[This is Part II of my Meeting with the President, read Part I first]
Some of you might have noticed that I didn’t mention anything about security last time. Well, that’s because there wasn’t any. Not that I know of, anyway. Iceland is extremely peaceful when it comes to harassing politicians, so during a small gathering like this one nobody’s worrying. Amazing, I’m proud of it.
Last time I left off where I was being led into another room, this was the main ceremonial area — with a podium set up (but oddly, no chairs). We didn’t have to wait, it was shortly announced that the President would now do a speech. I was pleasantly surprised by the humorous remarks during the speech, one of which went something like
“We Icelanders have always been inclined to make discoveries — but have the habit of not telling anyone about them. Leifur Eiriksson discovered America … and then just went home again to take care of the farm.”
The speech was also inspiring, or maybe it was just because it was coming from my countries leader, someone I respect — it’s hard to make a distinction (is it the speech that makes a President, or the President that makes the speech?). Meanwhile, the group were standing around (no chairs, remember) and I was anxiously trying to look normal. Insomnia had been having its go at me the night before, so that was kind of throwing me off balance.
One thing that really struck me as odd during all of this were the reporters. Man, are they rude. One of them was playing around with his phone during the speech, occasionally letting out interrupting beeps and bleeps. Another decided to unwrap some candy with snarkly noises, and yet another had fun taking pictures with his phone with the camera-clicking sound turned on (you know, that fake “cli-click” sound).
Well, to slice off some uninteresting tidbits, let’s skip to the next fun thing. The President and the First Lady stepped back, and the director of the Icelandic Student Innovation Fund introduced all of the nominated projects, and I must say that he did a pretty good job with mine, giving me some extra attention. My project was on my theory of creativity, how it works and where it came from. I created a simulation in which A.I. agents showed creativity — so it almost made me burst out with laughter when the director ended his speech with:
“Quite remarkable, and I must say that, in a way, I hope he doesn’t get much further with his research, otherwise he’ll become like god almighty!”
At that moment I’d sort of realized that since he was making such an effort in describing my project, I probably wouldn’t receive the main award. As was actually to be expected as this award takes practicality and applications to industry greatly into consideration; my project is still in its initial stages and largely theoretical. But since then I’ve been humorously referring to myself as Hrafn Almighty. After this final comparison of me and my god-like future, the President stepped forth with my plaque (I can’t find the word for it, honorary plaque?). I’d been hoping to get a picture of me shaking hands with him before this post, but couldn’t and compensate with this one below. I’m the one on the far left. The President on the far right.
I shook his hand and he congratulated me on my achievements, handing me the framed plaque with his signature, while the (rude) reporters snapped their pictures. The main award went to a project on health sciences and genetics, I had a chance later to look briefly through the report on it and must say that from the looks of it, it deserved to win. Of course it was a bit dissapointing (I’m human, after all), but I’m working on AI because I’m interested in it, enjoy it, and think that I can make a contribution to science. That in itself is very rewarding and this was pure bonus 
The President added after the ceremony that due to the extreme quality of all the projects, he’d felt more like he was handing out a Nobel Prize.
