Magdalena Gołębiowska, our doctoral student from the Department of Artificial Intelligence, has become the winner of the 4th edition of the competition Rising Star in Cybersecurity. The jury appreciated her project on voice-based user authentication with allowance for the user's emotions. Congratulations!

Magdalena’s Ph.D. project focuses on user voice-based authorisation and audio deepfake detection. In her project, she decided to develop a solution in which user emotions are taken into account during the authorisation process.

– According to research, emotions can impair the quality of user verification. In such situations, our voice changes. We speak at a faster pace, or when we are stressed, we have a different timbre or tone. This is an important issue, as even a bank might want to verify us by voice – explains Magdalena Gołębiowska.

The doctoral student, together with her supervisor, Dr. Piotr Syga, proposed a system designed to mitigate the negative impact of emotions during authentication. And it allowed some improvement. The project was submitted to the Rising Star in Cybersecurity competition and secured a victory for our PhD student. She outperformed competitors from companies such as T-Mobile, Bank Polskiej Spółdzielczości S.A., BNP Paribas, and EY.

– I didn't expect to win. This competition generally attracted people who are engaged in commercial work and have projects in deployment phase. One of the girls modernised a banking security system, and another conducted training for seniors. My project is a purely scientific study. I didn't assume it would generate such interest. And in my opinion, it sparked interest because it was something the jury hadn't seen before. It was an opportunity to present myself to the business world as a female scientist in computer science – says the winner.

Rising Star

The Rising Star in Cybersecurity competition is organised by the Cyber Women Community, a group of women interested in cybersecurity. Statistics show that around 20% of people involved in this field are women.

– We want to honour women and simultaneously offer additional support to those of them who, through their work and commitment, are changing the face of cybersecurity in Poland. The aim of the competition is also to promote projects created by women, innovative ideas, and good practices in the field of cybersecurity – the organisers write.

As stated on the official competition website, it is aimed at specialists, assistants, and managers, but not at director-level positions, who in the past 15 months have successfully conducted a transformation or training, implemented a successful and interesting initiative, or were responsible for or significantly involved in a project that has a real impact on the development of awareness and knowledge in the field of cybersecurity.

The main prize in the 4th edition of the competition was a place on a one-year postgraduate course in cybersecurity management at Kozminski University. The winner of the competition also received a voucher from the Ministry of Digital Affairs worth 12,000 PLN for any training courses to enhance cybersecurity qualifications.