A PhD student at the Gdańsk University of Technology, Agnieszka Mikołajczyk, is a co-creator of the educational project “Detect Waste in Pomerania”. The project is implemented by the non-profit organization Women in Machine Learning & Data Science as a response to the problem of environmental pollution.

Nine participants with experience in Artificial Intelligence and five mentors – experienced machine learning specialists were involved in the project. Its participants developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to detect waste (mainly plastic) in the natural environment.

The created algorithm is a pilot solution that may improve automation of waste recycling, environmental monitoring (automatic search for illegal landfills and automated measurement of the level of environmental pollution), and even minimization of the costs of keeping the city clean.