User Group: Corporate

  • Cyber Valley unites AI and robotics expertise for the healthcare sector

    Cyber Valley unites AI and robotics expertise for the healthcare sector

    Stuttgart, October 28, 2024 – The Cyber Valley Health Cluster officially launched last Thursday with a public kickoff event in Tübingen. This initiative launched by Cyber Valley aims to unite the forces of science, industry, and start-ups to improve people’s long-term health through artificial intelligence and modern robotics. 

    Collaboration between research and industry for AI-driven health technologies 

    The Cyber Valley Health Cluster aims to integrate research, practice, and technology. It promotes joint projects between AI experts, scientists, and companies to develop innovative solutions for current and future challenges in the healthcare sector. The Health Cluster emphasizes interdisciplinary knowledge exchange, enabling new approaches and solutions that go beyond individual technological advances.  

    Rebecca C. Reisch, Managing Director of Cyber Valley GmbH, highlights the importance of this collaboration: “The Cyber Valley Health Cluster is more than an academic endeavor; it’s a collaborative alliance that encourages exchange between industry, start-ups, and research. The Health Cluster is where AI-based solutions can be developed to address the most pressing challenges in modern medicine and beyond.”

    Strong Cyber Valley Partners and Friends are already on board  

    The Cyber Valley Health Cluster is backed by strong partnerships. Among the already confirmed Cyber Valley Partners are well-known players such as Boehringer Ingelheim, ZEISS, the University of Tübingen, the University of Stuttgart, and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS). These partners are investing significantly in the Cyber Valley Community and are playing a central role in the further development of the Health Cluster. 

    In addition, the Cyber Valley Health Cluster is supported by numerous committed Cyber Valley Friends who enrich the network with their expertise and connections. These include Immatics, Cegat, Ovesco, BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg, BioRegio STERN Management, as well as the Medical Innovations Incubator, and the start-ups Osora and Cerebri.  Further candidates are already under consideration.  

    Reisch emphasizes the role of the Cyber Valley Community: “Together with our Partners and Friends, we are creating an environment that drives the development of technologies that are not only groundbreaking but also practical and ethical. Because only by working together do we have the chance to establish Baden-Württemberg and the whole of Germany at the forefront of global AI health innovations.” 

    Long-term goal: a lasting healthcare alliance 

    The Cyber Valley Health Cluster supports start-ups and innovation projects to create real value by generating new jobs and health solutions. Health Cluster participants moreover benefit from extensive connections and new networking opportunities that enable the development of pioneering healthcare solutions and rapid knowledge transfer between research and industry. 

    The long-term goal of the Cyber Valley Health Cluster is to create a lasting and active community, pooling health expertise to enable interdisciplinary teams to tackle global health challenges. Further events and interaction formats are planned for the Cyber Valley Health Cluster in the coming months. 

    About Cyber Valley 

    Cyber Valley is Europe’s largest and leading center for excellence in artificial intelligence and modern robotics. Its mission and public mandate are to advocate for the research, development, application, and acceptance of technologies and methods in the field of intelligent systems. Cyber Valley encourages entrepreneurship by uniting scientific excellence with innovation and technology transfer. In addition, Cyber Valley facilitates critical reflection on the ethical and social implications of AI through public engagement. Cyber Valley envisions a future in which the full potential of intelligent systems is leveraged for the greater good of the world. 

    Media Contact: 

    Laura Neusser 
    Public Outreach Manager 
    Cyber Valley GmbH 
    laura.neusser@cyber-valley.de 

  • Cyber Valley Research Fund improves human decision-making with AI

    Cyber Valley Research Fund improves human decision-making with AI

    From February 2020 to February 2024, Dr. Falk Lieder led a major project supported by the Research Fund, titled “A Scalable Machine Learning Approach to Improve Human Decision Making,”. The project aimed to prepare for a future where effective decision-making is crucial. 

    Good decision-making involves planning, gathering relevant information, and handling uncertainty. As automation transforms the workforce by taking over routine tasks, the demand for jobs requiring decision-making in complex and novel situations will rise. Future roles will emphasize critical thinking and adaptability. To prepare, society must focus on retraining workers and equipping the next generation with advanced decision-making skills. 

    Lieder’s project leveraged artificial intelligence to uncover optimal decision strategies that help individuals navigate complex challenges. The team also designed and tested interactive tutorials, allowing participants to learn and apply these strategies effectively. 

    They evaluated their approach on a series of more realistic decision problems, ranging from an abstract planning task without uncertainty, to planning under uncertainty, to a company choosing between alternative projects. In each case, the new AI methods found decision strategies that outperformed both human decision-making and strategies identified by previous techniques. 

