Dinesh Baniya Kshatri Wins People's Choice Award at Nengo Summer School 2026
Dinesh Baniya Kshatri received the People's Choice Award for an innovative neuromorphic robotics project developed during the Nengo Summer School 2026 at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
From 31 May to 12 June 2026, Dinesh Baniya Kshatri, a PhD student in the Digital and High-Frequency Electronics section at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), participated in the Nengo Summer School 2026 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. The internationally recognized summer school brings together researchers and students to explore the latest advances in neural and cognitive modelling using the Nengo framework, with projects spanning software, hardware, and neuromorphic computing.
During the summer school, Dinesh collaborated with an international team on the project "Gesture-Pilot: SNN-Based Incremental Gesture Learning for Mobile Robot Control." The team developed an event-driven neuromorphic control pipeline that combined a Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) for asynchronous motion capture, a deep Spiking Convolutional Neural Network (SCNN) for gesture recognition, continual learning using the Prescribed Error Sensitivity (PES) learning rule, and a closed-loop control system that translated recognized gestures into real-time commands for a LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robot.
The project demonstrated how neuromorphic computing can enable adaptive and energy-efficient gesture recognition for real-time robot control. In recognition of the team's achievement, the project was awarded the People's Choice Award, reflecting its strong impact on fellow participants and the audience.
Congratulations to Dinesh on this outstanding achievement and for representing the Digital and High-Frequency Electronics section and SDU at an international research event.
