Polish researchers achieve success in nanotechnology and AI competitions

Polish researchers and students have achieved significant recognition in international and national scientific competitions.

A team from Cracow University of Technology won the main prize in the XVI National Student-Inventor Competition for a new method of producing carbon quantum dots (CQDs). The method involves attaching coumarin derivatives to the surface of nanoparticles, allowing for a shift in the fluorescence emission spectrum and improved optical properties. This process is notable for being scalable and conducted in an aqueous environment at room temperature without the need for high pressure or aggressive reagents. Potential applications include cancer diagnostics, biosensors, drug delivery systems, and 3D printing inks.

In a separate achievement, Magdalena Machacka from Opole University of Technology secured fifth place in an international artificial intelligence competition held under the patronage of the European Space Agency (ESA). The challenge, titled ‘Neural Debris Removal in Streak Detection Models’, required participants to identify and neutralize ‘poison’—deliberate threats introduced into AI architectures designed to analyze space imagery. Machacka competed against 560 researchers globally to solve the problem of misclassification in telescope-based photographic data.