Workshop at #ERW2019 Central event, Poznan: Robots at school - ideas for pan-European citizen science projects

Friday, 15 November, 13:00-14:15, Poznan University of Technology conference & lecturing centre

Participation at the event is free, no prior registration is required. The workshop is in English.

Public participation in science has seen an increase with interested volunteers, amateur scientists, students, and educators promoting new ways to advance our understanding of the world. Among these, robots generate immediate interest and captivate the audience, which make them promising tools for introducing students to STEM skills and careers.

This session is to present:

• Ideas and concrete examples of pan-European robotics projects with an impact on culture, ecology, history, and economy, designed to make STEM education attractive
• How schools, youth clubs, science and nature museums, boy scouts and girl scouts, culture groups, can be part of robotics-related citizen science projects
• Robotics education projects that can contribute to raising awareness, building capacity, and strengthening disadvantaged communities or groups
• Students’ opinions about robots used in the classroom as a tool to expand their knowledge of STEM careers opportunities

 The workshop aims to explore successful robotics education initiatives that could be implemented at pan-European level in order to better prepare our students for future jobs and professions.

SPEAKERS:

Uwe HAASS (Moderator) obtained a Diploma from Karlsruhe University in 1975 and received a PhD from Colorado State University in 1980. In 1981 he joined the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe to develop computer vision for surveying the workspace of robots in several industrial applications. In 1985, Uwe joined the European Commission as Project Officer in the ESPRIT (IT-industry) program, responsible for the management of projects in AI and Pattern Recognition. In 1990 he became General Manager for the industry-supported Bavarian Research Center of Knowledge-based Systems (FORWISS). In 1997, he was elected Director of FWU, Germany’s largest producer of pedagogical media and “educational media on-demand” for schools. In 2007, Uwe became General Manager of the Munich-based Cluster of Excellence “CoTeSys – Cognition for Technical (Robotic) Systems” with 5 research organisations in the Munich region. From March 2013 to January 2016, he served as Secretary-General of the then newly established, euRobotics AISBL. Since his retirement on 1 February 2016, he is working as a freelancing consultant in aspects of innovation management and regional development with, and for, robotics.

Andrei Bunis (DG GROW, European Commission) has a wide experience of working with and for European businesses, including SMEs. He is currently supporting them on their path to taking on new, advanced technologies such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence, big data, blockchain, etc., with the aim of strengthening European industry. One of the points he is working on are skills for industry, a key issue for businesses. He has also a strong knowledge of e-commerce online platforms. Among his focus points are the potential business cases of big data sharing in both the private and public sector.

Beatrice Masala (Scuola di Robotica, Italy) is an educator. After her graduation in Multimedia Art she devoted her interest into the field of equality, diversity and social inclusion. She then specialized in the educational field with an interest in developing tools to reduce gender education gap. She currently works inside and outside the school world, introducing children and schoolteachers to the use of creative and innovative technologies.

Andrei Dumitriu (University of Bucharest, Romania) is Associate Professor @ University of Bucharest, Founder of Unibuc Robotics and 3 Robotics Laboratories: "Introduction to Robotics & IoT", "Digital Innovaton Hub: Robotics and AI" and "3D Printing". Teachers 2 courses on “Introduction to Robotics” and “IoT” while also managing the department, two more “3D printing for modeling” and “ROS” courses and a team of 7 awesome TAs. Guiding 10+ students with great BS / MS robotics and AI projects. Public-private ambassador, improving the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science to meet the market's needs and the fast-changing tendencies in technology and encouraging new startup ideas through the “Researchathon” incubator. Tackling astrophysics as a hobby and reviving the Planetarium @ University of Bucharest while encouraging interdisciplinary projects.

Biljana Biba Vicković (Serbia) earned her master’s degree in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1998. She gained experience in interactive media through cooperation with the New York-based Vilamedia group, and the Animax multimedia theatre from Bonn. In 2002, she received the prestigious international Prix Ars Electronica award (Museum of the Future, Linz, Austria) for her FX Factory interactive installation. After numerous international prizes and experience gained in the USA, the projects created from 2007 until 2011 combined innovative artistic tendencies through socially responsible activities and scientific and technological research. She is currently working in the position of International project development in Center for development and projects to the Institute for Contemporary Education.

Irina Tomić (Serbia) received a PhD in art history from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 2019 and a master’s degree in ethnology and anthropology from the same faculty in 2014. Since 2015 she has worked as a custodian, working in the area of museum activity and heritage protection. She won the Pavle Beljanski memorial collection award for 2010. She published monographic studies, wrote multiple texts for catalogues, organized and hosted several exhibitions and hosted radio shows for RTB2. She is the author and co-author of numerous scientific papers published in foreign journals. She has taught at the Faculty of Contemporary Arts (FCA) in Belgrade and at the Information Technology School (ITS) since 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Krzysztof Kurowski (Poland) is the Technical Director of Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, Poland. He holds the PhD degree with habilitation in Computer Science and graduated from Poznan University of Technology. He has been actively involved in many R&D projects related to Information and Communication technologies at the national, European and international levels. He was a research visitor at University of Queensland, Argonne National Lab and University of Southern California. His research activities have been focused on the advanced parallel simulations, scheduling and resource management in networked and distributed computing environments. The results of his research have been successfully published in highly ranked scientific and journal papers. He is also a member of many Editorial and Scientific Boards and participated in many international conferences. Recently, he has been also active in the following research domains: scheduling and power-efficient application modelling, multi-scale simulations, advanced visualization with Human-Machine interactions, and massive e-learning technologies.