Scholar makes robots that detect land mines
Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 16:00
in Mathematics & Economics
On Oct. 10, 2005 — he remembers the date exactly — Thrishantha Nanayakkara was driving down a country road, headed for a science workshop at Jaffna Central College, a high school in the far north of Sri Lanka. The event was designed to distract potential child soldiers from the allure of war. His cell phone rang. It was a government official, with a tip-off. “Turn back,” the caller said, in so many words, “or you will be killed.”Nanayakkara, an artificial intelligence expert, said the phone call saved his life. Later that day, the school principal at Jaffna was shot to death.read more