DAP students in the running - Brain Awareness Video Contest 2023
Honours students Ria and Manveer, Department of Anatomy & Physiology, are up for the People Choice Award in this year’s Brain Awareness Video Contest.
The Brain Awareness Video Contest is an annual competition held by BrainFacts.org and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) where anyone interested in neuroscience globally can submit their educational and entertaining videos about neuroscience concepts and activities.
Ria and Manveer’s submission has been nominated as a final contender for the People’s Choice Award, but they are still awaiting to know if they have won first place. The winning video is based on the number of likes the 10 final videos receive from the public, posted on the BrainFacts.org Youtube channel.
Manveer first heard about the Society for Neuroscience and the competition two years ago in a lecture by A/Prof Peter Kitchener when undertaking the Bachelor of Biomedicine, but only decided to submit a video this year. He met Ria earlier this year, who came to Melbourne for her honours to keep pursuing her interest in neuroscience. As they became close friends since starting their Honours year, they decided to partake in the competition together.
Over a span of three consecutive days, Ria focused on the visuals and video creation whilst Manveeer undertook the AI aspect of the video, and they collaborated on the script. They used a “lovely British AI called Lance” for their AI voiceover to “prove the power of AI technologies and put a nice spin on the video”.
Manveer stated that A/Prof Peter Kitchener’s class ‘Real and Artificial Neural Networks’ heavily influenced the video's concept. Ria also expressed that their video “would not have come out so well without what [they’d] learnt in [their] course”, specifically the lay writing and presentations they have been given in their honours course.
The first place prize has the opportunity to register for Neuroscience 2023 in Washington DC, alongside earning a substantial monetary reward. Ria and Manveer hope to win the first place spot as it “would be amazing considering neuroscience is the one passion [they] both share.” Dr Mike Clark agreed it was a great way to showcase the work of the students to a broader and international audience.
Voting is still open until 12 PM EDT on October 5, 2023.
Ria and Manveer’s Video: How Networks in the Brain Give Us Artificial Intelligence