IET - Present Around the World Competition
In 2014, I won the national Present Around the World [PATW] competition hosted by the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) Ireland network. I was fortunate to subsequently represent Ireland at the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) round of the competition, also held in Dublin.
The PATW is a global competition hosted by the IET for students in engineering to demonstrate their public speaking and communication skills. My presentation, “Engineering the Brain - Decoding Our Thoughts”, outlined the research behind my Master’s project on multi-class brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).
With major developments in machine learning research and the ever-increasing availability of powerful consumer technology, BCIs are becoming more impressive year on year. These advances have been most evident in the field of biomedical engineering, where BCIs have demonstrated promising results as assistive devices for neurorehabilitation. As industries begin to integrate biofeedback into all manner of consumer products, opportunities to harness the utility of BCIs will become more patent.
However, many hurdles remain to be overcome as we seek to identify robust ways of capturing neurophysiological signals in a noisy world where data is often corrupted by motion artefacts and equipment remains expensive for accurate consumer wearbales.
