Germany’s young AI talents honored at the Federal Artificial Intelligence Competition

On November 10, the final of the 5th Federal Competition for Artificial Intelligence (BWKI) took place in Tübingen, which is aimed at young students who are interested in developing their ideas for a better world using artificial intelligence.

The AI projects submitted this year were particularly dedicated to social and ecological topics, not least because the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM) introduced the “Environment and Sustainability” category to the competition.

GRAND PRIZE: OPENING DOORS WITH THE POWER OF THOUGHT

The jury, which also included Dr. Ute Wilhelmsen from the DAM, awarded Jonathan Reinhard and the “Brainhome” team from Göttingen the main prize of 1,500 euros. The 19-year-old has developed an AI that can be used to open doors or regulate heating systems, for example. Instead of controlling these by app or voice command, all it takes is a thought about the heating, which an EEG cap recognizes and converts into the corresponding command. In future, the aim is to use this to make everyday life easier for severely disabled or paralyzed people.

SPECIAL CATEGORY “ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY”

This year’s award of 500 euros in the special category “Environment and Sustainability” goes to two winning teams:

Leonie Weiss, Philip Synowiec, Paula Juhasz-Böss and Amelie Hettl from Regensburg want to use their intelligent algorithm “Demand Detective” to predict food sales in supermarkets and make appropriate shopping recommendations so that less food is thrown away.

Marcel Decker, Max Schmidt and Jacob Bürkle from Langen received the award for their project “Kenergy”, an AI that can quickly and cheaply calculate the output of solar energy for your own roof.

The other categories and prizes as well as information about the competition’s exciting projects can be found on the BWKI website (German link).

The Federal Artificial Intelligence Competition will be held again next year. The main sponsor of the competition is the Carl Zeiss Foundation. The competition was also supported by Bosch, Festo, Fanuc, the publishing houses Droemer and Knaur and c’t magazine and was carried out in cooperation with Stuttgart Media University, IT4Kids and the German Marine Research Alliance.

Header photo: BWKI / Ale Zea