Image of two black students (one girl and one boy) happily constructing a robotic arm

Scholarship

Summer Scholarships for Black Students 2024

The call for applicants to participate in summer 2024 will be open soon. Three bursaries will be awarded. Please email STEM-KMi-Scholarship@open.ac.uk to express an interest and we will send you details when the call is open.

Join our growing group of young Black scholars in computing.

Since 2020, we have provided financial support to Black scholars to enable them to experiment in a cutting-edge field, that can help to change the world. Hot technology topics previously covered include: Misinformation, Robotics, Human Computer Interaction, Blockchain and Knowledge Graphs.

Check out the previous topics from our 2023 cohort below.

As a KMi Scholar, you will receive a non-repayable bursary, mentoring, and support from the researchers, students and technicians who work in our project spaces. The bursary can be used to cover living costs or make up for your loss of earnings during the summer while you carry out a project lasting 9 weeks.

The project will start in July 2024 and may be conducted online, at the Open University campus, or both. The award to each scholar will be £2,700. For 2023 three scholarships were awarded.

The benefits

As KMi Scholars, you will create a story for future generations. The KMi team aim to make Black students feel at home in a computer science research environment and demonstrate what computing careers can offer. A scholarship could be a step forward in your career development. It can provide skills and evidence which can be included in applications to study at university or for employment. You will have a chance to explore and develop technologies in a playful way and contribute your ideas to the project.

Application process

The call for applicants to participate in summer 2024 will open soon.
These were the four challenges offered in the 2023 call. The 2023 award winners have completed their projects, and their results can be seen at the bottom of the page.

Challenge 1 - How do we know when a scientific paper is really good? How can we measure it?

Challenge 1: Should I read this?

Subject Area: Open Access to Research Papers

Supervisory Team: Matteo Cancellieri and Petr Knoth

How do we know when a scientific paper is really good? How can we measure it?

A big part of being a scientist is sharing the research you've done in a research paper. Scientists learn from reading each other's work and building on that in their own research. Finding the right papers to read and having access to read them can be difficult. At CORE we make that easier by finding research papers and making them more available to researchers worldwide. Until now, we have ~300 million research papers for researchers to explore and read. One of the things we want to do is figure out which papers are best for which researchers, so that we can recommend them. But how will we know which papers are good? Isn't that a personal decision? As it turns out, there may be some indicators of quality papers that we can use to help scientists make good decisions about what to read.

In this project, the scholar will work with the CORE team, collaborate with the Project Manager, Designer, and developers to design and eventually create a prototype of a tool to generate a report on the quality of research papers. There will be a special focus on the characteristics that make a paper accessible to the widest range of people (e.g., reading complexity, accessibility for the visually impaired, structure and clarity indicators etc.). The project will require collaborative work with the supervisors to analyse a limited set of these characteristics and tools that can help identify them (such as WCAG, Grobid format, and bibliographic metrics). Together we will work to prototype an automatically generated report that could give an idea of the objective quality of a paper and ways to improve it.

This project is open to applicants with any level of computing skill, but some basic experience in coding is preferred.

Challenge 2 - Does ChatGPT dream of electric sheep?

Challenge 2: Exploring the Hallucinations of ChatGPT and Friends

Subject Area: Artificial Intelligence

Supervisory Team: John Domingue and Aisling Third

Does ChatGPT dream of electric sheep?

The large AI models behind recently developed chatbots and AI art generators can end up producing some strange and unintended consequences, like answering a question incorrectly (despite having the correct data available) or producing strange, nonsense images or text. Researchers refer to some of these outputs as "hallucinations." The reasons for hallucination are still not entirely understood. However, we can potentially learn more about why it happens and how to manage it, by exploring the impact of different prompts (what you input to the chatbot or the art generator tool, for example) on the outputs of the tool. "Prompt-engineering", as this is called, is even becoming a new marketable skill to help companies and individuals use this technology more efficiently.

