CODING THEORY
Vitaly Skachek Helped to build foundations for the Internet of things Vitaly Skachek’s field of research is relatively well-established on a global scale, but currently his research group is the only one of its kind in Estonia.
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kachek, who came to the University of Tartu at the end of 2012 and works at the Institute of Computer Science at the University, says that the initial works in his field were published in 1948. Shortly thereafter during the 50s, coding theory really took off. He believes that in the not-so-distant future, communication will become faster, data will move much more intensively, and therefore communications must become more reliable as well. That is where Skachek and his research group come in. “The fundamental problems will not be solved entirely,” he warns, adding that there is a lot of hype around certain technologies like robotics and machine learning. “But we are very far from independent artificial intelligence, like in the books of Isaac Asimov,” he laughs. He thinks expectations should be Estonian Centre of Excellence in ICT Research
We are very far from independent artificial intelligence, like in the books of Isaac Asimov. realistic. A very small percentage of research becomes something practical, and it could take decades before any finding becomes especially relevant. He likes to make a reference to his students about the French mathematician Évariste Galois. Galois only lived a short life in the early 19th century, but his works laid the foundations for both field theory and group theory. What he discovered was first thought of as a mathematical exercise, yet a two century later it has emerged to become an integral part of the cryp-
tography and security domain. At first appearing to be an unnecessary theoretical issue at the time of its inception, it has since made a huge impact. “If Galois was working in a university today, he might be fired for not doing practical studies and not getting grants,” Skachek laughs. The researchers of today may share this same fate – their discoveries acquire their true meaning years later.
Working with EXCITE colleagues Skachek’s group is the only one in Estonia that works in the field of codes for error correction and topics related therewith. To put it simply, we are discussing coding theory. He describes this research area as lying in the intersections between the fields of theoretical computer science, mathematics and electrical engineering.
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