Two honorary doctorates The biggest party of the year Emneord “I’m with Dildo Boys over there,” says a student, nodding towards two fellow students while 20 others enjoy a good laugh. Dildo Boys’ real name is We got vibes, and the whole project is deadly serious and geared towards a product that will go into production. “We’re developing a dildo that can be controlled from your smartphone and which can bring pleasure to people around the world. The idea is that you can control the vibrator from your own phone or another person can control it from their phone. A soldier posted overseas can control the dildo being used by his girlfriend in Denmark. The app allows you to personalise the dildo,” explains Jacob Espersen, who is one of the three students busy working on the app-controlled vibrator. Most people agree that the project sounds Among all the events taking place at DTU over the course of the year, the Annual Party is in a league of its own. Following the official speeches and honorary awards, 4,000 students and staff got ready to enjoy an unforgettable party. After savouring saddle of venison, salmon tureen and quality wines, guests danced the quadrille to the backdrop of classical music, then rocked to the bands Alfabeat and Queen Machine. a bit crazy and unusual, yet the fact that its creators are so close to putting their idea into production commands people’s respect. Helping to nurture ideas And that is precisely the whole idea behind AppGarage, explains one of its initiators, Michael Reibel Boesen, PhD student at DTU Compute. “AppGarage is all about making it attractive and practicable to become an entrepreneur,” he says. The students can get feedback on their ideas, advice on business models, choice of platform, programming and customers. Hailing from different study programmes, they meet here to help each other improve their apps, get programming help or simply to move forward with their ideas. This is one of the reasons why the app-controlled dildo is on its way to market. “The great thing is that through Michael and AppGarage we have come into contact with people who can help us move from concept to production. We are now talking to producers in China, who may manufacture the dildo while we develop the app ourselves”, explains Jacob Espersen, pointing to the black prototype which he and his fellow student collaborators have printed on a 3D printer at DTU. However, the AppGarage has other uses as well. For some students it is simply a great place to meet. “Here I can get things done, including programming, which isn’t really the case at home. But we also discuss our ideas and working on projects together. Today we also did our homework together”, says Jonas Pedersen. Big dreams One of the aims of AppGarage is to make entrepreneurship more appealing, practicable and visible. A further aim is to provide students with innovation experience. “If innovation is the application of knowledge in society, then apps are the perfect tool. As a student, you can get an idea for an app today, start programming it tomorrow and have a prototype ready a month later to go into production,” says Michael Reibel Olsen. - Uffe Rasmussen . Who will come up with the next Wordfeud? Wizards who inspire each other. Apps, that help patients. And smartphone-operated dildo. DTU students meet in AppGarage at DTU Compute to help each other develop better apps. Furt her informat ion Michael Reibel Boesen PhD student, DTU Compute mrbo@dtu.dk Cooperation key to success “Philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard could conduct their brilliant research in complete isolation, but not scientists and engineering scientists”. President Anders Bjarklev elected to make cooperation the focus of his Annual Party speech: “I firmly believe that it is through improved cooperation that we truly can live up to Ørsted’s values — and our mission — of benefiting society. I also believe that on a personal level we will benefit even more from working and studying at DTU when we cultivate cooperation and the opportunities it offers,” he said. Mathematics at the highest level Professor at Princeton University Paul Seymour was made an honorary doctor at DTU for his contribution to mathematics at the highest level, in particular for his work on graph theory relating, among other things, to traffic and social networks. Paul Seymour has developed the graph minor theorem, lending his name to the Robertson-Seymour theory. Seeing the light in the computers of tomorrow The Annual Party’s second honorary doctorate went to Professor Wieslaw Królikowski, Australian National University, for his contribution to understanding the instability of light beams and their interaction in optical materials. He has made significant contributions to the possibility of achieving optical signal processing using light only in the operating systems of future computers and has worked with DTU researchers for 18 years. 2
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