Australia, US, Jamaica: University News

The TopUniversities.com guide to the latest university news from around the world, on 11 September 2013.

Australia: Student petition attacks government broadband plans

A University of Queensland student has gathered 110,000 signatures for a petition to scrap the new Coalition government’s plans to create a fibre-to-the-node network, reports ABC News. The student, Nick Paine, said that “the National Broadband Network policy… was one area that didn't quite reflect the Australian attitude". His argument is that the proposed plan, while cheaper at AUD$29.5 billion (US$27.4 billion), would also be slower than the network that the previous government had begun rolling out: a fibre-to-the-premises network, costing AUD$44.1 billion (US$40.9 billion).

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US: University of Michigan to host “hackathon”

More than 1,200 "hackers" from over 100 universities will be gathering in the luxury rooms of the University of Michigan football stadium this month to compete in a hackathon event called Mhacks, reports Forbes. Undergraduates, graduates and high school students will work together to build a prototype in a short period of time, competing for US$25,000 in prize money. The first MHacks was held in February this year, and this latest event is said to be the largest of its kind in the nation. The event’s founder, David Fontenot, said: “You’re not going to find the next Mark Zuckerberg in a dorm room. You’re going to find him or her at MHacks.”

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Jamaica: Top Namibian athletes to train at Jamaican university

Five athletes from Namibia will be training in Jamaica in preparation for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, reports All Africa. They will also be studying sport management and journalism at the University of Technology of Jamaica. This is part of a program implemented several years ago by the Namibian Ministry of Sport, called Vision 2016, which has also sent athletes from Namibia to South Africa and Europe. One of the organizers of the program, Professor Earle Taylor, said that the sport journalism would be an important component of the course.

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UK: Extra robotics research funding for University of Oxford

The University of Oxford has received almost £8 million (US$12.6 million) towards research in robotics and autonomous systems, reports The Oxford Student. This is a result of the government’s plans to invest in “eight great technologies”, including robotics. The money will help fund the development of self-driving cars and autonomous vehicles for defense, but the technology has other applications beyond defense and transport, such as “space exploration, construction, logistics, inspection, warehouse and factory automation, and agriculture”.

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