    Their interactive tutorials improved decision-making by explaining the strategy in clear language, demonstrating it through examples, and offering hands-on practice with feedback. In all three applications, individuals who completed the AI-driven strategy tutorials made better decisions than those who practiced decision-making independently. 

    This project yielded the following peer-reviewed publications: 

    1.  Consul, S., Heindrich, L., Stojchewski, J., & Lieder, F. (2022), Improving Human Decision-Making by Discovering Efficient Strategies for Hierarchical Planning, Computational Brain & Behavior, 5(2), 185-216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42113-022-00128-3 

    2. Callaway, F., Jain, Y. R., van Opheusden, B., Das, P., Iwama, G., Gul, S., Krueger, P.M., Becker, F., Griffiths, T. L., & Lieder, F. (2022). Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Improve People's Planning Strategies. PNAS, 119 (12) e2117432119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2117432119 

    3.  Mehta, A., Jain, Y. R., Kemtur, A., Stojcheski, J., Consul, S., Tosic, M., & Lieder, F. (2022). Leveraging machine learning to automatically derive robust decision strategies from imperfect knowledge of the real world. Computational Brain & Behavior, 5(3), 343-377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42113-022-00141-6 

    4.  Becker, F., Skirzynski, J., van Opheusden, B., & Lieder, F. (2022). Boosting human farsightedness with automatically discovered planning instructions. Computational Brain & Behavior, 5(4), 467–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42113-022-00149-y 

    5. Skirzynski, J., Jain, Y. R., & Lieder, F. (2024). Automatic discovery and description of human planning strategies. Behavior Research Methods, 56(3), 1065-1103. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02062-z 

    6. Skirzyński, J., Becker, F., Lieder, F. (2021). Automatic Discovery of Interpretable Planning Strategies. Machine Learning, 110, pp. 2641–2683. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10994-021-05963-2

    7. Kemtur, A., Jain, Y. R., Mehta, A., Callaway, F., Consul, S., Stojcheski, J., & Lieder, F. (2020). Leveraging machine learning to automatically derive robust planning strategies from biased models of the environment. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. 

    Preprints of articles yet to be published: 

    1. Heindrich, L., Consul, C. & Lieder, F. (2024). Leveraging AI to improve human planning in large partially observable environments. arXiv Preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.02785 

    2.  Heindrich, L., & Lieder, F. (2024). Leveraging automatic strategy discovery to teach people how to select better projects. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.04082 

    Dr. Falk Lieder is now an Assistant Professor of Psychology at UCLA and the Director of the Rational Altruism Lab. 

  • Cyber Valley Days: Innovation through collaboration

    Cyber Valley Days: Innovation through collaboration

    In the following interview, Alina Benze, Business Development Manager at Cyber Valley GmbH, shares her experiences of the three-day event.

    What was your key takeaway from Cyber Valley Days?

    One of the standout moments for me was Thomas Reith’s (Site Lead Biberach, Boehringer Ingelheim) speech at the Finale of Cyber Valley Days. He highlighted that Boehringer Ingelheim is already generating 50% of its innovation through external collaboration. This proved the success of a key message I’m always sharing with new or existing members of the Cyber Valley Community. The topic of AI and robotics is so dynamic and development cycles are so short that it is important to partner up with other players to stay ahead in the game.

    Was there a particular moment during Cyber Valley Days that you found especially inspiring?

    Hearing Yann LeCun’s (VP and Chief AI Scientist, Meta) talk was overall a very impressive moment and for sure something extraordinary. Apart from the interesting perspective he shared on the current status of intelligent systems and its limitations, I found the following call-to-action very inspiring: He asked us not to be scared but to appreciate both the people and machines working for us that are also in fact smarter than us. I think this is a very unique attitude from a lead scientist at a global technology company. This should inspire the many others who are leading big and small teams in all forms of organizations – from research institutes, start-ups, SMEs to global corporates.

    Read further interviews with Rebecca Beiter (Director of Communication & Society), Janell Lia-Breitmeyer (Scientific Coordinator), and Paul-David Bittner (Business Development Manager, Start-ups) to discover their perspectives on Cyber Valley Days. 

  • Cyber Valley Days: Building a better future

    Cyber Valley Days: Building a better future

    In the following interview, Noora Zech, Chief of Staff for Cyber Valley GmbH, shares her perspective on this three-day event.

    What was your biggest surprise during Cyber Valley Days? 

    It was not the number of visitors but the quality, as well as the international, diverse, and clearly thriving community, which I found impressive and inspiring.

