Defence scholarships help students build career skills

Scholarships from global technology company Northrop Grumman have given four Flinders University computer science students a big boost for their career pathways.

The scholarship program is part of a research and education partnership between Flinders University and aerospace and defence leader Northrop Grumman which gives outstanding computer science undergraduates timely support to build their skills in key areas including artificial intelligence (AI), information technology (IT) and games development.

“At Northrop Grumman Australia, we know that artificial intelligence is key to the autonomous and decision-making systems of the future,” said Chris Deeble, Executive Director Strategy at Northrop Grumman.

“By investing in these outstanding university students today, we’re helping them acquire the skills needed to develop these new and emerging technologies. We’re pleased to be able to support Flinders University in growing tomorrow’s workforce.”

The 2022 Northrop Gumman scholarship recipients.

Applying computer skills to game development is one avenue that 2022 scholarship recipient Robert (Bob) Wright believes will lead to new industrial product designs and technological innovations for industries in the future.

“I’m excited to start university after working on gaming in my own time since before the COVID-19 years,” said Wright, 34, who previously managed various hospitality business operations and has completed a diploma in film and television.

Wright is using the $5000 scholarship to support his studies and advance programming skills in Unity, HTML, Unreal, Java, C#, C ++, Python and JetBrains, as well as other platforms, to explore new areas of game education, web design and IT.

Having recently used his computer programming skills for an AI learning application, Wright is appreciative of the support.

“I’m really grateful for this support in continuing my undergraduate studies this year,” he said.

Fellow 2022 scholarship recipient Orson Hannath, 20, will use his grant to buy a laptop to help start a Bachelor of Computer Science, majoring in artificial intelligence.

“I taught myself a lot about computer programming throughout high school and want to learn what industry wants me to know, to apply these skills in advanced manufacturing and other avenues,” Hannath said.

Last year’s Northrop Grumman undergraduate scholarships were given to Ronin Edson-Wilkinson, who is a Bachelor of Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) Honours student, and Connor Dunne, who is studying a Bachelor of Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) (Honours) at Flinders University.

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