The Router

Today, Rachel has a chat with Graham Cummins from KJR, all about consultancy, KJR’s graduate opportunities, community in KJR, and their latest projects.Graham is a general regional manager at KJR. KJR is a Software Quality Engineering consultancy, and one of UQCS’s silver sponsors this year, with over 25 years of experience in tech consulting, software testing and IT solutions. They provide services like software quality and assurance to DevSecOps for a range of industries across both public and private sectors in Australia. Apart from that he’s also involved as a QLD Council Member for the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).Connect with UQCS!Discord: https://discord.uqcs.org/Facebook: https://facebook.com/uqcomputingInstagram: https://instagram.com/uqcomputingsocietyWebsite: https://uqcs.org/

As you may know, the UQCS AGM is coming up, and at the AGM we will elect a new committee for 2022. UQCS has been around for just over 10 years, and we thought that now would be a great time to have a chat to some of the past president and talk to them about what they learned during their time at the helm of one of UQ’s largest technology focused societies. This is the history of UQCS, as told by six former UQCS presidents, Jackson, Taylor, Cameron, Nick, Madhav and James.—Jackson is a former UQ student of IT and maths who, with two other friends, co-founded the UQ Computing Society in 2011. He served on the executive committee until he graduated in 2014, including two years as president. He now works at Google in Sydney, building software to support network operations teams.Taylor was treasurer in 2015 and president in 2016 and 2017. She currently works as a software engineer at Cubiko, and graduated with a dual degree in software engineering and mathematics.Cameron was the UQCS President in 2018, and currently works as a Software Engineer at Microsoft working on Microsoft News. Things he has worked on include the new tab page for Edge Chromium and the Widgets feed that is coming to Windows 11!Nicholas is a UQ computer science graduate and was UQCS president in 2019 before joining Canva in 2021 as a Machine Learning Engineer.Madhav is a computer science/mathematics student at UQ who was UQCS President in 2020 (that-online-year) and is currently on the General Committee. He works at a startup and tutors, and likes board games and plants.James (Jimmy) is in his final semester of computer science at UQ and currently works as a software developer at the QLD Department of Environment and Science. In his spare time he enjoys watching cartoons, playing video games, and working on various software projects.

Today, Liv has a chat to Dave Durbin from Canva, all about image processing and computer graphics, and their application to one of the largest graphic design platforms in the world.Dave is a team lead at Canva with a passion for computer graphics and computer vision. He has been with Canva for three and a half years, moving between different teams before finally settling into the image processing team. With many years experience, Dave is a leading expert in all things image processing, having worked on features such as image style transfer and background remover tools during his time with Canva.Connect with UQCS!Discord: https://discord.uqcs.orgFacebook: https://facebook.com/uqcomputingTwitter: https://twitter.com/uqcomputingWebsite: https://uqcs.org

Today, we have an exciting episode at the intersection of computer science and mathematics! Ben Burton and Rhuaidi Burke, from the School of Mathematics and Physics at UQ, both work in the field of computational topology. They’re here to give a brief introduction to computational topology, as well as some of the unique challenges that arise when writing software for mathematicians.Benjamin Burton (pronouns he/him) is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Physics at The University of Queensland, where he spends his time teaching supercomputers how to untangle knots. His mathematical career has spanned geometry, cryptography and finance, and he enjoys puzzling over how to find fast computational solutions to difficult mathematical problems. Benjamin is passionate about bringing mathematics to the public, and he has worked behind the scenes for many years to help organise the International Olympiad in Informatics and other secondary outreach programmes. He also volunteers for the Debian GNU/Linux project, and knows more about Eurovision than you will ever need to know.Rhuaidi Burke is a PhD student working on 4-dimensional computational topology. Specifically, he is investigating combinatorial representations of "exotic" 4-dimensional spaces — these are spaces which can be continuously deformed into one another, but not smoothly deformed into one another — a phenomenon which only appears in dimensions 4 and higher.Some links:Regina: https://regina-normal.github.io/SnapPy: https://snappy.math.uic.edu/Curved Spaces, “a flight simulator for multi-connected universes”: https://www.geometrygames.org/CurvedSpaces/index.htmlThe Shape of Space by Jeffrey R. Weeks: https://www.routledge.com/The-Shape-of-Space/Weeks-Weeks/p/book/9781138061217The four colour theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theoremPersistent homology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_homologyJeff Erickson’s course on computational topology at Illinois: http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/compgeom/

