Waterloo co-op students help advance AI research in Norway at SINTEF
By: Krista Henry (she/her)
Co-op students are helping to overcome challenges with implementing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in industry applications at SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest research institutes.
SINTEF is one of the industry partners involved in the International Work-Integrated-Learning in Artificial Intelligence (IWIL AI) project funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HKDIR). IWIL AI is a partnership with Waterloo’s Co-operative and Experiential Education team, Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute (Waterloo.AI) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
The four-year project promotes the value of co-op/WIL and its intersection with applied research. Since last fall, SINTEF has received funding through IWIL AI for three Waterloo co-op students to work in Norway.
We’ve focused on students with programming skills that have the ability to work independently. We currently have two students working together on different aspects of the same task. Already, they are ahead of the original plan. They are very efficient.
Waterloo students bring programming expertise
SINTEF’s research creates solutions and innovations in technology, natural sciences and social sciences. At SINTEF, Waterloo co-op students focus on overcoming challenges in implementing machine learning and AI in a range of different industrial settings.
Riemer-Sørensen’s research group works with sensitive and difficult big data projects.
For her team, having access to the programming skills of Waterloo-co-op students allows for faster implementation and proto-typing of the developed algorithms.
“Last term we had a Waterloo student working on quantum machine learning. He was part of the effort to publish the first code for quantum reservoir computing which was super cool,” says Riemer-Sørensen. “He was crucial in publishing the code.”
Having the extra resources and expertise from Waterloo has helped advance the team’s project. “The students we have now are working on cleaning up the code while we do the research,” says Riemer-Sørensen.
“Getting students who are very capable in programming allows us to publish and develop our work. The co-op students are an opportunity to get complementary skills into the group.”
The exchange of knowledge and skills development has gone both ways. The co-op students get exposed to a broad range of experiences in computing. Students test different kinds of jobs and explore a new work environment in a different country.
Students have displayed a certain level of independence. It’s a big challenge going abroad, finding a place to live, navigating a different culture and understanding the language to some extent. So far, they have done well.
Riemer-Sørensen assigns a supervisor to each student. Their supervisor aims to find a balance between the student's interests and what their team needs support with.
The team is looking forward to hiring students throughout, and possibly beyond, the four-year IWIL AI project.
“I will hire right throughout the IWIL project. I could even see us continuing to hire beyond that, even without the financial support because it has been good,” says Riemer-Sørensen.
The organization sees students as an important part of their long-term recruitment strategy, hoping to one day open the doors to exceptional students for full-time positions.
Signe Riemer-Sørensen, research manager, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at SINTEF Digital
SINTEF also praised Waterloo’s existing co-op model and hiring cycle structures. She appreciates the dedicated support Waterloo’s team provides in answering questions and supporting their job postings.