Rob O'Connor
63 episodes listed below
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Faculty and students from the South East Technology University (SETU) Ireland explore a wide range of topics related to computing and technology. Hosted by Rob O'Connor. All opinions are personal and do not represent University views.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Technical interviews and student-facing panels make computing careers, AI tradeoffs and the work behind software easier to understand.
Rob O'Connor makes technical education conversational without stripping away the technical decisions. The Machine: A computer science education podcast moves between studio interviews and live SETU panels, pairing questions about computing careers with discussions of artificial…
Rob O'Connor asks the question you'd bring to a computing open day: why learn code now?
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A calm, practical case for computing as a broad and useful field.
Why Study Computing? treats computing as a field that welcomes different strengths rather than a gate kept by a narrow type of student. Rob O'Connor, Amanda Gator, and TJ McDonald push back on familiar myths, including the idea that only a maths wizard belongs here or that…
A grounded look at cybercrime as policing, evidence work, and cross-border coordination.
A campus cyber attack gives this conversation real urgency: Rob O'Connor sits with two serving members of the Garda National Cybercrime Bureau and lets them walk through how cybercrime is handled when the target may be a server in another jurisdiction.
A clear conversation about AI, bias, inequality, and representation.
Nuria Oliver's conversation gives a grounded look at her work in AI and related fields. It follows her move from telecommunications engineering into artificial intelligence, then stays with the practical questions: how big data can help reduce inequality in developing countries,…
A practical live panel broadens the picture of computing work beyond programming.
The Machine captures a live panel for Leaving Cert Cycle students and opens up a useful question: what does computing work look like when programming is only part of the picture?
Quantization brings massive models closer to local hardware, with the compromises kept in view.
The episode makes the gap between a massive AI model and a laptop feel practical rather than abstract. Red Hat software engineer Mark Campbell describes a generative AI system with a useful data model running locally on his laptop, and the conversation walks through how…
A grounded discussion of AI's speed, coding skills, and the judgment still required around them.
The Machine considers what generative AI means for people moving into ICT, using a Computing Week example where a website image becomes a working HTML prototype in seconds, then shifts as backgrounds or buttons are changed.
A thoughtful AI-and-society conversation with technical context and a personal edge.
An SETU lecturer-hosted conversation about autonomous systems opens into a clear look at how people project human traits onto AI, why that framing sticks, and why Stanley Kubrick's 2001 still hangs over talk about machine intelligence.
A live panel that treats women in computing as a lived reality, not a slogan.
This episode presents a live Code Girl event at ACTU Waterford as a grounded look at how women enter computing and technology. Rob O'Connor introduces a documentary screening and a panel with three women at different stages of their careers: an AI researcher, a computer science…
Atari 8-bit history, still booting.
Artificial life, remembered and reimagined.
Lambda calculus from the driver’s seat.
A strawberry-picking robot must move, detect, and apply precise force—multiple ways to fail.
passion beats talent any day in my opinion because you could have someone highly capable yet no passion.
The Machine's "Why Study Computing?" episode has Rob O'Connor asking whether you need to be a maths wizard or already know programming, and Amanda Gator says no.
SETU host Rob O'Connor says this episode was recorded on Monday, November 4, 2024, after a coordinated cyber attack took most campus systems offline, including the network, and he says the extent of the damage was still unclear.
Nuria Oliver argues that mobile phones can act as personal helpers and as data sources for social good, from adapted user experiences to consented credit scoring for unbanked people.
The Machine's live panel at South East Technological University places Rob O'Connor with representatives from Unum, VoxGig, Cargo, Sun Life, Red Hat, and SETU to explain computing careers to around 200 Leaving Cert Cycle students.
The Machine interviews Red Hat software engineers Mark Campbell and Dimitri Saradakis about building customized large language models with OpenShift AI, local tools, and private datasets.
The Machine host Rob O'Connor interviews Unum enterprise architect Gary Keneally and digital incubator manager Dr.
Rob O'Connor's audio documentary traces Waterford Regional Technical College from its July 1970 opening on the Cork Road to its 2022 redesignation as SETU, drawing on staff interviews recorded from late 2019.
Connor O'Neill, chief product officer at Nearform, tells Rob O'Connor that the HSE phoned Nearform on the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend and had a prototype by Wednesday.