UKWA Year of Warehousing Student Bursary winner

Sina Khodaee, a PhD student from the University of Bath, has been awarded the UKWA Year of Warehousing Student Bursary for his essay on ‘The Future of Warehousing’, winning GBP800 of vouchers to mark the association’s 80th anniversary. He was announced as the winner at last week’s UKWA National Conference by CEO Clare Bottle, and was awarded his prize by Phil Roe, executive sponsor of Generation Logistics and President of Logistics UK. Iranian-born Sina impressed the judges from UKWA and Generation Logistics with his essay investigating the future of AI and human beings in warehouses, asking ‘when will they turn off the lights?’

According to Clare Bottle, the three finalists were selected from a range of high calibre entries, and all submitted excellent essays. However, Sina’s work stood out as exceptional. “The question of how people will work alongside automation, robots and AI in warehousing is a highly topical one,” she said.  “Sina had clearly considered the future of warehousing thoughtfully and offered some fascinating insights.”

Sina’s twin brother, who studies computer science, sparked the idea for Sina’s essay in discussion around AI algorithms and his brother’s view that the technology would eliminate the need for human involvement in ‘dark’ factories and warehouses. As a reward for reaching the final, Sina and fellow students Joachim Cosio Tovias from the University of Warwick and Elvis Onyishi from Manchester Metropolitan University were invited to attend UKWA’s National Conference, held this year at Nottingham’s East Midlands Conference Centre. Sina commented, “I’m delighted to have won the student bursary and attending the conference over two days was extremely valuable.

Many conferences for students tend to be academic, so being able to visit a ‘real world’ event and hear from people and companies operating in the sector was fascinating.

I’ve made some great contacts and met several people interested in my work – thank you UKWA!”

The UKWA Student Bursary is part of an exciting programme of events to celebrate 2024 The Year of Warehousing and mark the 80th anniversary of UKWA. 

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