County Cork Leaving Cert student Greg Tarr has won this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.
The 17-year-old from Bandon Grammar School was honoured for programming an artificial intelligence computer programme that quickly and accurately detects ‘deepfake’ videos.
The software for the project, entitled 'Detecting state-of-the-art deepfakes,' includes over 150,000 lines of code, with judges finding that it was significantly faster and more efficient than the current models on offer - with no sacrifice on its ability to accurately detect the fake.
Deepfakes are images and videos that have been convincingly altered to replace one person’s likeness with another’s.
The technology has become so advanced that it is often extremely difficult for the human eye to tell the video has been altered – with huge potential for misinformation and online abuse.
The Overall Winner of the 57th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is
Greg Tarr Bandon Grammar School @bandongrammar
Project entitled Towards detecting state-of-the-art deepfakes#BTYSTE #BeyondLimits pic.twitter.com/ef4FVu0ZZu— BT Young Scientist (@BTYSTE) January 8, 2021
The Education Minister Norma Foley congratulated all students that took part in this year’s competition.
“I am inspired by all of the students’ ambitions to tackle from a scientific and technological view the national and international issues facing us in today’s society – including the global pandemic, climate change, mental health and socio-economic challenges,” she said.
“It is encouraging to witness the level of creativity and innovation of the students as demonstrated through their meticulously researched and ingenious projects.
“Each student is a credit to themselves, their families, schools, communities, and every one of them should be proud of their accomplishments.”
Congratulation to Best Overall Group
Abby Mullins, Chloe Murphy & Megan Carroll @ @moatecs, Westmeath#BTYSTE #BeyondLimits pic.twitter.com/HFv465c6KS— BT Young Scientist (@BTYSTE) January 8, 2021
The award for Group winners went to Abby Mullins, Chloe Murphy and Megan Carroll from Moate Community School in Co. Westmeath for their project “Wool-Saviour of Our Sea.”
Their project looked at developing a wool blanket which allows the timely and thorough removal of oil slicks following oil spills.
The Individual runner-up award was presented to Jack Quirke from Colaiste Treasa in County Cork for his project titled “Investigating possible vegetable oil toxicity using nematodes as environmental bioindicators.”
Congratulations to Jack Quirke @colaistetreasa, Cork
Runner up Individual Award
Colaiste Treasa Cork #BTYSTE #BeyondLimits pic.twitter.com/ZhiKFLzkpA— BT Young Scientist (@BTYSTE) January 8, 2021
The Group runners-up award was presented to Isobel Hynes and Ava Hynes from Colaiste Treasa in County Cork.
Ava and Isobel were awarded for their project titled “Use of the Health Belief Model to investigate elements informing young people’s attitudes towards Covid-19 and subsequent impact on response to restrictions and vaccine uptake.”
Congratulations to Isobel Hynes & Ava Hynes @colaistetreasa Cork.
Runner up Group Award
School Name: Colaiste Treasa#BTYSTE #BeyondLimits pic.twitter.com/8OLTxilEnX— BT Young Scientist (@BTYSTE) January 8, 2021
Mr Tarr beat out 550 other projects to take the top prize after three days of judging.
Along with the winners in other categories, he will receive a trophy, a cheque for €7,500 and the opportunity to represent Ireland at the EU young scientists competition.
This year’s competition was hosted online due to COVID-19 restrictions.
