On April 2nd, Torsten Leveringhaus, member of the Hessian state parliament and digital policy spokesman for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party, visited TU Darmstadt. He expressed interest in the emergenCITY research.
Hessian state parliament member and digital policy spokesperson for his party, Torsten Leveringhaus (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), visited TU Darmstadt. The focus of his exchange with members of the university’s board was on the various contributions of the TU Darmstadt to successful transformation processes and solving pressing global challenges. In addition to current research projects pursued at the TU Darmstadt, such as those under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the States, particular emphasis was placed on realizing sustainability goals in research, teaching, and “xchange,” as well as the impact and fields of activity of digitalization projects at the university.
During the visit, emergenCITY also presented current projects. Professor Annette Rudolph-Cleff introduced the research focus on the path to resilient digital cities. An overview of the functions of the energy self-sufficient Smart Home eHUB showed how buildings generating their own electricity can form local power islands in the event of a prolonged power outage, significantly contributing to urban resilience. There was also discussion on how upgraded digital advertising columns can be used to provide local information in times of crisis. Furthermore, Professor Rudolph-Cleff presented the ReSource Mannheim project, which focuses on urban design in the face of long periods of drought and heavy rainfall and will be featured at the Woche der Umwelt in Berlin in June. At emergenCITY, the TU Darmstadt’s claim of “xchange for innovation” is exemplarily integrated into research projects, with several applications to be tested in urban space and in direct interaction with residents.
Other institutions presenting projects included the Information and Intelligence (I+I) research field with the ELIZA Graduate School, as well as the Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing (UKP) Lab, led by emergenCITY Professor Iryna Gurevych. At the UKP Lab ongoing research on Large Language Models, such as GPT-4, was discussed, particularly focusing on open questions regarding their security and the explainability and correctness of the answers generated by the models.
Which topics Torsten Leveringhaus discussed besides emergenCITY, you can also find out in the TU Darmstadt article.
