Together with Prof. Heiko Neumann (Institute of Neural Information Processing) and Prof. Hans Kestler (Institute of Medical Systems Biology), Prof. Manfred Reichert organized a joint symposium of Carl Zeiss AG and Ulm University in Ulm on November 18, 2016. The objective was to work out topics of common interest and to intensify the degree of collaboration between Carl Zeiss AG and Ulm University. More than 30 researchers of both organizations attended the event and exchanged opinions in the scope of four workshops dealing with the following topics: sensory information processing and pattern recognition (1), Visualization and interaction (2), Sensors: measurement, microscopy and multimodal data (3) as well as knowledge representation, ontologies, machine learning and medical informatics (4).
Background
Carl Zeiss AG is a leading international company in optics and optoelectronics, which has been setting technological standards for the semiconductor, automotive and mechanical engineering industries, biomedical research, medical technology, spectacle lenses, lenses, binoculars and planetary lenses for 170 years. The research profile of Ulm University, in turn, is characterized by the future-oriented areas of life sciences and medicine, automotive, information and communication technology (including cognitive computing), business analytics and its mathematical methodology, nanotechnology and biomaterials as well as quantum technology.
In the fields of application mentioned at the beginning, Zeiss pursues a consistent digitalization strategy. Optical functions are increasingly augmented or replaced by software, and optical instruments are increasingly equipped with sensors. The latter, in turn, produce large data streams, which must be recorded, analyzed, and transformed into appropriate actions (eg autonomous driving) in real-time. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly important to intelligently link digital and real content, as well as to offer suitable visualization and interaction concepts. In all these areas, scientists from both organizations are working on fundamental research questions and innovative application solutions.