In this project, the scholar will be experimenting with the chatbot known as ChatGPT, released by OpenAI in 2022. The scholar will use ChatGPT to explore a topic of interest (such as Art, Coding, Education, etc.) and the generation of hallucinations in that topic. Then, the scholar will look more closely at the outputs of the system to understand more about a) how one could potentially identify hallucinations or verify the accuracy of the outputs of systems like ChatGPT and b) how to input the best prompts to create or avoid hallucinations to get a desired response. The output will be a document describing the scholar's findings with recommendations for prompt engineering.

This project is open to applicants with any level of skill in computing.


Rachel Appiah-Kubi, 2023 award winner and scholar

Project: Exploring the biases of AI-generated music artist images

View Project

Challenge 3 - When AI creativity interacts with haptic touch, what will happen?

Challenge 3: When AI creativity interacts with haptic touch, what will happen?

Subject Area: Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence

Supervisory Team: Shuang Ao, Stefan Rueger and Advaith Siddharthan

Generating art and poems about nature

The creation of art and poetry are human activities that evoke certain feelings or memories, and often portray scenes of nature. The state-of-the-art technology ChatGPT and DELL E 2 are famous for generating nearly human-level text and pictures. How good are they at art and poetry? The sense of touch is the first we develop, and central to how we explore the world. What would it be like to explore AI creativity through a haptic touch interface that lets you feel textures?

In this project, you will use ChatGPT and DELL E 2 to generate art and poems about nature, using descriptions that convey several types of textures. Then you will learn how to pre-process images and texts with python, to build an AI generated dataset. Then you will learn or use basic HTML and Java, to help build a haptic interface that allows users to dynamically experience the art and poems based on the texture on the screen being touched.

We will provide an amazing haptic device that works as a stylus on a touchscreen.

Basic website design skills (HTML and JavaScript) or keenness to learn these with our support.


Henok Mekuria, 2023 award winner and scholar

Project: Evaluating prompts for Image Generative AI and sensory explorations

View Project

Challenge 4 - Designing, Developing and Deploying IoT devices.

Challenge 4: World Domination with Raspberry Pi and The Internet of Things

Subject Area: Internet of Things and Sensors

Supervisory Team: Matteo Cancellieri and David Pride

Designing, Developing and Deploying IoT devices.

Many of the items you use every day - your phone, your watch, your car and possibly even the fridge or washing machine you have at home, are connected to the internet and able to talk to each other. These 'Internet of Things' devices have sensors, software and connectivity, which means they can share information and collect data. This data can be used to make your life easier and more efficient. For example, your smart home appliances can automate tasks, like turning on the lights or heating, or your wearable can track your fitness progress.

But it's not just for personal use, businesses are using IoT technology to transform industries like healthcare, transportation, agriculture, and even entertainment. This project will introduce you to the amazing world that is The Internet of Things. You'll discover how these devices interact and how you can control them using simple software.

In this project, you will be introduced to several different platforms that can be used to develop IoT services such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino. You will then learn how to interface various sensors with these devices. Sensors can detect a huge range of different types of data like temperature, light levels, noise levels, air quality or the movement of people or traffic.

Your final mission will be to develop a prototype IoT device that will collect sensor data, transmit it via the internet and then display this data remotely.

But what will my device do, you say? - that's up to you. We want you to bring your hacker mindset to this project! We will guide you, but the creations and solutions will come from you.

Any basic knowledge of Python is advantageous but not essential.


Meron Mana, 2023 award winner and scholar

Project: Designing, developing and deploying a social robot

View Project

Key Dates for 2023

  • The scholarship projects will start on 1 July and run for 9 weeks until 31 August 2023.

How to Apply

In order to qualify for a scholarship, you must meet all the following criteria:

  • Identify as being from a Black background (see Appendix 1 for full details).
  • Aged between 16 and 20 years on 31 May 2023.
  • Have an interest in technology and sufficient time available during the summer.
  • Be ordinarily resident in the UK.
  • Be able to provide details of two referees whom we can contact if you are selected for a scholarship (at least one is required from your educational institute, the other can be from a personal referee).
  • Be available to carry out a project which will start on 1 July 2023 and run for 9 weeks until 31 August 2023

We will be awarding three scholarships and have created a simple application process.

