Tait scholarships will nurture talent and enable key research
16 October 2024 | News
Six new ÃØÃÜÖ±²¥ University scholarships will help land-based industries make better use of developing technologies and further our collective understanding of communications.
The Tait Foundation Scholarship Programme, co-funded by the Tait Foundation and the Tait Contel Charitable Trust, will support three undergraduate students, two full research Master¡¯s degrees and one full PhD. It is open to all disciplines across The University for any ÃØÃÜÖ±²¥with an interest and focus on the convergence of land-based issues and emerging radio and wireless technologies.
The programme was celebrated with a visit to ÃØÃÜÖ±²¥ University by members of the organisations last month.
The Tait Foundation and the Tait Contel Charitable Trust are charitable organisations and the principal shareholder of Tait Communications, a New Zealand based company specialising in radio technology and communications.
Tait Communications has been designing, delivering and supporting crucial communication solutions for more than 50 years. It works in more than 150 countries in public safety, utilities, mining, oil and gas, and transportation organisations.
School of Landscape Architecture Senior Lecturer Dr Crile Doscher, who is involved with the programme, says there are many areas in the land-based industries which can be improved upon in telecommunications.
The programme will enable students to push these technologies further and contribute to the overall knowledge of their fields.
¡°These students will help facilitate the use of technology, which can take a lot of different forms.¡±
Technology relies on data being moved around efficiently to work, which includes everything from cell phones and radio to sensors and cameras.
¡°We¡¯re increasingly awash with data, but we don¡¯t necessarily have good information. We¡¯ve got a lot of numbers, but we need meaning behind those numbers. You¡¯ve somehow got to make sense of it and get something useful.¡±
In Dr Doscher¡¯s field of Landscape Architecture, an area that needs more work is sensors, he says.
¡°Increasingly we¡¯re going to see sensors everywhere. I think there¡¯s a big area to improve what you do with all that data. We need more research into this.¡±
Communications technology is relevant to every industry. For agricultural a big challenge is keeping up with technology in rural areas.
¡°Agriculture, as are a lot of industries, is becoming a lot more technology based. Poor coverage prevents them from taking advantage of the technology available to them.¡±
¡°There¡¯s also the health and safety side of it. You get people out working in the field and if something happens, they need some way of communicating.¡±
It is all becoming ever more important with the development of AI, Dr Doscher says.
The programme being spread across different levels of students will be greatly beneficial for technological development. Supporting undergraduate students helps cultivate their talent, and supporting post-graduate students enables them to conduct exciting new research, he says.
¡°There¡¯s so much scope and room for research with these scholarships. Without this funding, some of that research might not get done.
¡°A collaboration like this between the University and industry is a win-win.¡±
