By Sarah MacFarlane, A&S News
Four new graduate scholarships have been established at the University of Toronto’s Department of Computer Science, thanks to a recent gift from U.K.-based artificial intelligence company, DeepMind.
DeepMind has pledged to support under-represented students specializing in artificial intelligence (AI). The scholarships — which will support three master’s and one doctoral student — will be launching this fall for the 2020-21 academic year. Applications are open until October 31 for domestic students who are women, Black or Indigenous, as well as international students from low- and middle-income countries which are under-represented in the applicant pool.
“We’re very excited to welcome the University of Toronto into our graduate scholarship program,” says Obum Ekeke, University and Educational Partnerships lead at DeepMind. “We want AI to be an inclusive technology, and that means it must be shaped by a range of different perspectives — the DeepMind scholarship program is one way we seek to broaden participation in the field. We look forward to welcoming our scholars in Toronto, and can’t wait to see how they contribute to U of T’s world-class research offering.”
“We are very grateful to DeepMind for their generous gift,” says Marsha Chechik, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “These four new scholarships advance our department’s commitment to providing a world-class graduate education to students from a diverse range of backgrounds. By attracting and supporting under-represented students in our MSc and PhD programs, we can improve representation in the next generation of machine learning researchers and practitioners.”
Lana El Sanyoura, a master’s student in the Department of Computer Science, believes the DeepMind scholarships will open doors for graduate students.
“When these scholarships recognize the work being done by graduate researchers, they help support the research being conducted and open many more opportunities for the students themselves,” she says. “These scholarships will also ease the financial stressors that may come with being a student, further encourage students to attend academic conferences and give students the chance to invest in tech resources that optimize their research process.”
With award-winning faculty and a diverse offering of courses, programs and research opportunities, the Department of Computer Science at U of T is a leader on the global stage. The 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranked the University of Toronto first in Canada and ninth in the world for computer science and engineering, and Forbes Magazine recently highlighted U of T’s Master of Science in Applied Computing as one of the top 10 master’s programs for AI and data science in the world.
Eligible students interested in applying can complete the Department of Computer Science graduate departmental awards application to be considered for this generous award.
Students with questions about the award should email Pavi Chandrasegaram, program manager at pavi.chandrasegaram@cs.toronto.edu for more information.