laude' degree for this PhD research.

Workshop on Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud

A consortium of CWI and other academic partners have joined forces to create the Dutch Secure Autonomous Cloud. This is a transparent, national cloud with security guarantees for the processing and storage of confidential information.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

CWI is closed from Friday 25 December until Monday 4 January. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Getting ready for 75th anniversary of CWI

The countdown has started for CWI’s 75th anniversary. On various occasions in 2021, CWI will celebrate 75 years of ground-breaking research in mathematics and computer science.

Pablo Cesar named ACM Distinguished Member

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), has named Pablo Cesar as one of the 64 Distinguished Members 2020. ACM distinguished members are recognized for their individual contributions to the field of computing.

IRENE VIOLA AWARDED NWO WISE GRANT

Distributed and Interactive System (DIS) tenure-track researcher Irene Viola has been awarded a NWO Women In Science Excel (WISE) grant. It will be used to fund a PhD position on the topic of User-centered optimization for immersive multimedia systems.

QuSoft anniversary kicks off

The festivities celebrating five years of QuSoft research start today, with an online seminar including interviews, presentations and panel discussions. The seminar is the opening act for a whole series of celebrations, scheduled this month.

NWA grant for Sander Bohté

New AI research project focuses on brain-like systems for safer smart vehicles.

CWI Fellow Martin Kersten receives Royal decoration

Database pioneer Martin Kersten has been awarded a royal decoration today. Kersten was appointed Knight in the Royal Order of the Netherlands Lion, recognizing his merit in pioneering database research.

CWI Lectures on database research

This year’s edition of CWI Lectures revolved around database pioneer and CWI fellow Martin Kersten. Several international speakers discussed recent advances in their database research. Video recordings of the event are now available to view.

Snowflake’s co-founder Marcin Żukowski reflects on his time at CWI

“I knew it had amazing potential”, says Snowflake co-founder Marcin Żukowski, looking back on his time as a PhD researcher at CWI. In his PhD thesis, published in 2009, Żukowski described the blueprint of what would become two key technologies currently used by data storage and analytics provider Snowflake.

New workshop prepares companies for quantum age

QuSoft, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Dutch banks launch a new monthly workshop, hosted by Marten Teitsma and Koen Groenland. The workshop addresses the need for companies to explore and develop quantum software and new applications.

New collaboration develops AI for cultural heritage

CWI starts a new collaboration around artificial intelligence with heritage and research institutions. In the Cultural AI Lab they will jointly explore the possibilities of AI for cultural research and raise AI’s awareness of the cultural context.

Multiple simulations best for Covid-19 predictions

Computer modelling used to forecast Covid-19 mortality contains significant uncertainty in its predictions, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and CWI in the Netherlands. This was described in a news item in Nature on 13 November.

DIS group realized World’s First Volumetric Video Conference over a Public 5G Network

Together with their partners of VRTogether, CWI's DIS group showcased the world’s first live 3D video conference using point clouds, over a commercial 5G network at the VR days 2020.

Benjamin Sanderse wins Vidi grant to study complex fluid flows

To predict the output of a wind farm, the weather or the blood flow through a heart valve, accurate fluid flow models are needed. CWI researcher Benjamin Sanderse received a Vidi grant from NWO to develop a new generation of such models, based on discrete mathematics.

Tim Baarslag installed as Young Academy member

After being announced earlier as a new member of the Young Academy, Tim Baarslag has now been officially installed as an academy member. The Young Academy is a platform for young, internationally renowned scientists, hosted by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Together with nine other scientists, Tim was installed for a period of five years.

CWI introduces Computer Security research group

To make society, with its digital and physical infrastructures, a safer place, CWI introduces a new research group: Computer Security. Group leader is Marten van Dijk, who is very experienced in security research in both academia and industry.

Modeling and Optimization of Network Assisted Video Streaming

Jan Willem Kleinrouweler of CWI's DIS group, investigates how to optimise the quality of video streaming in his thesis.

Amsterdam coalition publishes special AI edition in New Scientist

To highlight the importance of AI to a broader public, the Amsterdam coalition ‘AI technology for people’ has published a special AI edition with New Scientist magazine. The AI edition showcases some of the research, teaching and innovation in AI being carried out across the Amsterdam region.

CWI DIS Group's 'Lit Lace' project featured at Dutch Design Week

'Lit Lace', a collaborative project between the CWI's Distributed & Interactive Systems Group and the British Smart Fabric Designers Company Sara+Sarah is being featured in this year's Dutch Design Week.

Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) Group Awarded Best Paper Award at IEEE TCSVT 2020

Groundbreaking work that explores how new 3D media formats can be used for real-time remote collaboration, has been honoured with an 2020 IEEE CASS award.

Pablo Cesar Appointed Professor of Human-Centered Multimedia Systems

Pablo Cesar has been appointed Professor of Human-Centered Multimedia Systems in the Department of Intelligent Systems (INSY) at TU Delft.

Breakthrough in energy efficient artificial intelligence

Thanks to a mathematical breakthrough, AI applications can become a hundred to a thousand times more energy efficient. This will make it possible to put much more elaborate AI in chips, enabling applications to run on a smartphone or smartwatch where before this was done in the cloud.

QuSoft celebrates five years of cutting-edge quantum algorithm and software research

After five years of close collaboration within QuSoft, CWI and the University of Amsterdam sign an agreement that consolidates their cooperation.

CWI works on Next Generation Internet

The Next Generation Internet POINTER fund has awarded CWI a grant to work on architectural renovation for the next generation Internet to replace BSD-style socket technology. The results will make a new generation of privacy-respecting, trustworthy and reliable Internet applications possible.

CWI PhD graduate founded record IPO company Snowflake

Data-warehouse company Snowflake went public this week, reaching an extraordinary market value of $70.4 billion, the largest IPO for a software company ever. Snowflake offers cloud-based data warehousing, whose data storage and query engine contain techniques pioneered in CWI’s Data Architectures group. One of the PhD graduates who developed that technology, former CWI researcher Marcin Żukowski, is co-founder of Snowflake.

Pablo Cesar awarded Dutch Prize for ICT research

Last week Pablo Cesar was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research during a festive ceremony. NWO released a video about Cesars work, in which he explains the focus and importance of his research.