A passion for artificial intelligence and education

Artificial intelligence is no longer the work of science fiction and is increasingly becoming reality. BGS Old Boy Professor Michael Milford ’98 is at the forefront of these developments, conducting interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics and neuroscience.

Prof Milford, a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur with a Mechanical and Space Engineering degree and a PhD in Robotics from The University of Queensland, currently leads a team at QUT researching the nature of intelligence.

“Robotics and artificial intelligence are likely to be some of the greatest transformative influences on humanity over the coming decades and it’s really exciting to be working at their core,” he said. “My research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception in order to develop new robotics and computer vision-related technologies.”

This has led Prof Milford to work with research agencies including the Australian Research Council and the US Air Force; collaborate with organisations such as Harvard University, Oxford University, MIT, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and deliver presentations to technology corporations Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

Prof Milford said BGS was the birthplace of his passion for robotics and artificial intelligence, and education. “My overwhelming memories of BGS centre around an incredible learning and growth experience,” he said. “I got to meet, be inspired by and learn from some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, many of whom are friends today.”

“The peer atmosphere at BGS was incredible in terms of inspiration, motivation and learning opportunities. I think in particular being around passionate, driven

people who were chasing their dreams and exercising the kind of self-discipline and persistence required to compete on a world stage was a fabulous environment for encouraging lifelong adherence to those principles in yourself.”

A pivotal moment occurred during his early years at BGS, when he was ‘hacked’ by his more computer-savvy friends, which provided a strong motivation to learn a few tricks of his own. From there he learned how to code and began to enjoy writing computer games and artificial intelligence programs.

Prof Milford said BGS also provided daily ‘in the trenches’ experience in collaborative learning and finding out what helped students learn best. Soon after graduating from school, he wrote an informal Maths textbook called Not a C Minus, which to his surprise became a best seller that Christmas. This led him to write a series of textbooks covering Maths, Physics and English.

He went on to develop new ways to communicate key STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) concepts to the general public. In 2015 Prof Milford launched Math Thrills, which stealthily embeds key mathematical concepts in young adult fiction. More recently, he ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to publish and distribute worldwide the “STEM Storybook”, a collection of 12 illustrated early childhood stories embedded with key mathematical concepts such as statistics, finance, probability and robotics.

Prof Milford has maintained his connection with BGS over the years, with his son enrolled to attend the School and his daughter enrolled to attend Brisbane Girls Grammar School.