Today we’re chatting to Tony Lykke, @tl on Discord, 2015 UQ grad and current infrastructure engineer at Hudson River Trading in New York City. Join us as we explore both the world of infrastructure engineering and SRE in automated trading…and the world of the Big Apple, New York City.Tony works as a software engineer at Hudson River Trading in NYC, working on a variety of infrastructure projects with a focus on improving developer experience. In his spare time he enjoys exploring the city, playing video games, and weightlifting.For some Hudson River Trading swag: http://hudsonrivertrading.com/swag, access code hrtspring2021 (note: this code will expire soon!)Careers at HRT: https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/careers/Email Tony: hi@tonylykke.com

Kendrick Tan, also known as @kendrick on Slack, has worked in the blockchain space for many years, and currently works at DFX in decentralised finance, where he is the Chief Technical Officer. He’s here to give us a 20-minute rundown on blockchain, Ethereum, decentralised finance and more, as well as addressing some of the concerns regarding the past, present and future of cryptocurrency.Kendrick graduated with a computer science degree from QUT in 2019. He also has a cat!EY and zero knowledge proofs: https://github.com/eyblockchain/

Join us for a brand new episode of the Router, where we chat with Dr Rob Bell, also known as “Dr Rob”, of Scope and Network Ten fame! He’s been inspiring students to pursue STEM on television for many years, and is joining us to talk about his experiences as a science educator.Dr Rob Bell, also known as Dr Rob, is a scientist, television presenter, communicator, and writer (and chocolate appreciator). He is known for having hosted the Australian TV programme Scope on Network Ten for eleven years, where he breaks down the science of subjects relevant to school-aged children. He has a Bachelor of Science with Honours, and a PhD in materials chemistry from the University of Queensland, and has worked as a Science Education Officer for the CSIRO.Dr Rob's homepage: https://www.doctorrob.com.au/

Harry Guthrie, also known as @guthers on Slack, is a recent UQCS alumni, studied software engineering, and has a wealth of experiences to share, from travelling in Illinois to China to co-founding a software company, Autop, and everything in between. Tune in to hear about how “saying yes” to opportunities can lead you to exciting and unexpected places.Harry is Co-Founder of Autop, a Brisbane-based company delivering real-time business analytics to employees and marketing company owners to automate and optimise business efficiency. He graduated with a Bachelors degree in Software Engineering in 2020 and was a member of the UQCS Committee in 2018. He was a research scholar at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA and also participated in the 2019 Start-Up China Program in Dalian.Autop: https://www.autop.online/

Will Toohey works full-time as a software engineer, but in his spare time he is a passionate rhythm game fan and hardware hobbyist. Today he’s gonna be telling all about his experiences working on side projects, and how you can get into hardware, no 4-year electrical engineering degree required!Will Toohey (also known as @mon on Slack) currently works as a Firmware Developer at MOVUS, and in his spare time works on hardware-based side projects. From skills he learnt doing projects he developed and sold hundreds of units of a portable Sound Voltex rhythm game controller, called Pocket Voltex, and he also has many other projects on his website.Will’s project homepage (his Pocket Voltex controller is here!): https://mon.im/A recommendation for PCB manufacturing: https://jlcpcb.com/

Side projects can be daunting. You have a brilliant idea in your mind, but how do you get it into code? Kenton and Darren, both current uni students and side project veterans are here to give you guidance on how to start, finish and maintain your side projects.Darren Fu: "Hi everyone, my name is Darren and I’m a very-late-year software engineering and maths student at UQ. Along the way I’ve worked on some cool things in web development, data analytics and machine learning, and also co-created the timetabling app UQ Planner. I go to uni on Mondays and Fridays, and you can find me on the UQCS Slack as @dr2n."Kenton Lam: "Hi, I'm Kenton Lam (@k on Slack). I'm in my 4th year of computer science and maths at UQ. I've tutored some courses, done some professional web dev and other software things. Along the way, I've made a bunch of projects to solve problems big and small."Links:Kenton’s Blackboard enhancements: https://github.com/kentonlam/Blackboard-EnhancementsKenton’s GitHub: https://github.com/kentonlamDarren and Will’s UQPlanner: https://github.com/WillCS/uqplanner, https://www.uqplanner.app/Darren’s GitHub: https://github.com/Dr2nUQCSBot: https://github.com/UQComputingSociety/uqcsbot