    What did you learn about the Cyber Valley Community?

    I was amazed at how big our community is. It is one thing to talk about what we are and what we do on an abstract level but seeing it in real life made me realize how much we have achieved and how we’ve grown. Our community spans the excellent research from the Max-Planck Institutes, and the Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen; post-docs and students establishing start-ups; partners from industry enabling transfer; worldwide collaborations with institutions and companies such as Silo AI, Seoul AI Hub, AIIS, and the University of Tokyo who are expanding and maximizing our potential. All these ultimately benefit society. 

    I love it when people come together to create something for the better! 

    What was your personal highlight from Cyber Valley Days and what were your key takeaways?

    I had the chance to listen to Sepp Hochreiter’s interview, which was both exciting and funny. To see the person who invented LSTM (long short-term memory) felt a bit surreal. 

    Even though there were many high-ranking scientists present, it was reassuring how smart yet normal they were, and I felt I could relate to them.

    On the other hand, they also pointed out what we still lack and what we need to work on in the future to achieve our vision of using AI for the greater good of the world. As an example, we need more pragmatic and realistic regulations to enable innovative research and spin-offs. We should encourage scientists to stay in research and support them with the resources they need.  We must rethink and recreate the current system if we want innovation and solutions.

    Read further interviews with Angelina Jukic (Program Manager), Alina Benze (Business Development Manager, Corporates), Rebecca Beiter (Director of Communication & Society), Janell Lia-Breitmeyer (Scientific Coordinator), and Paul-David Bittner (Business Development Manager, Start-ups) to discover their perspectives on Cyber Valley Days. 

     
  • Cyber Valley Days: Bringing together AI visionaries

    Cyber Valley Days: Bringing together AI visionaries

    In the following interview, Paul-David Bittner, Business Development Manager at Cyber Valley GmbH, shares his perspective on the three-day event. 

    What was your personal highlight from Cyber Valley Days? 

    The Demo Day for The AI Incubator was my personal highlight. It was amazing to see eight teams pitch their start-up ideas to such a large audience and a top-notch panel of judges. I was really proud to see their progress and how everyone outdid themselves on the day.

    Which session did you find most inspiring?

    The Investor & Deep Tech Day really brought the crème de la crème of the investment world to Cyber Valley. It was inspiring to hear their panel discussions and opinions on the AI start-up scene in Germany and Europe. Their presence and interest clearly demonstrated the high potential of these promising young deep-tech start-ups coming out of our community.

     
    How did Cyber Valley Days help reinforce a sense of community?

    It was great to see brilliant people from all kinds of backgrounds – start-ups, researchers, corporations, and politicians – mixing and mingling, and sharing ideas and visions. I am sure many of them made new connections that will lead to fruitful collaborations and more in the future.

    Cyber Valley's Start-up Network builds and fosters a community of entrepreneurs. Learn more about the network and apply to join here.

    The next round of The AI Incubator will start on November 7. Learn more about The AI Incubator here. 

    Read our interviews with Rebecca Beiter (Director of Communication & Society) and Janell Lia-Breitmeyer (Scientific Coordinator) to discover their perspectives on Cyber Valley Days. 

  • Cyber Valley Days: Inspiring the AI of the future

    Cyber Valley Days: Inspiring the AI of the future

    How did Cyber Valley Days help reinforce a sense of community within Cyber Valley?

    During the Corona pandemic, it was not possible to meet in person. Even though we made quite a few online formats for the community to meet each other, real dialogue, networking, and exchange are just easier in person. With our Meet-ups and other regular events, we built a sense of community. Cyber Valley Days made it possible for our community to meet and network to an unprecedented extent. It was really great to see how much we have grown over the years and how diverse, varied, and international our community has become.

    What was the most memorable interaction you had during Cyber Valley Days?

    For me, the conversations with Yann LeCun were particularly memorable, along with many great memories. His view of AI is very hopeful and his assessments of the future of AI are based on a broad range of specialist knowledge. Despite his expert knowledge, he manages to explain AI and current developments in a way that is easily accessible and understandable for everyone – this was particularly impressive for me as a communicator. 

    Which session did you find most impactful or inspiring and why?

    Cyber Valley Days had an incredibly dense and top-class program of speakers. Nevertheless, the finale of The AI Incubator remains the highlight for me, because this is where I see young people with new ideas on how technology can make the world a better place. They are all driven by an inner motivation to use AI sensibly, sustainably, and for the benefit of all. Their ideas inspire me each time!

    Read further interviews with the Cyber Valley Team here!