The final part of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest (Oral Finals) was held within the frame of the TELSIKS 2021 conference, at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Nis, Serbia on 21 October 2021. The format of the Oral Finals was hybrid, and we managed in this difficult time of the pandemic to gather most of the finalists and jury members to participate in person. On the other hand, the hybrid form allowed those who could not travel to participate in the event online. The marks of the oral presentation in the final part (max 30) were added to the marks from the assessment of the written paper in the first part of the contest (max 70) to give the final result.

Members of the international jury who assessed the oral presentations were Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta, Prof. Mike Hinchey from Ireland, and Prof. Vera Markovic (also the SPC coordinator) from Serbia. In addition to them, Prof. Giambattista Gruosso from Italy also contributed to the work of the jury in the first part of the contest. Theodoros Chatzinikolaou, R8 Regional Student Representative attended the Oral Finals in person as well. The R8 SAC Chair, Simay Akar, participated in the event online.

Final Results

1ST PRIZE and award of $800

Olivier Leblanc1, Loïc Tadrist2, Nicolas Moreau1, Boris Brun1, Tristan Gilet2, Benoît Hackens1 1 UC Louvain SB, 2 University of Liege, Belgium   “An affordable pedagogical setup for wave-particule duality and applications to chaotic stadium cavity”

In addition, the student branch of the winner, UC Louvain SB, gets an award of $250.

2ND PRIZE and award of $500

Eva Boneš, Matija Marolt University of Ljubljana SB, Slovenia   “Automatic segmentation of the Golgi apparatus in volumetric data with approximate labels”

3RD PRIZE and award of $200

Yazan Alnajjar, Jinane Mounsef University of Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai SB, UAE   “Next-Generation Network Intrusion Detection System (NG-NIDS)”

4th and 5th Place

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners and two other finalists!

Oral Finals at TELSIKS 2021

This hybrid event provided an opportunity for students to get together and to feel the atmosphere of an international conference. In addition to the conference organizers, the local student branch (SB Nis, chaired by Milos Marjanovic) was co-hosting finalists and the R8 student representative during their stay. They got acquainted with the activities of the SB Nis and spent pleasant moments together with SB Nis representatives during their free time.  

The social program included also a sightseeing tour and a nice conference dinner with live music. During the dinner, an award ceremony for SPC finalists was held.

From left to right: Damjan Denic, Igor Vuckovic, Vera Markovic, Predrag  Aleksov, Eva Bones, Paul Micaleff, Olivier Leblanc, Milos Marjanovic, and Theodoros Chatzinikolaou 

Students’ Impressions

	❝ The SPC Oral Finals are a wonderful opportunity to discover a new city, especially a new university with different habits and ways to work and teach scientific matter. We can enjoy sharing our work with foreign colleagues, as well as being evaluated by internationally known professors all around the R8.❞ ~ Olivier Leblanc
	❝ The SPC Oral Finals were my first encounter with the world of conferences. It was a great experience, from learning to prepare a paper for publishing all the way to the actual presentation, and it gave me the confidence for all future challenges. The whole trip, especially the social part of it, was a very sweet cherry on top.❞ ~ Eva Bones