Master student Simón Algorta from Columbia was recently awarded the 2014 DAAD Prize for international students [DAAD: German Academic Exchange Service]. In 2011 Algorta came from Bogotá to take up Master studies at the University of Bremen, where he launched into all sorts of activities in the international Master’s Program Digital Media embedded in the Faculty of Mathematics/Computer Science.
Worth 1,000 euros, the prize is available to all German universities each year and is one of the DAAD’s most prestigious awards. As a measure to accentuate the significant gain to the university environment resulting from the presence of the international student body, it is awarded for academic achievement coupled with a commitment to social and intercultural undertakings.
The 26-year-old student of Digital Media fulfills the requirements in all points. He belongs to the ten percent of students with the best marks, and in addition to this has authored two publications presented at international conferences on the topic of informatics in medicine. As part of a Master’s project supervised by Professor Andreas Breiter he analyzed and programmed the interactive application of a multi-touch table for use in practical medicine, which he constructed together with fellow students. Details of this project can be found in The University of Bremen’s Yearbook under http://www.uni-bremen.de/jahrbuch/einblicke/studium-digitale-medien.html
Combination of academic achievement and social commitment
Algorta expanded on this concept in his Master Thesis and arranged for trials of the multi-touch table in his home country at a hospital in Bogotá. First of all, though, he had to collect money to prepare the table for use by several persons. The software, which has been made available as open source software, was completely the work of Simón Algorta himself. Initial trials and his expert evaluation show that interaction involving the table and its users considerably facilitates doctor-patient communication.
Furthermore, working as a student assistant at the Institut für Informationsmanagement Bremen (ifib), Simón Algorta played an important role in developing an interactive application on the multi-touch table for presentation of the University of Bremen’s Creative Unit called “Communicative Figurations”. The table will be exhibited during the current tour of MS Wissenschaft within the context of Wissenschaftsjahrs 2014. Here is what Prof. Andreas Breiter has to say about Simón Algorta: “He is a great ambassador for the University of Bremen: someone who personifies the joint goals of social responsibility and civil commitment.”
If you would like to obtain more information, please contact:
Jens Kemper
University of Bremen
International Office
Phone: +49 421 218 60365
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