We will ask you to complete an application form.

  1. A description of any interest you have in technology, and what relevant skills or experience you have, if any.
  2. Give an example of when you have worked well in a pair or team or an example of when you have managed your time.
  3. Which of the three challenges appeal to you and why?
  4. What time commitment do you think will be needed to carry out a project, and how will you fit this around other commitments during the 6 to 8 weeks?

Prior knowledge of programming is not essential. We value and promote theoretical diversity in computing.

PDF Icon Click here to download the application form

PDF Icon Click here to read the full terms and conditions

Taking part in a scholarship project will enhance employability, develop computer science skills and/or provide a social benefit.

The award will be made by a panel of OU staff and students. The panel will assess applicants' personal statements. Funds are limited, and no guarantee of an award can be made.

What happens at the end of the project?

The results will be shared with KMi, for example, by uploading a report in the OU's Open Research Online repository (ORO), by depositing data or code in the Open Research Data Online repository (ORDO) or by making a short video to show your findings.

About KMi

KMi is a Computer Science Research & Development Lab. We are a diverse, multi-national bunch passionate about what we do. We treat everyone as a valued team member, be they professors, researchers, post-grad students or other non-academic staff. We believe in research that impacts the real world with real users.

A Photo of all KMi staff

Aims of the Scholarship

Among the visitors who come to KMi every summer, there has been an under-representation of Black people. Black people are also under-represented among computer science post-graduate students. This annual scholarship, aims to improve representation and create greater awareness of computer science research.

Chapter 2 of The Equality Act 2010 allows service providers to take action that may involve treating one group more favourably where this is a proportionate way to help members of that group overcome a disadvantage or participate more fully, or in order to meet needs they have that are different from the population as a whole. This is called 'positive action'.

The call for applicants to participate in summer 2024 will open soon!

Email: STEM-KMi-Scholarship@open.ac.uk to express an interest and receive notice when the call opens

Previously supported scholars

2023

Scholarship - Photo of Rachel Appiah-Kubi

Rachel Appiah-Kubi

Project: Exploring the biases of AI-generated music artist images

Supervisors: John Domingue and Aisling Third

View Project

Scholarship - Photo of Henok Mekuria

Henok Mekuria

Project: Evaluating prompts for Image Generative AI and sensory explorations

Supervisor: Shuang Ao and Advaith Siddharthan

View Project

Scholarship - Photo of Meron Mana

Meron Mana

Project: Designing, developing and deploying a social robot

Supervisors: Matteo Cancellieri and David Pride

View Project

2022

Scholarship - Photo of Samuel Kwaku Antwi

Samuel Kwaku Antwi

Project: Identifying influential misinformation about vaccines

Supervisors:Retno Larasati and Tracie Farrell

View Project

Scholarship - Photo of Esther Adetunji

Esther Adetunji

Project: Building musical knowledge graphs

Supervisor: Enrico Daga and Paul Mulholland

View Project

Scholarship - Photo of Peter Isagba

Peter Isagba

Project: Turning TikTok Content into NFTs

Supervisors: John Domingue, Aisling Third and Michelle Bachler

View Project

2021

Scholarship - Photo of Azizah Blackwood

Azizah Blackwood

Project: Misinfo.Me Bot

Supervisors: Tracie Farrell and Lara Piccolo

Scholarship - Photo of Reece Davis

Reece Davis

Project: Benchmarking Environmental Sensors

Supervisor: Lara Piccolo

Scholarship - Photo of Kaushal Kumar

Kaushal Kumar

Project: Robot Assistants in the Wild

Supervisors: Agnese Chiatti and Gianluca Bardaro

Latest Seminar
Alessia Pisu
University of Cagliari

AI-Driven Ontology extraction of Research Areas

Watch the live webcast

CONTACT US

Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1908 653800

Fax: +44 (0)1908 653169

Email: KMi Support

COMMENT

If you have any comments, suggestions or general feedback regarding our website, please email us at the address below.

Email: KMi Development Team