Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Kurt Matyas, Rector of TU Wien, Sabine Seidler, the recipient of the Helmut Veith Stipend 2018, Viktoriia Korchemna, and the director of Wolfgang Pauli Institute, Norbert J. Mauser

Rector of TU Wien, Sabine Seidler, the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Kurt Matyas, and the director of Wolfgang Pauli Institute, Norbert J. Mauser have presented Viktoriia Korchemna with the Helmut Veith Stipend 2018.  The Helmut Veith Stipend has been presented at the award ceremony collocated with Symposium Humans & Machines, on October 29, 2019, at 17:00. The symposium took place within the framework of the anniversary year “100 Years of Women (in) Studying at the TU Wien“.

Viktoriia Korchemna received her Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics at Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, Ukraine. Since October 2019 she is pursuing the master’s program Logic & Computation at TU Wien. Her interest lies in Logic in Computer Science and Complexity Theory, research fields where TU Wien is among the three leading research institutes in the world. During her bachelor, she conducted academic research activities under the mentorship of Profesor Andriy Oliynyk, in the field of Automata Groups Theory, which received international publications.

Alongside her research activities and study work in 2019 she won the Second prize in the Twenty-Fifth International Mathematics Competition (IMC) for University Students organised by University College London and hosted by the American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Viktoriia Korchemna ́s interest in Computer Science started at the lyceum high school, where she enjoyed devising algorithms for mathematical problems. “After the lectures, our teacher offered us to solve complicated problems. One time we were discussing the Hanoi Towers, so he suggested the most interested students to think about the Hanoi Sort Problem. After a couple of weeks of focusing and making attempts I independently designed my own (however, I did not check if it coincides with the original one) algorithm for the problem. After the mathematical part was finished, it took another couple of days to implement the algorithm on Pascal. When my program was finally accepted by the testing site, it was undoubtedly one of the happiest days in my life”.

Programm

Welcome address: Laura Kovács, FORSYTE research group

Anthem: „De Brevitate Vitae“ performed by Katharina Gerstenecker and Luca Eichler, TU Wien Chor

Award ceremony speech by Norbert J. Mauser, Director of Wolfgang Pauli Institute

Award ceremony speech by Sabine Seidler, Rector of TU Wien

Award ceremony

The anthem De Brevitate Vitae (Latin for „On the Shortness of Life“), more commonly known as Gaudemus Igitur has a rich history. The song harmoniously combines worship of youthful joy and philosophical contemplation about the meaning of life, about science, about the strength of the academic community relations. De Brevitate Vitae is also a title of a moral essay written by Seneca, a Roman Stoic philosopher, illuminating the Stoic principles on the nature of time and about pursuit of purposeful life.

About Helmut Veith Stipend

The Helmut Veith Stipend is awarded annually to motivated female students in the field of computer science who pursue (or plan to pursue) one of the master’s programs in Computer Science at TU Wien taught in English. The Helmut Veith Stipend is dedicated to the memory of an outstanding computer scientist who worked in the fields of logic in computer science, computer-aided verification, software engineering, and computer security. Helmut Veith, who tragically passed away in March 2016, was a strong advocate and mentor for women in computer science. More information on the Helmut Veith Stipend here.