Author: Jack McGovan

Machines have always fascinated Dr Didem Gürdür Broo, a computer scientist from Cyprus with a PhD in mechatronics. It was a childhood dream of hers to learn to code and build things. So, as soon as she was old enough, she decided to enter the field of computer science.As her studies advanced, however, Gürdür Broo became aware that the field as a whole was focused almost solely on how machines could be made more productive, with other questions largely ignored.“I realised that a focus on productivity alone was a very narrow view of what we could get out of machines,”…

Megi Sharikadze, a research manager at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Munich, Germany, first became aware of the need for more specialised, local search engines during her quest to find the nearest post office. For several years, Google maps was directing her to a post office quite a long way from her home. But as she decided to explore some more, she found the nearest post office branch much closer to home by searching directly on the German post website.“It made me realise that there should be more specialised search engines that show all the details of local infrastructure,” said Sharikadze. She…