BUG 2016

Festvortrag

Kicking off the Bremer Universitätsgespräche with his keynote, Professor Dr. Yiannis Aloimonos (University of Maryland) already had a serious warning for the audience at the historic Stadtwaage ...

Tischrede von Herrn Prof. Dr. Heiko Staroßom

Ladies and Gentlemen,

welcome here in the Sparkasse Bremen. We in Bremen know something about good dinners and good red wine. So, enjoy this evening here with good talks! – That could have been my dinner speech, but you are not here for pleasure, I assume!

Let me start with a personal introductory remark: I have been living here in Bremen for fifteen years, serving in the management board of the Sparkasse Bremen with responsibility for Corporate Clients and Treasury. Also, since fifteen years I am working in the board of the Wolfgang-Ritter-Foundation with responsibility for the Bremen University Talks. Part of this responsibility is this yearly dinner speech, perhaps my biggest personal challenge every year. ... 

Digital Innovation Platforms

In this session the speakers presented different views on digital innovation platforms in robotic applications. Professor Dr. David Lane (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh) put a focus on underwater robotics, while Professor Dr. Amos Albert, CEO of Bosch's start-up Deepfield Robotics, presented a promising example from the agribusiness. In the third talk of this session Professor Dr. Gordon Cheng (TU Munich) gave insights into his research on artifical skin and exoskeletons.

Cognitive Robotics

The second session of the Bremer Universität addressed the research area of cognitive robotics. The first speaker, Professor Tony Belpaeme (Plymouth University), emphasized the opportunities that intelligent robots offer for teaching, making it possible to take better care of children. Professor Dr. Gregory O'Hare (University College Dublin) argued that personalization is an important factor for the breakthrough of cognitive-enabled robots. In the final talk of the session, Professor Dr. Alin Albu-Schäffer, director of the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center, presented research on human-robot interaction.

Open Research

Open research and open data are the most important keys to the democratization of robotics. Professor Dr. Markus Vincze (TU Vienna) opened this session with a talk on vision as a bottleneck in robotics. David Bisset from iTechnic Ltd. took a closer look at the topic "disruption and democratization".

Professor Dr. Herman Bruyninckx (KU Leuven) presented the final talk of this session in which he suggested to create an open Linux-like knowledge platform – in the spirit of Wikipedia and the Wikidata project – as a counterweight to proprietary platforms.

Podiumsdiskussion: Democratising a Disruptive Technology

At the end of the conference the participants discussed the different roles of the United States and Europe, and talked about potential problems with open source software. Professor Andreas Birk (Jacobs University) expressed hope that the European community will gain size and strength in the competition with large corporations "once the distress gets unpleasant enough". 

The discussions carried on after the event. David Bisset suggested that standardization of content and access is needed to aid the exchange of information between robots and clouds.