Over three days last weekend, a variety of lectures and workshops was hosted at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Saarland University and the European Academy Otzenhausen. Speakers included Dr. Georg Bednorz, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Prof. Irmgard Bischofberger from MIT and Prof. Dr. Brice Loose from the University of Rhode Island. Speakers from the Saarland were, among others, PD Dr. Christoph Krick from Saarland University Hospital, Dr. Flavio Soldera from the Department of Materials Science at UdS, as well as CISPA faculty Dr. Rebekka Burkholz. To facilitate the high-profile program, the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, the UdS and the German-American Institute Saarland, among others, cooperated with the MIT Club Germany, who had organized the event.
On Friday evening, CISPA Faculty Dr. Ben Stock addressed the assembled teachers in the auditorium of Saarland University. He expressed his regret about the low percentage of women in computer science, emphasizing the important social role teachers assumed in inspiring students to pursue STEM subjects regardless of gender stereotypes. The highlight of the evening was a talk on superconductivity by Nobel Laureate Dr. Georg Bednorz. In his talk, Bednorz explained how superconductivity enables the loss-free transmission of electrical energy. In 1987, Bednorz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to this technology.
CISPA's student laboratory for cyber security, the Cysec Lab in St. Ingbert, was the venue for one of a total of seven workshops held on Saturday and again on Sunday morning. Supported by her team, Andrea Ruffing, head of the Cysec Lab and responsible for knowledge transfer at CISPA, explained the basics of the Internet technology and introduced the participants to a number of widespread security problems on websites. The workshop offered an interactive learning environment and was designed to enable participants to take protective measures against cyber attacks.
Afterwards, all participants gathered for three lectures in the main building of CISPA in Saarbruecken. CISPA-Faculty Professor Dr. Andreas Zeller welcomed the guests to the premises and briefly introduced the work of the Helmholtz Center for Information Security. In her presentation "What machines can learn from us", CISPA Faculty Dr. Rebekka Burkholz, who leads the research group for network-based machine learning, explained why humans are still better than machines at performing certain tasks. These tasks include, for example, the interpretation of images and creative communication. In her talk, she also addressed questions concerning the opportunites and risks of machine learning.
Andrea Ruffing and her team are pleased to have been part of the event. Ruffing says: "At the Cysec Lab, we spend every day preparing cybersecurity research for schools and society and imparting that knowledge. We are happy to support this event which offers teachers, who are important multipliers, outstanding opportunities for further education. It also fosters exchange and intensive discussion between schools and science."
