• Student Who Reveals Artists Through Algorithms
News

Nejc Ilenič is a full-time master’s student, who in addition to studying performs work in the Bioinformatics Laboratory, where he helps develop a part of the Orange software used in image analysis. In the past year he won the first place in a competition to identify the creators of artistic images. We talked to him about his studies and work.


1. What was it that made you decide to pursue a master’s degree? What did you have to consider, and what was decisive?

My decision was mainly about whether I was going to build up my knowledge in a formal or non-formal way. I had the opinion that with my knowledge and experience with industry at that time, it would have been a bit harder to do this, or perhaps less effective, outside the formal environment. So my main motivation was to gain new knowledge.

 

2. What can you tell us about your experience as a master’s student? How does it differ from undergraduate courses?

It has been very positive, in the master’s course I have developed a lot of interest in the area of data analysis. I gained the feeling that in the research laboratories, students who put in work and who show their own initiative are always welcome. Apart from gaining in-depth knowledge, the difference from the undergraduate course is that in the second cycle you can select course subjects to focus more on a specific field.

 

3. A short time ago your deep models won the competition to identify the creators of artistic images. Tell us something about this. What drew you to the competition? How did the competition itself proceed? What did the preparations involve?

Even before choosing to enter the competition I decided to test the knowledge I had acquired in one subject on a real-life problem, and I chose the challenge of identifying the creators of artistic images owing to the fascination of the field itself. The competition took place on the web platform Kaggle, which hosts challenges in the area of creating predictive models and data analysis. The competitors obtain marked data upon which they need to develop an algorithm for prediction, and the success of their solution is measured on data whose designation was not available prior to the competition. I had no special preparation for the competition. I learned a lot of things along the way, since I gained the necessary basic knowledge, as I mentioned, during my studies, while I also had a lot of help from the members of the Bioinformatics Laboratory.

 

4. You are currently completing your master’s degree at the Faculty. What topic will your thesis deal with?

My master’s thesis will describe in detail the solution for the competition and its expansion.

 

5. What are your plans for the future?

In the future I want to continue working with the Faculty, since it offers an outstanding opportunity to acquire the most advanced knowledge in my chosen field, then later on I would like to try my hand in industry.

 

Find out more information on master’s degree courses at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science and on admissions at the website Prospective students. If you have additional questions, please write to us at masters.studies@fri.uni-lj.si or call +386 1 479 8123.