Louise Gunning-Schepers, the president of KHMW, welcomed the group of 87 Young Talent Award winners. In three sessions, 20 Graduation Awards and 67 Incentive Awards were awarded. Each session starting with an introduction, especially for the award winners, by Ionica Smeets,  professor of science communication at Leiden University.

Graduation award

The KHMW Young Talent Graduation prizes are awarded for exceptional achievements, to students who graduated in the academic year 2022-2023 at a Dutch institution of academic education.

Jury report about Piyush’ thesis

“Most of you are already familiar with the potential of foundation models like ChatGPT and Bard - the AI systems that can generate text, images, computer programs, and more. The Master thesis of Piyush Bagad, titled “It's About Time: Time Awareness in Video Foundation Models”, has added a new dimension to our understanding of video foundation models.

Piyush’s work is characterized by the determination to unravel the behaviour of foundation models. In the first part of his thesis, he delved into the temporal awareness of video foundation models, seeking to answer a fundamental question: Can these models discern basic ‘before’ and ‘after’ relationships? In the second part of his thesis, Piyush extended his exploration of temporal awareness to actions such as ‘pouring water’ and ‘turning on/off a tap’. He showcased that these seemingly simple actions posed significant challenges for existing video foundation models in prediction tasks. This demonstration underscores the need for continuous improvement and innovation in AI systems."

Unaware that his master's thesis had been shortlisted, Max was pleasantly surprised to be one of the first winners of the new Responsible Internet Graduation Award. When the KHMW called, this cybersecurity and cybercrime specialist initially thought it was a case of vishing (voice phishing, trying to obtain sensitive data over the phone)! It says everything about how gripped Max is by the subject of cybercrime and everything related to it. A gamer he was, he loved puzzles. Even at 14, Max was already working on website security, among other things. Max: "I was very lucky with that, I knew from puberty I wanted to do this, I never had to waste energy thinking about what I want to do." The courses social orientation he received in computer science classes helped him understand how important this subject is in society, which is why he enjoys helping: "I came for the puzzling and I stayed for helping people." One of the things he did as a volunteer at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure, where he tracked down (unsolicited) security vulnerabilities in networks worldwide and then advised on how to fix them. The tip he would like to give everyone: "Think carefully about what information you disclose about yourself online." With the prize money, Max is going on his first trip since corona lockdown to celebrate graduating his master's and to celebrate this Graduation Award.

Incentive prizes

The KHMW Young Talent Incentive Awards were established to promote interest in studies in the natural sciences, information sciences,  life sciences and engineering. The prizes of €500 are awarded annually in recognition and appreciation of the best study performance in the first year of studying in the relevant fields at a Dutch academic institution.

As many as three-quarters of all 67 nominees, across all fields of study, achieved an average grade of 9 or higher. The KHMW jury was very impressed by the study achievements of the nominees. Several nominees followed a more extensive study programme than the compulsory part alone. For example, they followed a double Bachelor's degree (such as Mathematics & Physics, or Mathematics & Computer science), sometimes with additional subjects, or a special honours programme. Several nominees also contributed to extra activities in their first year, such as informing prospective students.

• Mike Nieuweboer received an incentive prize for Computer Science 
• Peter Adema received an incentive prize for Artificial Intelligence