Inspiring the next generation of curious minds

Today, 16 June 2026, we had visitors from the Søholm School in Birkerød. Nineteen 4th graders, aged 10 and 11, visited our lab as part of a school trip to Copenhagen.

At first, the group took a wrong turn and ended up racing to the other end of the offices of our colleagues and next-door neighbours, the QMATH group from UCPH's Department of Mathematical Sciences. Once reined in and steered in the right direction, we gave them a quick tour of BARC. The children then settled into the informal part of the lab: our mezzanine, where our researchers often work in smaller groups, take virtual meetings in one of our three spacious mute boxes, or simply retreat to do some reading.

But not today.

Today, 19 children, each with a cup of hot chocolate, took their seats. Mads Vestergaard Jensen, an Integrated PhD student at BARC, gave an engaging presentation to the group of primary school pupils about algorithms, how they work, and what they are used for. He even enlisted two of the pupils to give their own examples of simple algorithms at the board. To illustrate the use of more advanced methods, Mads explained two different algorithms for solving shortest-path problems.

After about an hour, our young visitors all left with a BARC balloon and, hopefully, a taste of what a future in theoretical computer science could look like. Although, what seemed to impress them most was the unlimited access to free hot chocolate from our machine...

We do hope to see a spike in the TCS community within the next 8–10 years, when it is time for the pupils of 4.C to choose a study program and begin their academic journeys!