Firstly, where did the name “Zbigatron“ come from?
Due to my difficult Polish name (Zbigniew Zdziarski), I’ve been going around with nicknames all my life. And I’ve had quite a few of them. During my time in Ireland, my very good mate Kieran O’Reilly started calling me “Zigatron”. When I was signing up for Twitter, Zigatron was taken, so Zbigatron was the next best thing. And I’ve stuck with the name since!
But we digress – you want a short bio of me.
I am an Australian of Polish descent. I went to the University of Adelaide where I studied Computer Science for 4 years. In 2005 I left Australia for a grand old adventure in Europe that would last for over 12 years. I lived, worked, and studied in 5 countries. I did a Bachelor of Philosophy in Poland, PhD in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, and a Master’s of Theology spread out across Ireland, England and Austria. I also worked in IT, mainly as a software engineer and then later as a researcher in AI.
In 2017 I returned to my home country of Australia. I lived in Sydney for a year where I was heavily active in the AI department in my company. In 2018 I completed a Master’s in Philosophy that I had been working on part-time for a while. From 2019 to 2023 I was an (adjunct) professor at Carnegie Mellon University at their Australian campus in Adelaide. It was very nice to be back in my home town! The photo below is of me (sitting down) with my colleagues just before we were due to present a series of masterclasses. I am the Godfather of CMU.
Currently, I’m head of R&D at the Australian Institute of Advanced Technologies.
I have a passion for AI, especially Computer Vision. I’ve been involved in the field since 2004 when for my Honors thesis I designed a vision system for a soccer-playing robot. Our team wanted to enter the annual international RoboCup tournament. I’m not sure if they did in the end because I left for Europe shortly after graduating. But since 2004 I have seen the field of Computer Vision grow to what it is today. It’s been an amazing thing to witness and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
I started this blog to share my journey in Computer Vision with you – I’m always stumbling across such fascinating things that I feel as though more people should know about them.
(As a side note, I also have another blog (Mendicant Knight) more focussed on philosophical and theological issues).
Other Hobbies
I am an avid boxer and musician. I have one boxing title: the 2019 Australian Master’s Lightweight title. Although I won the medal by default, I’ll still take it! Hopefully there are more successes in this sport to come. The photo here is of me with Al Mitchell who is the former US olympics team coach. He has led great names like Floyd Mayweather and David Reid. I was lucky enough to participate in a training camp he was running in Marquette, Michigan in 2019.
I also LOVE travelling. I’ve visited 47 countries and counting. The picture below is of me at a school in South Sudan in 2012 (I’m at the far back).
Feel free contact me any time: I’ll do my best to respond as soon as I can.