When BAScii Y4 student - Atamfon Udofia (Ivy) walked into the International Science and Computer Engineering Conference (ICSEC 2025) in Chiang Mai, she wasn’t just another student attending the event - she was presenting original research alongside academics, engineers, and AI specialists from around the world.
From November 2–5, Ivy represented Chulalongkorn School of Integrated Innovation (CSII) as she delivered a paper co-authored with Dr. Marko Niinimäki, CSII Faculty Member, and Mr. Sunny Shrestha, CSII FabLab Technical Officer. Their work, “Comparison of Vector Database Management Systems for Retrieval Augmented Generation,” was featured in the Generative AI track of the IEEE-organized conference.
“Presenting at ICSEC was truly an opportunity of a lifetime,” Ivy shared. “Standing in front of respected researchers reminded me why I chose this path in the first place.”
Bringing Classroom Skills Into Real Research
The project began as a simple performance comparison between two popular Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems - a technology that helps AI models look up relevant information when they don’t already “know” something. But as the team dug deeper, the research evolved.
Using millions of Wikipedia abstracts and a large question dataset, the team spent months running tests, ranking outputs, and even developing a script that used ChatGPT to evaluate answer relevance. The findings revealed both the potential and limitations of current RAG systems, offering insights valuable to anyone working in AI and information retrieval.
“Sharing our findings sharpened my communication skills and strengthened my confidence,” Ivy said. “It also opened my eyes to just how much knowledge exists within the world of technology.”
A Supportive Ecosystem Behind Every Success
It was the collaboration and support across CSII community that made Ivy’s participation at ICSEC 2025 possible.
“My seamless participation would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my supervisor, Dr. Marko Niinimäki, my co-author Mr. Sunny Shrestha, and my faculty,” she said. She also expressed gratitude to Tradewind Technologies for sponsoring her travel.
Experiences like this reflect CSII’s mission: to create an environment where students can explore technology, business, research, entrepreneurship - or all of the above - and carve out their own path in the innovation landscape.
Whether students are building startups, designing community solutions, or presenting research on the international stage, CSII provides the coaching, tools, and opportunities to help them grow.
“Learning from other researchers humbled me,” Ivy said. “But it also motivated me to keep pushing further.”