Welcome to the first episode of season 2 of The Router! In this episode, we have Jodie Vlassis and Tanvir Ahmed to tell us all about their journey to, and their life in, Atlassian's Security team.Jodie Vlassis is a cyber security professional with 5 years’ experience in Cloud Security, governance/risk and compliance, government strategy and policy. Jodie is a Senior Trust & Security Analyst on Atlassian’s Security team in Sydney, Australia. Her primary focus is to remove barriers and security issues with customers so they can become a customer, continue being a customer or be a bigger customer of Atlassian. Prior to joining Atlassian, Jodie came from big four professional services (Deloitte), where she successfully delivered and uplift cyber security needs to ASX100 clients.Tanvir Ahmed is a Product Security Engineer at Atlassian. Prior to Atlassian, Tanvir's focus was working in consulting, banking and financial services industry; primarily in the Application security space. Tanvir works in the Product Security team at Atlassian, which encompasses end to end security responsibility for all Atlassian cloud products. He assists numerous teams across the organisation and helps teams find, fix, prevent, and disclose security vulnerabilities.Links:Jodie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodie-vlassis-285074104/ Tanvir's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanvirahmed11/Atlassian Student Careers: https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/studentsAtlassian Student Talent Community: https://pages.beamery.com/atlassian/form/talent-community-students/sign-up

Want to make the most out of uni? Nick Lambourne, former president of UQCS and intrepid UQ alumni, is here to help. Join Nick as he walks you through his university experiences, from Brisbane to Silicon Valley and everywhere in between.It’s holiday season coming up and The Router will be taking a short break over Christmas and New Year. We’ll be relaunching in 2021, bigger and better than ever!Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: We Wish you a Merry Christmas by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Curious about open source? Join Katie McLaughlin, current director of the Python Software Foundation and with over 5 years in open source contribution, as she shares her experience and tips for contributing to open source projects.Related links:Forge Your Future with Open Source http://fossforge.com/PyCon Australia http://pycon.org.au/Ruby Conf AU https://www.rubyconf.org.au/WriteTheDocs https://www.writethedocs.org/That project with the alpacas https://github.com/glasnt/ihLiking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

These days, there is much hype around data science and machine learning, but what's working in it actually like? Samual MacDonald, a machine learning researcher at Max Kelsen (a Brisbane-based AI/ML consultancy) gives insight into what a machine learning job actually looks like, and how he got there.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

2020 has been a unique and challenging year for so many reasons. What was it like being a first-year student in the midst of all that? We sat down with Paul Clarke and Utkarsh Sharma — both first-year computer science students and members of the UQCS general committee — to talk about their experiences and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their first year at UQ.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Google.com is the most visited website in the world, and the company that backs it, Google, is one of the largest tech companies in the world. As a result, many computing students see it as a dream company to work for, but what’s it like actually working there? Emily Bennett, UQ computer science honours alum & current Googler, shares her experiences from her first year at the company, as well as advice on how you can make it there, too.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Product Managers are a key part of modern software companies all over the world, but very few people can tell you exactly what it is they do. Lucky for you, we've found a friendly PM who's willing to break it down. Jonathan Katahanas has been working in product management for SaaS applications at Atlassian for more than three years since graduating from Business/Commerce at UQ and he's dropped by to chat to Liv about his journey and how fulfilling acting as the bridge between users and developers (and working at Atlassian) can be.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Have you ever come across documentation for a library or framework that was so good it made development painless? As it turns out, there's a whole field responsible for making that feeling a reality: technical writing. Lucas Costi is a technical writer at GitHub (you might have heard of it) and he's kindly joined us to talk about what his role involves and how he's combined technical and writing skills to produce stellar documentation for Red Hat and GitHub. He and Liv also discuss how poor documentation can be an incredible motivator for putting together something better.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This week on the router we're joined by UQ alumni and successful startup founder Robert Quinn. We talk to Rob about his journey through some of the world's most prestigious startup accelerators with his co-founder Wei, as well as the very personal motivation behind their mission to tackle sepsis using machine learning.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This week on the Router we're joined by Dr Jessica Korte, a researcher at The University of Queensland who is currently working on an end-to-end technology pipeline for recognising and producing Auslan (the Australian Sign Language). We talk about her journey through honours and PhD programs and her current work at UQ, as well as what the three elements of an academic career (research, teaching and service) actually involve.Liking The Router so far, why not subscribe in your favourite podcast app? Check out https://router.uqcs.org/ for details.Intro/Outro Music: Awesome Call by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3399-awesome-callLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/