Two Young Scientist awards for Dun an Ri
Colaiste Dun an Ri in Kingscourt is celebrating two awards in the 57th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE). The overall award I the competition went to 17 year old Gregory Tarr, a 6th year student from Bandon Grammar School Cork.
Both Colaiste Dun an Ri's wins come in the Biological and Ecological Junior Category. The top spot winner taken home the top prize of €7,500 and the BTYSTE perpetual trophy for his project titled “Detecting state-of-the-art deepfakes”.
The announcement was made at the first ever virtual BTYSTE awards ceremony streamed live from the Mansion House. Gregory presented his project in the senior age group of the Technology category.
Gregory impressed the judges with his project using a sophisticated artificial intelligence software program that can efficiently detect DeepFake media with state-of-the-art accuracy. The software, which is over 150,000 lines of code, made significant improvements on speed and efficiency when compared to the current best model without sacrificing its ability to accurately detect the fake.
This tool could potentially be deployed at scale to filter out DeepFake media making the internet a safer place. This was Gregory’s fifth time competing at BTYSTE having competed on four other occasions in the RDS.
The wins for the Cavan school in the 57th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition were both group projects. In the Biological and Ecological Junior Category Sarah Ginnitty and Laoise Smith of Colaiste Dun an Ri, Cavan scooped 3rd Place in the Group section with their the project 'Maskne. What are your masks keeping out and what are they keeping in?'.
Highly Commended in the Biological and Ecological category was Colaiste Dun an Ri, Cavan with the project “Are protein bars and snacks worth it?” in the Junior Group by Rebekah Ritchie and Fayth Daly.
Gregory Tarr will now represent Ireland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, which is scheduled to go ahead in Salamanca Spain in September 2021.