Throughout June and July, The Australian National University (ANU) held a STEM guest lecture series - with an all-star line-up of ANU experts to shine a light on the global issues defining our future.
Prospective students from 37 different countries tuned in live to hear about these contemporary issues from academics at the ANU Colleges of Engineering and Computer Sciences (CECS), Science, and Health and Medicine (CHM).
Learn about the bright future of renewable energy; how to solve genome puzzles; emerging tech and Industry 5.0; and energy conversion and storage.
Catch up on these webinar masterclass, and more, on demand.
The bright future of renewable energy ————————————-
Professor Kylie Catchpole
The price of renewable electricity has dropped lower than the price of conventional electricity in recent years. Globally, solar and wind now account for more than half of new electricity capacity.
This masterclass will give an overview of the astonishing growth in renewables that we’ve seen to date, and discuss what we can expect for the future. In particular, we will look at new technology developments, and the potential of solar and hydrogen to transform the way we produce and use energy.
Solving genome puzzles
Dr Yu Lin
Genomics sequencing has created opportunities and challenges to gain new insights in biology and biomedical research. Genome sequencing data usually consists of millions or billions of short DNA sequences, called reads, that are randomly drawn from genomes. Genome assembly is to put reads back together into a single genome, like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle. While genome assembly remains computationally challenging, metagenomics analysis aims to resolve the composition of a mixture of genomes, like solving mixed jigsaw puzzles simultaneously. In this masterclass, you will learn about computational models and algorithms to address these emerging challenges.
‘Beauty and the Beast’: How emerging technology and Industry 5.0 will allow us to be more human
Associate Professor Catherine Ball
Many famous Sci-Fi movies feature artificial intelligence (AI) or robots going mad and killing all the humans. But in reality, AI is the only way we, as humans, are going to be able to cope with an increasingly digitised world. Some 90% of the current data that exists in the world was created in just the last two years.
Big Data and AI go together and we need AI to help us separate the signal from the noise. It’s up to us to create the “5th Industrial Revolution”; Industry 5.0 where humans are the reason why.
Energy conversion and storage
Dr Matt Stocks
Electricity contributes a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Solar photovoltaics and wind generation are now the lowest cost sources of new electricity capacity, and Australia is leading the world with rate of uptake of these renewable generators. This requires a rethink of how the electricity grid operates, including the integration of storage, demand management, and transmission needs to manage supply variability. Low emissions electricity then unlocks a range of other emissions reductions: from swapping petrol use with electric vehicles in the short-term, through to generating hydrogen for the production of steel from iron ore.